Chapter 5.XXXVIII.—Of the Temple’s admirable pavement.
When I had read those inscriptions, I admired the beauty of the temple, and particularly the disposition of its pavement, with which no work that is now, or has been under the cope of heaven, can justly be compared; not that of the Temple of Fortune at Praeneste in Sylla’s time, or the pavement of the Greeks, called asarotum, laid by Sosistratus at Pergamus. For this here was wholly in compartments of precious stones, all in their natural colours: one of red jasper, most charmingly spotted; another of ophites; a third of porphyry; a fourth of lycophthalmy, a stone of four different colours, powdered with sparks of gold as small as atoms; a fifth of agate, streaked here and there with small milk-coloured waves; a sixth of costly chalcedony or onyx-stone; and another of green jasper, with certain red and yellowish veins. And all these were disposed in a diagonal line.
At the portico some small stones were inlaid and evenly joined on the floor, all in their native colours, to embellish the design of the figures; and they were ordered in such a manner that you would have thought some vine-leaves and branches had been carelessly strewed on the pavement; for in some places they were thick, and thin in others. That inlaying was very wonderful everywhere. Here were seen, as it were in the shade, some snails crawling on the grapes; there, little lizards running on the branches. On this side were grapes that seemed yet greenish; on another, some clusters that seemed full ripe, so like the true that they could as easily have deceived starlings and other birds as those which Zeuxis drew.
Nay, we ourselves were deceived; for where the artist seemed to have strewed the vine-branches thickest, we could not forbear walking with great strides lest we should entangle our feet, just as people go over an unequal stony place.
I then cast my eyes on the roof and walls of the temple, that were all pargetted with porphyry and mosaic work, which from the left side at the coming in most admirably represented the battle in which the good Bacchus overthrew the Indians; as followeth.
Chapter 5.XXXIX.—How we saw Bacchus’s army drawn up in battalia in mosaic work.
At the beginning, divers towns, hamlets, castles, fortresses, and forests were seen in flames; and several mad and loose women, who furiously ripped up and tore live calves, sheep, and lambs limb from limb, and devoured their flesh. There we learned how Bacchus, at his coming into India, destroyed all things with fire and sword.
Notwithstanding this, he was so despised by the Indians that they did not think it worth their while to stop his progress, having been certainly informed by their spies that his camp was destitute of warriors, and that he had only with him a crew of drunken females, a low-built, old, effeminate, sottish fellow, continually addled, and as drunk as a wheelbarrow, with a pack of young clownish doddipolls, stark naked, always skipping and frisking up and down, with tails and horns like those of young kids.
For this reason the Indians had resolved to let them go through their country without the least opposition, esteeming a victory over such enemies more dishonourable than glorious.
In the meantime Bacchus marched on, burning everything; for, as you know, fire and thunder are his paternal arms, Jupiter having saluted his mother Semele with his thunder, so that his maternal house was ruined by fire. Bacchus also caused a great deal of blood to be spilt; which, when he is roused and angered, principally in war, is as natural to him as to make some in time of peace.
Thus the plains of the island of Samos are called Panema, which signifies bloody, because Bacchus there overtook the Amazons, who fled from the country of Ephesus, and there let ‘em blood, so that they all died of phlebotomy. This may give you a better insight into the meaning of an ancient proverb than Aristotle has done in his problems, viz., Why ‘twas formerly said, Neither eat nor sow any mint in time of war. The reason is, that blows are given then without any distinction of parts or persons, and if a man that’s wounded has that day handled or eaten any mint, ‘tis impossible, or at least very hard, to stanch his blood.
After this, Bacchus was seen marching in battalia, riding in a stately chariot drawn by six young leopards. He looked as young as a child, to show that all good topers never grow old. He was as red as a cherry, or a cherub, which you please, and had no more hair on his chin than there’s in the inside of my hand. His forehead was graced with pointed horns, above which he wore a fine crown or garland of vine-leaves and grapes, and a mitre of crimson velvet, having also gilt buskins on.
He had not one man with him that looked like a man; his guards and all his forces consisted wholly of Bassarides, Evantes, Euhyades, Edonides, Trietherides, Ogygiae, Mimallonides, Maenades, Thyades, and Bacchae, frantic, raving, raging, furious, mad women, begirt with live snakes and serpents instead of girdles, dishevelled, their hair flowing about their shoulders, with garlands of vine-branches instead of forehead-cloths, clad with stag’s or goat’s skins, and armed with torches, javelins, spears, and halberds whose ends were like pineapples. Besides, they had certain small light bucklers that gave a loud sound if you touched ‘em never so little, and these served them instead of drums. They were just seventy-nine thousand two hundred and twenty-seven.
Silenus, who led the van, was one on whom Bacchus relied very much, having formerly had many proofs of his valour and conduct. He was a diminutive, stooping, palsied, plump, gorbellied old fellow, with a swingeing pair of stiff-standing lugs of his own, a sharp Roman nose, large rough eyebrows, mounted on a well-hung ass. In his fist he held a staff to lean upon, and also bravely to fight whenever he had occasion to alight; and he was dressed in a woman’s yellow gown. His followers were all young, wild, clownish people, as hornified as so many kids and as fell as so many tigers, naked, and perpetually singing and dancing country-dances. They were called tityri and satyrs, and were in all eighty-five thousand one hundred and thirty-three.
Pan, who brought up the rear, was a monstrous sort of a thing; for his lower parts were like a goat’s, his thighs hairy, and his horns bolt upright; a crimson fiery phiz, and a beard that was none of the shortest. He was a bold, stout, daring, desperate fellow, very apt to take pepper in the nose for yea and nay.
In his left hand he held a pipe, and a crooked stick in his right. His forces consisted also wholly of satyrs, aegipanes, agripanes, sylvans, fauns, lemures, lares, elves, and hobgoblins, and their number was seventy-eight thousand one hundred and fourteen. The signal or word common to all the army was Evohe.
Chapter 5.XL.—How the battle in which the good Bacchus overthrew the Indians was represented in mosaic work.
In the next place we saw the representation of the good Bacchus’s engagement with the Indians. Silenus, who led the van, was sweating, puffing, and blowing, belabouring his ass most grievously. The ass dreadfully opened its wide jaws, drove away the flies that plagued it, winced, flounced, went back, and bestirred itself in a most terrible manner, as if some damned gad-bee had stung it at the breech.
The satyrs, captains, sergeants, and corporals of companies, sounding the orgies with cornets, in a furious manner went round the army, skipping, capering, bounding, jerking, farting, flying out at heels, kicking and prancing like mad, encouraging their companions to fight bravely; and all the delineated army cried out Evohe!
First, the Maenades charged the Indians with dreadful shouts, and a horrid din of their brazen drums and bucklers; the air rung again all around, as the mosaic work well expressed it. And pray for the future don’t so much admire Apelles, Aristides the Theban, and others who drew claps of thunder, lightnings, winds, words, manners, and spirits.
We then saw the Indian army, who had at last taken the field to prevent the devastation of the rest of their country. In the front were the elephants, with castles well garrisoned on their backs. But the army and themselves were put into disorder; the dreadful cries of the Bacchae having filled them with consternation, and those huge animals turned tail and trampled on the men of their party.
There you might have seen gaffer Silenus on his ass, putting on as hard as he could, striking athwart and alongst, and laying about him lustily with his staff after the old fashion of fencing. His ass was prancing and making after the elephants, gaping and martially braying, as it were to sound a charge, as he did when formerly in the Bacchanalian feasts he waked the nymph Lottis, when Priapus, full of priapism, had a mind to priapize while the pretty creature was taking a nap.
There you might have seen Pan frisk it with his goatish shanks about the Maenades, and with his rustic pipe excite them to behave themselves like Maenades.
A little further you might have blessed your eyes with the sight of a young satyr who led seventeen kings his prisoners; and a Bacchis, who with her snakes hauled along no less than two and forty captains; a little faun, who carried a whole dozen of standards taken from the enemy; and goodman Bacchus on his chariot, riding to and fro fearless of danger, making much of his dear carcass, and cheerfully toping to all his merry friends.
Finally, we saw the representation of his triumph, which was thus: first, his chariot was wholly lined with ivy gathered on the mountain Meros; this for its scarcity, which you know raises the price of everything, and principally of those leaves in India. In this Alexander the Great followed his example at his Indian triumph. The chariot was drawn by elephants joined together, wherein he was imitated by Pompey the Great at Rome in his African triumph. The good Bacchus was seen drinking out of a mighty urn, which action Marius aped after his victory over the Cimbri near Aix in Provence. All his army were crowned with ivy; their javelins, bucklers, and drums were also wholly covered with it; there was not so much as Silenus’s ass but was betrapped with it.
The Indian kings were fastened with chains of gold close by the wheels of the chariot. All the company marched in pomp with unspeakable joy, loaded with an infinite number of trophies, pageants, and spoils, playing and singing merry epiniciums, songs of triumph, and also rural lays and dithyrambs.
At the farthest end was a prospect of the land of Egypt; the Nile with its crocodiles, marmosets, ibides, monkeys, trochiloses, or wrens, ichneumons, or Pharoah’s mice, hippopotami, or sea-horses, and other creatures, its guests and neighbours. Bacchus was moving towards that country under the conduct of a couple of horned beasts, on one of which was written in gold, Apis, and Osiris on the other; because no ox or cow had been seen in Egypt till Bacchus came thither.