ASSYRIAN MONUMENTS. 173 



thunderbolts, placed horizontally over a tree, supported 

 by two griffins. 



There is one other emblem of mythology which I 

 will touch upon. I do not feel sure that Apollo's 

 pretty lyre was not suggested to the Grecian artist's 

 mind by a pair of horns. 



One often sees a lyre, like that shown in fig. 91, 

 in theatres and other places as an emblem of Music. 

 Of course such a lyre is a fictitious 

 thing, as it has no means of being 

 tuned, and no means of varying 

 notes beyond four discordant ones. 



But let that pass. Apollo is often Fig. 91.— The Lyre of Apollo; 



also the emblem of Music. 



furnished with a similar lyre. 



Lempriere's Dictionary says of Apollo that he was 

 the son of Jupiter, and therefore, I fancy, he must have 

 known something about his father's thunderbolts. Then 

 he is said not to have been the inventor of the lyre, 

 but that Mercury gave it to him and received in reward 

 the famous cadiicetis, with which Apollo was wont to 

 drive the flocks of Admetus. It is not impossible that 

 Apollo and Mercury had been simply making an ex- 

 change of Jioyn-einblems^ all these myths being the 

 creations of highly imaginative Greek poets and artists. 



But let us turn for a moment from this pretty 



^ See picture by G. W. Joy 'Yule Tide,' Dec. 1892, in which a lyre is 

 evolved out of two antelope horns ! 



