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particular sculpture was set up in Bath was a subject that he 

 had often thought of. He looked upon it as not at all im- 

 possible that the reign of Elagabalus might be about the time. 

 It was a very singular thing that the worship of the sun in the 

 Roman empire was a matter of late times ; it was totally un- 

 known in the Republic, and was in fact a cultus that came 

 from the east. They knew it was the great idolatry which the 

 children of Israel were warned against. The worship of the 

 sun and the moon was a practice towards which oriental nations 

 — the Syrians, Babylonians, Assyrians, and Moabites — were 

 most prone. The Baal which they read of in the Bible was 

 nothing more nor less than the god sun, as Ashtaroth was the 

 goddess moon. It was not until the time of the empire that 

 the worship of the sun came to be received at Rome, when 

 the old religion had decayed, when the worship of Isis and 

 Osiris, as well as of Assyrian gods and goddesses, was intro- 

 duced, and a compact of an amicable kind was made with the 

 superstitions of the subject nations. It was about the year 

 230 that the worship of the sun reached its acme, when there 

 sat upon the throne of the empire of Rome a person of the 

 name of Elagabalus (Heliogabalus, as he was commonly 

 called, being a Grecised form of the name), a Syrian youth 

 who had been consecrated as the high priest of this idolatry, 

 and hence the great favour in which it was held. It was 

 possible therefore that the figure of the sun in the vestibule 

 might date from the third century. 



The Chairman (Mr. Scarth) said, the probable time when 

 the Temple of Bath was erected was a subject that he himself 

 had had under consideration. A German professor of some 

 note — Professor Hubner — who was well skilled in Roman 

 Antiquities, called upon him about a year and a half ago. 

 He had to examine the local antiquities here for the purpose 

 of making a report thereon to the Academy of Berlin, which 

 had since been done. He (the Chairman) asked the Professor 



