AniiquUiei. 28j 



ftrft found medals of gilt bronze of all the Roman emperors 

 down to Commodus, Olho excepted ; which proves that in 

 the fecond century bronze medals of that prince were exceed- 

 ingly rare, and that thev had not then, perhaps, been carried 

 into Gaul. Along with the fmall veflels of baked earth which 

 contained ihefe medal?, there were dug up fome fmallerones 

 which contained aromatic fubftances. The workmen took them 

 for tobacco; but finding by the tafle that they were deceived, 

 they threw them away, and carefully waflied the velTels wliich 

 contained them ; fo that neither the nature of thefe aroma- 

 tics, nor even the odour which the vellels would have re- 

 tained, could be known. Two fmall bits of very white 

 inouId(^d clay were alfo dug up : one reprefented a dog, the 

 legs of which were broken ; the other was a female bull, but 

 the remainder of the body was deftroyed by the digging. A 

 clafp of bronxe, and a e;lafs ring nf fo larjre a fize that it could 

 be worn only on the thumb if it ferved tor a ring, were alfo 

 dug up. 



The circular form of the inclofure difcovered near Aurillac 

 induces C. Mongez to conjerture that it might have been 

 ufed for burning dead bodies, and that it was an vjfrinum, 

 fuch as the circular inclofure of earth in which the body of 

 Auguftus was burnt, and which was religioufly prelerved near 

 his maufoleum, ftill in part exiftino-; and fuch as the inclo- 

 fure of the fame form difcovered in [763 near Placentia, in 

 the ruins of the antient Veleia, which apjHjars to Ijave been 

 buried by the fall of a mountain, and which VVinckelmann 

 found to be an ujinmim. Some of the inscriptions on antient 

 fepulchral llones of the Romans announce an exprefs prohi- 

 bition to conlirufel an ujlr'mum near a monument. The reafon 

 of this prohibition has not vet been examined. After men- 

 tioning ihe law of the twelve tables, which forbade the burn- 

 in- ot bodies nearer any edifice than thediftance of fixty feet^ 

 without the owner's conlVnt, O. Mongez is of opinion that 

 this prohibition iuppofed fome edifice to be in the neighbour- 

 hood, the proprietor of which inliited on the rigorous execu- 

 tion of the law. 



In regard to the fmall female buft found near Aurillac, 

 C. Mongez obfervcs, that Montfaucon has given encravings 

 of four female figures of the like kind. They were ail of that 

 kind of argdlaceo'is earth called tobacco-pipe clay; the work- 

 manfliip was coarfe, and they had all been moulded: one of 

 ' them was foimd in 1710, in disging in the abl)ey of Samt- 

 Lomer, at Blois. It was depofiied in a fmall grotio contam- 

 ing the half-burnt bones of animals, among which were found 

 the thigh-bone of a horie and the tooth ol a dog. The Gauli 



were 



