as a memorial to her deceased granddaughter Avita. The statue, cast in silver, weighed one hundred and twelve and a half pounds, and was muffled in ornaments and jewelry beyond conception. The goddess wore a diadem in which were set six pearls, two emeralds, seven beryls, one carbuncle, one hyacinthus, and two flint arrow-heads; also earrings with emeralds and pearls, a necklace composed of thirty-six pearls and eighteen emeralds, two clasps, two rings on the little finger, one on the third, one on the middle finger; and many other gems on the shoes, ankles, and wrists. Another inscription discovered at Constantine, Algeria, describes a statue of Jupiter dedicated in the Capitol of that city. The devotees had placed on his head an oak-wreath of silver, with thirty leaves and fifteen acorns; they had loaded his right hand with a silver disk, a Victory waving a palm-leaf, and a crown of forty leaves; and in the other had fastened a silver rod and other emblems.
The hangings and tinsel not only disfigured the interior of temples, but were a source of danger from their combustibility. When we hear of fires destroying the Pantheon in a. d. 110, the Temple of Apollo in 363, that of Venus and Rome in 307, and that of Peace in 191, we may assume that they were started and fed by the inflammable materials with which the interiors were filled. There is no other explanation to be given, inasmuch as the structures were fire-proof, with the exception of the roof. As for the disfiguration of sacred buildings with all sorts of hangings, it is enough to quote the words of Livy (xl. 51). "In the year of Rome, 574, the censors M. Fulvius Nobilior and M. Æmilius Lepidus restored the temple of Jupiter on the Capitol. On this occasion they removed from the columns all the tablets, medallions, and military flags omnis generis which had been hung against them."
The right of performing sacrifices was sometimes granted to civilians, on payment of a fee. An inscription discovered among the ruins of the Temple of Malakbelos, outside the Porta Portese, on the site of the new railway station, relates how an importer of wine, Quintus Octavius Daphnicus, having built at his own expense a banqueting hall within the sacred enclosure, was rewarded with the immunitas sacrum faciendi, that is, the right of performing sacrifices without the assistance of priests. The performances were regulated by tariffs, which specified a price for every item; and one of these has actually survived to our day.36
The meaning of this tariff will be easily understood if we recall the details of a Græco-Roman sacrifice, in regard to the apportionment of the victim's flesh. The parts which were the perquisite of the priests differ in different worships; sometimes we hear of legs and skin, sometimes of tongue and shoulder. In the case of private sacrifices the rest of the animal was taken home by the sacrificer, to be used for a meal or sent as a present to friends. This was, of course, impossible in the case of "holocausts," in which the victim was burnt whole on the altar. In the Roman ritual, hides and skins were always the property of the temple.37 In the above tariff two prices are charged: a smaller one for ordinary sacrifices, when only the intestines were burnt, and the rest of the flesh was taken home by the sacrificer; a larger one for "holocausts," which required a much longer use of the altar, spit, gridiron, and other sacrificial instruments. Four asses are charged for each crown or wreath of flowers, half that amount for hot water.
The site of a sanctuary can be determined not only from its actual ruins, but, in many cases, from the contents of its favissæ, or vaults, which are sometimes collected in a group, sometimes spread over a considerable space of ground. The origin of these deposits of terra-cotta or bronze votive objects is as follows:—
Each leading sanctuary or place of pilgrimage was furnished with one or more rooms for the exhibition and safe-keeping of ex-votos. The walls of these rooms were studded with nails on which ex-voto heads and figures were hung in rows by means of a hole on the back. There were also horizontal spaces, little steps like those of a lararium, or shelves, on which were placed those objects that could stand upright. When both surfaces were filled, and no room was left for the daily influx of votive offerings, the priests removed the rubbish of the collection, that is, the terra-cottas, and buried them either in the vaults (favissæ) of the temple, or in trenches dug for the purpose within or near the sacred enclosure.
During these last years I have been present at the discovery of five deposits of ex-votos, each marking the site of a place of pilgrimage. The first was found in March, 1876, on the site of a temple of Hercules, outside the Porta S. Lorenzo; the second in the spring of 1885, on the site of the Temple of Diana Nemorensis; the third in 1886, near the Island of Æsculapius (now of S. Bartolomeo); the fourth in 1887, near the shrine of Minerva Medica; the last in 1889, on the site of the Temple of Juno at Veii.
The existence of a temple of Hercules, outside the Porta S. Lorenzo, within the enclosure of the modern cemetery, was first made known in 1862, in consequence of the discovery of an altar raised to him by Marcus Minucius, the "master of the horse" or lieutenant-general of Q. Fabius Maximus (217 b. c.). This altar is now exhibited in the Capitoline Museum.38 Fourteen years later, in 1876, the favissæ of the temple were found in the section of the cemetery called the Pincio. There were about two hundred pieces of terra-cotta, vases of Etruscan and Italo-Greek manufacture; several statuettes of bronze, and pieces of æs rude, and æs grave librale, one of them from the town of Luceria. This deposit seems to have been buried at the beginning of the sixth century of Rome.
Nemi and the site of the Temple of Diana.
A Platform of the Temple of Diana. B Village of Nemi and Castle of the Orsinis.
Portrait Bust of Person cured at Nemi.
The excavation of the temple of Diana Nemorensis was undertaken in 1885, by Sir John Savile Lumley, now Lord Savile of Rufford, the English ambassador at Rome, with the kind consent of the Italian government. It seems that this Artemisium Nemorense was not only a place of worship and devotion, but also a hydro-therapeutic establishment. The waters employed for the cure were those which spring from the lava rocks at Nemi, and which, until a few years ago, fell in graceful cascades into the lake, at a place called "Le Mole." They now supply the city of Albano, which has long suffered from water-famine. I can vouch for their therapeutic efficiency from personal experience; in fact I could honestly put up my votive offering to the long-forgotten goddess, having recovered health and strength by following the old cure. Diana, however, was chiefly worshipped in this place as Diana Lucina. I need not enter into particulars on this subject. The ex-votos collected in large quantity by Lord Savile, representing young mothers nursing their first-born, and other offerings of the same nature, testify to the skill of the priests. Perhaps they practised other branches of surgery, because, among the curiosities brought to light in 1885, are several figures with large openings on the front, through which the intestines are seen. Professor Tommasi-Crudeli, who has made a study of this class of curiosities, says that they cannot be considered as real anatomical models, because the work is too rough and primitive to enable us to distinguish one intestine from the other. The number of objects collected by Lord Savile may be estimated at three thousand.
The stern of the ship of the Island of the Tiber.
Characteristic objects of a like nature—breasts cut open and showing the anatomy—have been found in large numbers in and near the island of the Tiber, where the Temple of Æsculapius stood, at the stern of the marble ship. It seems that the street leading from the Campus Martius to the Pons Fabricius, and across it to the temple, was lined with shops and booths for the sale of ex-votos, as is the case now with the approaches to the sanctuaries of Einsiedeln, Lourdes, Mariahilf,
The fac-simile here presented is from the
The sale of skins of victims sacrificed at Athens in the year 334 b. c., in state sacrifices only, brought a revenue of 5,500 drachmas.
See Henzen,
