ROMAN PAVEMENTS ANt) JNTRECCI. 167 



One of these altars, at Amboglana or Birdoswald, was dedicated 

 to Jupiter by the Dacians ; another was raised at Bremenium, at 

 High Rochester, in the time of Elagabalus, by Lucius Coecilius 

 to Minerva, and the Genius of the College ; and a third was 

 erected at the same place by the ist Cohort of the Varduli, 

 whose cavalry was 1,000 strong, to their Genius and standards. 



The fylfot, the "fully footed" symbol, had a great vogue in 

 Europe throughout an area co-extensive with that of the use of 

 bronze. It first appeared, according to present knowledge, at 

 Hissarlik, many centuries before the time of Christ. It is so 

 often presented in apposition or in conjunction with more 

 especial solar symbols, that D'Alviella regards it as a counter- 

 part sign of the sun. 



The Egyptians, in the ceiling decorations of their tombs, had 

 evolved a beautiful wandering rectilinear design, Illustration III., 

 fig. i, with no intention whatever of producing a swastika, for this 

 was a device of which they seem to have been wholly ignorant. 

 But the quick-witted Greeks, well accustomed to it, recognised its 

 familiar lines even in the implication of a foreign fret, and, as 

 Mr. Goodyear points out, on a geometrical vase assigned to the 

 vi. cent, before our era, this detail was separately treated. It 

 is shown in Illustration III., fig. 2, and for my own part 

 I have sometimes fancied I could read in it the archaic 

 Greek letters xpn __ . _^_^_ or XP*> a con- 

 imperative 

 a word some- 



traction of xp*6u 

 present of x/>/ 

 times placed on 



FtLTEJl 



a gift, with the 



meaning " make use of me." 



However that may be, we find on the Brading tesselation, that 

 the designer has detached this portion of an ordinary braid, has 

 placed it at the head of a beautiful mosaic pavement, and has 

 thrown an arch round it, to isolate it, and to prove to all 

 beholders that he, at any rate, could see a swastika even when 

 hidden in a fret, Illustration IV., fig. i. It was only another 

 step to empanel it, and to make it contribute, like an avowed 

 fylfot, to a general scheme of solar symbolism, as may be seen 



