From Corinth, where it figures amongst the most ancient mint marks, it passed to Syracuse under Timoleon, to be afterwards spread abroad on the coins of Sicily and of Magna Græcia.
Fig. 129.—Hut-shaped ossuary; I. Taylor, Origin of the Aryans, p. 176.
In Northern Italy it was known even before the advent of the Etruscans, for it has been met with on pottery dating from the terramara civilisation. It appears also on the roof of some of those ossuaries in the form of a hut (Pl. [I.], Fig. C), which reproduce on a small scale the wicker huts of the people of that epoch. In the Villanova period it adorns vases with geometrical decoration found at Cære, Chiusi, Albano, and at Cumæ. Finally, it appears in Roman mosaics.
It is singular that at Rome itself it has not been met with, so Count Goblet d’Alviella informs us, on any monument prior to the third, or perhaps the fourth century of our era. About that period the Christians of the Catacombs had no hesitation in including it amongst their representations of the Cross of Christ, and they used it to ornament priestly garments. At Milan it forms a row of curved crosses round the pulpit of St. Ambrose.
It was widely distributed throughout the provinces of the Roman Empire (Fig. [130], S, T), especially among the Celts, from the Danubian countries to the West of Ireland (Fig. [130], K, U); but in many cases it is difficult to decide whether it is connected with imported civilisation or with indigenous tradition.