286. Antiquities. 



were accuflomed to throw into the funeral piles of their dead, 

 ihofc animals they had been fondeil of, fiich as dogs and 

 horfcs. Tliere is reafon, therefore, to conclude that the grotto 

 of Blois was a burying-place of the Gauls, and, by analogy, 

 that the incloiure of Aurillac belonged to the fame nation. 

 The female bull found there exhibits the fame charafters as 

 the figures pubiilhed by Montfaucon ^ and befides, there was 

 found along with it a iigure of a dog of the fame fubftance 

 suid workmanlhip, 



Thel'e female ligures have been fo often dug up in the fe- 

 pulchres of the Gauls, and the ilyle, the workmanOiip, and 

 materials have fo great a refembiance, that one cannot help 

 foppofing that they nuill have been depofitcd there from the 

 fame motives. C. Mongez is of opinion that they may have 

 reprefented ihe principal mother goddefles in general, and 

 thofe in particular whom the decealed whole alhes re- 

 pofed in thefe tombs had adopted as their protestors. A 

 great deal ha^; been written on the mother goddefles men- 

 tioned in the fepulchral infcriplions of the Romans : Diis 



mairibus matronls, &c. As bas-reliefs reprefenting 



three females, fometimes Handing and fomctimes fitting, 

 holdincv fruits, cones of the fir-tree, and cornucopias, were 

 fometimes added to fueh infcriptions ; the mother god- 

 dcifes were at firll taken for rural deities : but one of thefe 

 monuments was found in the city of Lyons, and on others 

 they arc called the mothers of Galicia, the mothers ot the 

 Gabii, Sec. Their prote6lion therefore was extended to 

 cities and provinces alio. Keyfler thinks that they were 

 ihofe druid females for whom the Gauls entertained fo great 

 a veneration ; but this opinion is contradiclcd by monuments 

 of the fame kind, coniecrated in countries at a very great 

 diftauce from Gaul. Others eonfidcred the mother goddefles 

 as the three Parc£e or Fates; but it is not cerUnn that the 

 Parcae ever formed a part of all the nations among whom 

 ihe deities in quefiion were worlliipped : belideSj Uie latter had 

 their proper denomination, Fa/<z. In the laft place. Barrier 

 propofed a ftill more probable opinion refpeeting the mnthtj 

 goddtlfes : he fuppoied them to be deities common to fevcral 

 nations, and that their furnames denoted the places wliere 

 thev were worlhi] ped. 



'Jo this may be added, that the women acknowledged them 

 as their fpeeial protestors; for we read on two inlenptions: 

 Alatronis Giibiabus, Ju?iombus Gabiubris. Every wo- 

 man believed that (he had a female genius who proteSted 

 her, and whom the called her Juno. The Greeks, the 

 Cretans in particular, and the Sicilians, rendered worfliip to 

 Q the 



