VIRTUE
Daughter of Truth, is represented clothed in white, as an emblem of purity; sometimes holding a sceptre, at others crowned with
laurel; while she is in many instances drawn with wings, and placed upon a block of marble, to intimate her immoveable firmness.
TRUTH
Daughter of Jupiter and Saturn, is the parent of Justice and of Virtue. The great Apelles has represented her, in his painting of Calumny, under the appearance of a modest female; in her hand is placed a round mirror.
Ancient writers say, that she was for a long time hidden from the world at the bottom of a well, but leaving its quiet on one occasion, she was scared at the reception she met with, and returned to her hiding place, which is intended to intimate, according to Democritus, the difficulty with which she is discovered.
HONOUR.
The emblems of this god are, the crown of laurel, the lance, and the horn of plenty; though he is sometimes represented, instead of arms, with the olive branch of peace, as the reward of bravery.
At Rome he had two temples; one founded by Marcellus, at the same time with the one to Virtue. An augur having warned Marcellus that these two divinities would not dwell in the circumference of the same temple, he built the two distinct edifices to which we have alluded; but, to arrive at the temple of Honour, it was necessary to pass through that of Virtue.
PEACE.