custom to place a slave with his arms bound at the foot of the trophy, as in the figure before us, Stentque' super vinctos trunca trophæa viros. Ov. Ep. ex Ponto lib. 4. You see on his head the cap which the Parthians, and indeed most of the eastern nations, wear on medals. They had not probably the ceremony of veiling the bonnet in their salutations, for in medals they still have it on their heads, whether they are before emperors or generals, kneeling, sitting, or standing. Martial has distinguished them by this cap as their chief characteristic. I cannot hear, says Cynthio, without a kind of indignation, the satirical reflection that Martial has made on the memory of Domitian. It is certain so ill an emperor deserved all the reproaches that could be heaped upon him, but he could not deserve them of Martial. I must confess I am less scandalised at the flatteries the epigrammatist paid him living, than the ingratitude he showed him dead. A man may be betrayed into the one by an overstrained complaisance, or by a temper extremely sensible of favours and obligations: whereas the other can arise from nothing but a natural baseness and villany of soul. It does not always happen, says Philander, that the poet and the 1 honest man meet together in the same person. I think we need enlarge no farther on this medal, unless you have a mind to compare the trophy on it with that of Mezentius in Virgil. Ingentem quercum decisis undique ramis VIRG. Æn. lib. 11. He bar'd an ancient oak of all her boughs: And to the neck was ty'd his unavailing sword. Mr. DRYDEN. On the next medal* you see the peace that Vespasian procured the empire, after having happily finished all its wars both at home and abroad. The woman with the olive branch in her hand is the figure of Peace. -Pignore Pacis Prætendens dextrâ ramum canentis oliva. SIL. IT. lib. 3. With the other hand she thrusts a lighted torch under a heap of armor that lies by an altar. This alludes to a custom among the ancient Romans, of gathering up the armor that lay scattered on the field of battle, and burning it as an offering to one of their deities. It is to this custom that Virgil refers, and Silius Italicus has described at large. * Fig. 18. Qualis eram cùm primam aciem Præneste sub ipsâ Ast tibi, Bellipotens, Sacrum, constructus acervo Mr. DRYDEN. SIL. IT. lib. 10. Hannibal Ausonio cremat hæc de nomine victor, The blaze of glory gilds the distant plains. As for the heap of arms, and mountain of arms, that the poet mentions, you may see them on two coins of Marcus Aurelius*. De Sarmatis and De Germanis allude perhaps to the form of words that might be used at the setting fire to them.Ausonio de nomine. Those who will not allow of the interpretation I have put on these two last medals, may think it an objection that there is no torch or fire near them to signify any such allusion. But they may consider that on several imperial coins we meet with the figure of a funeral pile, without any thing to denote the * Fig. 19, 20. burning of it, though indeed there is on some of them a flambeau sticking out on each side, to let us know it was to be consumed to ashes. You have been so intent on the burning of the arms, says Cynthio, that you have forgotten the pillar on your 18th medal. You may find the history of it, says Philander, in Ovid de Fastis. It was from this pillar that the spear was tossed at the opening of a war, for which reason the little figure on the top of it holds a spear in its hand, and Peace turns her back upon it. Prospicit à templo summum brevis area circum: Est ibi non parvæ parva columna nota: Hinc solet hasta manu, belli prænuncia, mitti; In regem et gentes cum placet arma cupi. Ov. de Fast. lib. 6. Where the high fane the ample cirque commands, From hence, when Rome the distant kings defies, The different interpretations that have been made on the next medal* seem to be forced and unnatural. I will therefore give you my own opinion of it. The vessel is here represented as stranded. The figure before it seems to come in to its assistance, and to lift it off the shallows: for we see the water scarce reaches up to the knees; and though it is the figure of a man standing on firm ground, his attendants, and the good office he is employed upon, resemble those the poets often attribute to Neptune. Homer tells us, that the whales leaped up at their god's approach, as we see in the medal. The two small figures that stand naked among the waves, are sea deities of an inferior rank, who are supposed to assist their sovereign in the succour he gives the distressed vessel. Cymotkoë, simul et Triton adnixus acuto Detrudunt naves scopulo; levat ipse tridenti, Et vastas aperit syrtes, et temperat æquor. VIRG. Æn. lib. 1. * Fig. 21. Cymothoë, Triton, and the sea-green train · Jam placidis ratis extat aquis, quam gurgite ab imó Mr. DRYDEN. Et Thetis, et magnis Nereus socer erigit ulnis. VAL. FLAC. lib. 1. The interpreters of this medal have mistaken these two figures for the representation of two persons that are drowning. But as they are both naked, and drawn in a posture rather of triumphing over the waves than of sinking under them, so we see abundance of water deities on other medals represented after the same manner. Ita Dea virides, liquidosque advertite vultus, STATIUS de Balneo Etrusci. lib. 1. Haste, haste, ye Naiads! with attractive art After having thus far cleared our way to the medal, I take the thought of the reverse to be this. The stranded vessel is the commonwealth of Rome, that, by the tyranny of Domitian, and the insolence of the Prætorian guards, under Nerva, was quite run aground and in danger of perishing. Some of those embarked in it endeavour at her recovery, but it is Trajan that, by the adoption of Nerva, stems the tide to her relief, and like another Neptune shoves her off the quicksands. Your device, says Eugenius, hangs very well together; but is not it liable to the same exceptions that you made us last night to such explications as have nothing but the writers imagination to support them? To show you, says Philander, that the construction I put on this medal is conformable to the fancies of the old Ro |