TWO EXAMPLES OF SYMBOLISM. 31 



On Etruscan vases (Fig. 21) palmettes, separated by lotus or 

 solar discs, turn their efficient portion outwards. Indeed, the 

 amulet of the palmette, as painted on Mycenaean pottery 

 (Fig. 22), can be found in almost every Etruscan Museum of 

 Italy ; but it never established itself as a motif either in Gaul or 

 Britain, although the Roman legionaries, perhaps of Etruscan 

 descent, brought it through Gaul to this country, and employed 

 it not only on pavements, as at Cirencester, but in sculpture. 



Thus it may be seen on a stone at Ribchester (Fig. 24), raised 

 by the Twentieth Legion stationed at Deva, Legio Vicesima, 

 Valeria, Victrix, strong and victorious.* 



On another (Fig. 25), much broken, at Corspititum (Corbridge), 

 where a winged Victory herself raises the ensign. 



And on another (Fig. 26), well preserved, at Durham, also of 

 the Twentieth Legion, Valeria, Victrix, where the divinity holds 

 the palm branch for victory, and the palmette, which stands for 

 strength, life, continuance, she turns to the inscription on the 

 stone. And she places her foot upon the circle of the world, 

 divided into four quarters by the sun, who alone did or could so 

 divide it, by lines which constitute the solar cross. 



* Many antiquaries, including Horsley, have been of opinion that V.V., the 

 style of the Twentieth Legion, signified Valens, Victrix. But Dion Cassius 

 (A.D. 222) distinctly states that the Legion that served in Britain was called 

 Valeria, Victrix. Now Valeria was the name of a Gens, but like Valens the 

 word is cognate with valere, to be strong. Dean Howson, however, derived it, 

 in this case, from the gentilic name of Marcus Valerius Messalinus " under whom 

 the Legion first gained renown," but it is not likely that a hundred years would 

 have been allowed to elapse between the renown and the assumption of the title. 



Before the time of the second consulate of Caius Marius (B.C. 104) the ensigns 

 of the Koman Legions were the Eagle, the Wolf, the Minotaur, and the Wild 

 Boar ; but afterwards, by his decree, the Eagle alone was used, so that a Legion 

 was often called Aquila, though the effigy of a Wild Boar continued to be carved 

 by the XXth on their sculptured monuments. 



Pliny, writing of Eagles (N.H., x., 3) says that among birds the eagle is the 

 most remarkable for strength, and that of six different kinds the one which the 

 Greeks call Mf\avaeTos from its black plumage, the Latins call Valeria because it 

 is the strongest of them all. It is, too, the only kind that feeds its young and 

 that never murmurs " Valeria viribus prsecipua . . . sola aquilarum feetus 

 suos alit ; sola sine clangore, sine murmuratione." 



To apply the epithet Valeria to the Twentieth was to declare that of all 

 Legions this was the strongest and the most faithful. In late Latin (vocabulary 

 of the Xllth cent.) valeriana is given as the name of the " stichwurt " because 

 of its vigorous growth. 



