ROMAN PAVEMENTS AND INTRECCI. 1 75 



design occurs on the pavement at Caerwent. It will be con- 

 venient to call it the solar quadruplex. But what evidence 

 is there that it represented the four-fold path, the solstitial and 

 enuinoxial courses of the sun both across the heavens and 

 through the underworld ? The subterranean passage of Ra was 

 to the Egyptians a matter of supreme importance. The soul 

 of Osiris, the soul, that is, of every man who was beloved as 

 Osiris was adored by Isis and Nephthys, had to undertake 

 this perilous journey, safely perhaps if only he could sail in 

 Ra's barge, aid Ra in his dark struggle with fiends and 

 serpents all through the twelve dreadful caverns, and emerge 

 with him at last into the gladness of another life. Would any 

 scheme of a solar cult be complete without a symbol of this ? 

 "O beautiful youth," said the widowed ones, "come back to 

 thy temple, for we see thee not. The cycle of the gods goes 

 round thee as thou makest thy circuit, and they repulse the 

 fiends for thee. O great one, Osiris, the path which thou followest 

 cannot be told. Hail ! son of Ra, who sittest in the barge of 

 millions of years, come to thy hidden places." And the beloved 

 soul, provided with magical formularies, exclaims as he enters 

 the darkness, "I go through the tunnels of Ra. I know the 

 meaning of things. By them I repulse the fiend. I see the 

 mysteries ; I rise as a King ; I do not die in the underworld." 

 If the solar quadruplex had any significance of this kind, it is a 

 symbol of the restoration of life, and would be eagerly adopted 

 by Christians. We find it, indeed, on many early crosses, one of 

 which, from Durham, is shown in Illustration XV. 



It is remarkable that the three Great Sacrifices which the 

 Emperor celebrates as head of the Chinese religions, take place 

 respectively at the solar solstices and the vernal equinox. The 

 autumnal equinox is ignored. At Corinium is an example of a 

 solar triplex, an interlacement of three ovals. It is surrounded 

 by curled lotus leaves, and the artist, in order to increase its 

 visual complexity, has, at intervals, changed the line of colour 

 from one side of the strands to the other, Illustration XL This 

 method has been followed in the Dorchester intreccio. 



