THE BUTTEKFLY IN ANCIENT ART. 1263 



insurcil, tluuugh pictures of tliis sort, to tlie persons resting in these 

 graves. 



We see that the butterfly first appears in classic literature in the fourth 

 century B. C. , with no symbolic meaning, but simply as an insect. A 

 hundred years later it is found on coins, alone and in connection with natu- 

 ral objects, still evidently without symbolic meaning. Two hundred years 

 later, about GO B. C.,* we see in an epigram of Meleager that tiie butter- 

 fly has now become a type of the soul, and "the first works of art in 

 which this idea is clearly to be seen all date from times succeeding the 

 beginning of the Christian era" (Stephani). Stephani calls attention to 

 the fact that the three-fold existence of the butterfly is emphasized by 

 ancient authors, and says that it received the name yjrvx'h life, because 

 "the ancients believed that vital energy, which they called yfrv^V, reveals 

 itself in the butterfly, througli the three very different forms which it suc- 

 cessively takes, much more strikingly than in all other organisms." We 

 notice in many interesting works of art the prophylactic power ascribed to 

 the butterfly ; we see its use as a pet name ; and we follow it, now sym- 

 bolizing the soul, through the drama of creation, trial and death ; while in 

 some representations of Psyche, the butterfly- winged maiden, we are car- 

 ried with tlie released soul to a world where it is reunited to the divine 

 love. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY. 



Montfaucon, Bernard de. L'antiquitS expliqute et representee en figures. 5 vols. Paris, 

 1722. r. 



BOttiger, Karl August. Die label von Amor und Psyche (Ideen zur kunst-raythologie, ii: 

 395-541). Dresden und Leipzig, 182fi-36. 8*. 



Jahn, Otto. Uebereinigeauf Eros uiid Psyche beziigliche kunst-werke (Ber. verh. sachs. 

 gesellsch. wiss. Leipzig. 18.51. 8°). 



Collignon, Maxime. Essai sur les monuments Grecs et Bomalns relatU au mythe de Psyche. 

 Paris, 1877. 8% 



Stephani, Ludoll. Erklarung einiger im jahre 1876 im siidlichen Russland gefundener kunst- 

 werke (Compt.-reud. comm. imp. arch, pour 1877. Suppl., pp. 30-219. St. Petersbourg., 1880. 

 i'-) 



•Stephani emphasizes this date, in opposing "/-"X^ because in it was seen a type of the 

 the statement that the butterfly was called human soul. 



