[ '7 ] 



by thefe poets. And this may certainly be true though the 

 Gods had been acknowledged, named and worfliipped long 

 before their time : neither is it improbable that the figures, 

 by which the feveral divinities are known and diftinguiflied, 

 may not have been in ufe before the period affigned to them 

 by Herodotus. In the rude ages, when fculpture, if known, 

 was rarely and imperfecftly pradlifed, a flone unhewn, or at beft 

 but roughly cut or hammered, received the name of a god, 

 and was worfliipped ; and fuch reprefentations are known to 

 have defcended even to the mofl poliflied and enlightened ages 

 of heathenifm, being, as I fuppofe, reverenced as the firft and 

 original ideas under which the deity had been reprefented. 

 Venus Urania, for example, is ftill to be feen under the figure 

 of a pyramidical flone on the reverfe of a Grecian coin of 

 Caracalla, quoted by Triftan, tom. ii. page 220. Neither is this 

 medal Angular, as many others exifl of different ages bearing 

 the fame imprefs. Paufanias alfo informs us, Attica Cap. xix. 

 page 44, that in his time the fame goddefs was worfhipped at 

 Athens under a form nearly fimilar, roivj'^g yxp crx'^f*'^, &c. ; 

 and the figure of this goddefs, who was the fame with the 

 Paphian Venus, is accurately defcribed by Tacitus, where he 

 mentions the vifit paid to her temple by Titus Vefpatianus, 

 Hiftor. Lib. ii. page 198 — " Simulachrum De non cffigie 

 " humana, continvius orbis latiore initio tenuem in ambitum, 

 " metsE mode, exfurgens, et ratio in pbfcuro." We are likewife 

 told by Paufanias, Boeotica Cap. xxvii. page 761, that the 

 Thefpians from the beginning honoured Cupid principally 

 among the Gods, and that their moil ancient figure of him was 

 Vol. V. [ C ] a white 



