Indeed the sublimer allegory of the ancients has not been transmitted to us, without the loss of its most valuable treasures: it is poor, when compared with the second kind, which is often provided with several symbols for one idea. Two different ones, signifying the happiness of the times, are expressed on coins of the emperor Commodus: the one a lady[231], sitting with an apple or ball in her right, and a dial in her left hand, beneath a leafy tree: three children are before her, two in a vase or flower-pot, the usual symbol of fertility: the other represents four children, who, as is clear by the things they bear, are the seasons. Both have the subscription FELICITAS TEMPORVM.
But these, and all the symbols that want inscriptions, are of a lower rank; and some of them might as well be taken for signs of different ideas. Hope[232] and Fertility[233], for instance, might be Ceres, Nobility[234], Minerva. Patience[235], on a coin of Aurelian, wants her true characteristick, as does Erato; and the Parcæ[236] are only by their garments distinguished from the Graces. On the contrary, ideas which are often confounded in morality, as Justice and Equity, are extremely well distinguished by the ancients. The former is represented, as drawn by Gellius[237], with a stern look, a diadem, and dressed hair[238]; the latter with a mild countenance, and waving ringlets; ears of corn arising from her balance, as symbols of the advantages of equity; and sometimes she holds in her other hand[239] a cornu-copia.
Peace, on a coin of the emperor Titus, is to be ranked among those of a more energetick expression. The goddess of Peace leans on a pillar with her left arm, in the hand of which she holds the branch of an olive-tree, whilst the other waves the caduceus over the thigh of a victim on a little altar, which hints at the bloodless sacrifices of that goddess: the victims were slaughtered out of the temple, and nothing but the thighs were offered at the altar, which was not to be stained with blood.
Peace usually appears with the olive-branch and the caduceus, as on another coin of this emperor[240]; or on a stool placed on a heap of arms, as on a coin of Drusus[241]. On some of Tiberius’s and Vespasian’s coins[242] Peace appears in the act of burning arms.
On a coin of the Emperor Philip there is a noble image; a sleeping Victory: which, with better reason, may be taken for the symbol of confidence in conquest, than for that in the security of the world as the inscription pretends. Of an analogous idea was the picture, by which the Athenian General Timotheus was ridiculed, for the blind luck with which he obtained his victories: he was represented asleep, with Fortune catching Towns in her Net[243].
The Nile, with his sixteen children, is of this same class[244]. The child that reaches the ears of corn, and the fruits, in his Cornu, is the symbol of the highest fertility; but those that over-reach them are signs of miscarrying seasons. Pliny explains the whole[245]. Egypt is at the height of its fertility, when the Nile rises sixteen feet: but if it either falls short of, or exceeds that measure, it equally blasts the land with unfruitfulness. Rossi, in his collection, neglected the children.
Satyrical pictures belong also to this class: the Ass of Gabrias, for instance[246], which imagines itself worshipped by the people, as they bow to the statue of Isis on its back. It is impossible to give a livelier image of the pride of the Vulgar-Great.
The sublimer allegory might be supplied by the lower class, had it not met with the same fate. We are, for instance, not acquainted with the figure of Eloquence, or Peitho; or that of the Goddess of Comfort, Parergon, represented by Praxiteles, as Pausanias tells us[247]. Oblivion had an altar among the Romans[248], and perhaps a figure: as may also be supposed of Chastity, whose altar is to be found on coins[249]; and of Fear, to which Theseus offered sacrifices[250].