Nomentum, Bola, with Pometia, found; Ipfe loci cuftos, cujus facrata vorago, Statius Sylv. Lib. 1. The Guardian of that Lake, which boafts to claim The two horns that you fee on the next Medal are emblems of Plenty. -apparetque beata pleno FIG. 8. Hor. Carm. Sæç. Your Medallifts tell us that two horns on a Coin fignify an extraordinary Plenty. But I fee no foundation for this conjecture. Why fhould they not as well have stamped two Thunder-bolts, two Caduceus's or two Ships, to represent an extraordinary force, a lafting peace, or an unbounded happiness. I rather think that the double Cornucopia relates to the double tradition of its original: Some representing it as the horn of Achelous broken off by Hercules, and others as the horn of the Goat that to Jupiter. D 4 gave fuck -rigidum -rigidum fera dextera cornu: Dum tenet, infregit ;. truncâque à fronte revellit. De Acheloi Cornu. Ov. Met. Lib. 9, Nor yet his fury cool'd; 'twixt rage and scorn, From my maim'd front he bore the stubborn horn: This, heap'd with flowers and fruits, the Naiads bear, Sacred to Plenty and the bounteous year. He fpoke; when lo a beauteous Nymph appears, Girt like Diana's train, with flowing hairs; The horn fhe brings, in which all Autumn's ftor'd: And ruddy apples for the second board. Mr. Gay. Lac dabat illa Deo : fed fregit in arbore cornu : Sufulit boc Nymphe ; cinctumque recentibus herbis, The God fhe fuckled of old Rhea born; Her heedless head, and half its honours loft. Fair Amalthea took it off the ground, Betwixt the double Cornu-copia you see Mercury's rod. Cyllenes cxlique decus, facunde minifter, Mart. Lib. 7. Epig. 74. Defcend, Cyllene's tutelary God, With ferpents twining round thy golden rod. Li ftands on old Coins as an emblem. of peace by reafon of its ftupifying quality that has gained it: the title of Virga fomnifera. It has wings, for another quality that Virgil, mentions in his defcription of it.. -hac fretus ventos et nubilia tranat. Virg. Thus, armid, the God begins his airy, race, The two heads over the two Garnu-copiæ are of the Emperor's children, who are fometimes called among the Poets the pledges of Peace, as they took away the occafions of war in cutting off all difputes to the fucceffion.. -tu mihi primum Tot ratorum memoranda parens- Pignora pacis. Sen. Octav. Act. 5. Thee, firft kind author of my joys, A pledge of peace in every throe. This Medal therefore compliments the Emperor on his two children, whom it reprefents as public bleffings that promise Peace and Plenty to the Empire. The two hands that join. one FIG. 7. another are Emblems of Fidelity. Inde Fides dextræque data— Ov. Met. Lib. 14. See now the promis'd faith, the vaunted name, By this Infcription we may fee that they reprefent in this place the Fidelity or Loyalty of the public towards their Emperor. The Cadu ccus rifing between the hands fignifies the Peacethat arifes from fuch an union with their Prince, as as the fpike of Corn on each fide shadows out the Plenty that is the fruit of fuch a peace. Pax Cererem nutrit, pacis alumna Ceres. Ov. de Faft. Lib. 1. FIG. 8. The giving of a hand, in the reverfe of Claudius, is a token of good-will. For when, after the death of his nephew Caligula, Claudius was in no fmall apprehenfion for his own life, he was, contrary to his expectation, well received among the Pratorian guards, and afterwards declared their Emperor. His reception is here recorded on a Medal, in which one of the Enfigns prefents him his hand, in the fame fenfe as Anchifes gives it in the following verses. Ipfe pater dextram Anchifes haud multa morat is Dat juveni, atque anim im prxfenti munere firmat. Virg. Æn. Lib. 3. The old weather-beaten foldier that carries in his hand the Roman Eagle, is the fame kind of officer that you meet with in Juvenal's fourteenth Satire.. Dirue Maurorum aitegias, caftella Brigantum, I remember in one of the Poets the Signifer is defcribed with a Lion's fkin over his head and fhoulders, like this we fee in the Medal, but at present I cannot recollect the paffage. Virgil has |