Holding these views, I cannot entertain the proposition that the winged creatures in the very remarkable gem already referred to are evil genii.
In a question of this kind the mind is perhaps unconsciously biassed by comparing one antiquarian idea with another. A searcher amongst Etruscan vases will see not only that the angel of death is winged, but that Cupid, Eros, or by whatever other name "desire" or love goes, frequently hovers over the bridal or otherwise voluptuous couch, and attends beauty at her toilet. The Greeks also gave to Eros a pair of wings, intended, it is fancied, to represent the flutterings of the heart, produced when lovers meet or even think of each other. Such a subordinate deity would be in place amongst so many sexual emblems as Plate iv. Fig. 3 contains, whilst a koakdoemon would be a "spoil sport," and would make the erected serpents drop rather than remain in their glory.
These matters are apparently of small importance, but when one is studying the signification of symbolical language, he has to pay as close an attention, and extend the net of observation over as wide a sea as a scholar does when endeavouring to decipher some language written in long-forgotten characters, and some divergence of opinion between independent observers sharpens the intellect more than it tries the temper.
PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SYMBOLISM.
PLATE II.
