haps to the form of words that might be ufed at the setting fire to them.- Aufonio de nomine. Thofe who will not allow of the interpretation I have put on these two laft Medals, may think it an objection that there is no torch or fire near them to fignify any fuch allufion. But they may confider that on feveral Imperial Coins we meet with the figure of a funeral pile, without any thing to denote the burning of it, though indeed there is on some of them a Flambeau fticking out on each afide, to let us know it was to be consumed to ashes.

You have been fo intent on the burning of the Arms, fays Cynthio, that you have forgotten the Pillar on your 18th Medal. You may find the hiftory of it, fays Philander, in Ovid de Faftis. It was from this Pillar that the fpear was toffed 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.

Profpicit à templo fummum brevis area Circum:
Eft ibi non parva parva columna notæ :
Hinc folet bafta manu, belli prænuncia, mitti;
In
regem et gentes cum placet arma capi.
Qv. de Faft. Lib. 6.

Where the high Fane the ampleCirque commands
A little, but a noted pillar ftands,

From hence, when Rome the diftant Kings defies, In form the war-denouncing Javelin flies.

The different interpretations that FIG. 21. have been made on the next Medal feem to be forced and unnatural. I will therefore give you my own opinion of it. The veffel is here reprefented as ftranded. The figure be

fore

fore it feems to come in to its affiftance, and to lift it off the fhallows: for we fee the water scarce reaches up to the knees, 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 fee in the Medal. The two fmall figures that ftand naked among the waves are Sea-Deities of an inferior rank, who are supposed to affift their Sovereign in the fuccour he gives the diftreffed veffel.

Cymothoë, fimul et Triton adnixus acuto
Detrudunt naves fcopulo; levat ipfe tridenti,
Et vaftas aperit fyrtes, et temperat æquor.
Virg. Æn. Lib. 1.

Cymothoë, Triton, and the fea-green train
Of beauteous Nymphs, the daughters of the main,
Clear from the rocks the veffels with their hands
The God himself with ready trident stands,
And opes the deep, and spreads the moving
fands..
Mr. Dryden.

Jam placidis ratis extat aquis, quam gurgite ab imo
Et Thetis, et magnis Nereus facer erigit ulnis.
Val. Flac. Lib. I.

The interpreters of this Medal have mistaken thefe two figures for the reprefentation of twoperfons that are drowning. But as they are both naked and drawn in a pofture rather of triumphing o'er the waves than of finking under them, fo we fee abundance of Water Deities on other Medals reprefented after the fame manner.

E 5

Ite

Ite Dea virides, liquidofque advertite vultus,
Et vitreum teneris crinem redimite corymbis,
Vefte nibil teta: quales emergitis altis
Fontibus, et vifu Satyros torquetis amantes.

Statius de Balneo Etrufci. Lib. 1.

Hafte, hafte, ye Naiads! with attractive art New charms to ev'ry native grace impart : With op'ning flourets bind your fea-green hair, Unveil'd; and naked let your limbs appear: So from the fprings the Satyrs fee you rise, And drink eternal paffion at their eyes.

After having thus far cleared our way to the Medal, I take the thought of the reverse to be this. The ftranded veffel is the Commonwealth of Rome, that by the tyranny of Domitian, and the infolence of the Pretorian Guards under Nerva, was quite run aground and in danger of perifhing. Some of thofe embarked in it endeavour at her recovery, but it is Trajan that by the adoption of Nerva ftems the tide to her relief, and like another Neptune fhoves her off the quick-fands. Your Device, fays Eugenius, hangs very well together; but is it not liable to the fame exceptions that you made us last night to fuch explications as have nothing but the writers imagination to fupport them? To fhew you, fays Philander, that the conftruction I put on this Medal is conformable to the fancies of the old Romans, you may obferve, that Horace represents at length the Commonwealth of Rome under the figure of a fhip, in the Allegory that you meet with in the fourteenth Ode of his first book.

O Navis, referent in mare te novi
Fluctus.

And fhall the raging waves again
Bear thee back into the main?

Mr. Creech.

Nor was any thing more ufual than to reprefent a God in the fhape and drefs of an Empe

ror.

Apellea cuperent te fcribere cera,

Optaffetque novo fimilem te ponere templa
Atticus Elei fenior Jovis; et tua mitis
Ora Taras: tua fidereas imitantia flammas
Lumina, contempto mallet Rhodos afpera Phabo.
Statius de Equo Domitiani. Sylv. I.

Now had Apelles liv'd, he'd fue to grace
His glowing Tablets with thy godlike face:
Phidias, a Sculptor for the Pow'rs above!
Had with'd to place thee with his Iv'ry Jove.
Rhodes and Tarentum, with that Pride furvey,
The Thund'rer This, and That the God of day:
Each fam'd Coloffus would exchange for Thee,
And own thy form the lovelieft of the three.

For the thought in general, you have just the fame metaphorical compliment to Theodofius in Claudian, as the Medal here makes to Trajan.

Nulla relicta foret Romani nominis umbra,
Ni pater ille tuus jamjam ruitura fubiffet
Rondera, turbatamque ratem, certâque levafit
Naufragium commune manu.

Claudian. de 4to Conf. Honorii.

Had

Had not thy Sire deferr'd th' impending fate,
And with his folid virtue prop'd the state;
Sunk in Oblivion's fhade, the name of Rome,
An empty name! had fcarce furviv'd her doom:
Half-wreck'd fhe was, 'till his aufpicious hand
Refum'd the rudder, and regain'd the land.

I fhall only add, that this Medal was ftamped in honour of Trajan, when he was only Cæfar, as appears by the face of it. ... SACRI TRAIANO.

FIG. 22.

The next is a reverfe of Marcus Aurelius. We have on it a Minerva mounted on a monster, that Aufonius defcribes in the following verses..

Illa etiam Thalamos per trina ænigmata quærens
Qui bipes, et quadrupes foret, et tripes omnia folus;
Terruit Aoniam Volucris, Leo, Virgo; triformis
Sphinx, volucris pennis, pedibus fera, fronte puella.

To form the monster Sphinx, a triple kind,
Man, bird, and beaft, by nature were combin❜d:
With feather'd fans fhe wing'd th' aerial space,
And on her feet the Lion-claws difgrace
The bloomy features of a Virgin-face.
O'er pale Aonia panic horror ran,

}

While in mysterious fpeech fhe thus began: "What animal, when yet the Morn is new, "Walks on Four legs infirm; at Noon on Two: "But day declining to the western skies, "He needs a Third; a Third the Night fupplies?

The monster, fays Cynthis, is a Sphinx, but for her meaning on this Medal, I am not OEdipus enough to unriddle it. I muft confefs, fays Phi

lander,