32 TWO EXAMPLES. OF SYMBOLISM. 



The last example is the most instructive of all. It occurs in 

 York (Fig. 27) on an altar to Serapis, raised by the Sixth Legion 

 that came to Britain with Hadrian, Legio Sexta, Victrix, 

 stationed at Eburacum. 



Serapis was a God of Healing. The Greeks furnished him 

 with many of the attributes of ^Esculapius, including the snake- 

 enwound staff. It was by the aid of Serapis, as Tacitus and 

 Suetonius relate, that the Emperor Vespasian cured by his 

 spittle a man who was blind, and by a touch of his foot one who 

 was paralytic.* 



The cult was most prosperous under Hadrian, and intagli of 

 his time bear the inscription, 'EI2 EOS SEPADIS. " Serapis is the 

 only God." 



Here we see the palmette (Fig, 27), the token of strength and 

 life, in apposition with lotus or solar discs, as on Etruscan vases, 

 and in conjunction with a sign that is not a caduceus, but the 

 Coiled Serpent of Health, the attribute of the God of Medicine. 



Are not these more suitable symbols than the Axe of 

 Lycurgus ? 



It may be noticed, in conclusion, that, though the example 

 from Corbridge, as well as some others not here shown, has 

 come under Gaulish influence, so that its terminals display a 

 zoomorphic development, nevertheless, in the vast majority of 

 cases the fcrm of the conventionalised palmette, even to the 

 swelling at what botanists call the " receptacle " of the flower, 

 has remained absolutely unchanged since it first appeared as a 

 pledge of life on Egyptian tombs of the Fourth Dynasty. f 



* Tacitus, Hist, iv., 81 ; Suet., Vcsp. 7. 



f In the Xllth century B.C., when the Etruscans invaded Italy, the Hittites 

 conquered Syria and the Hyksos took possession of Egypt. Herodotus, I., 94., 

 declares that the Etruscans were Lydians ; and Tacitus, ann. IV., 55, asserts 

 that, in a dispute, the people of Sardes recited a decree of the Etruscans in which 

 they claimed a Lydian origin. In the Palace of Knossos Mr. Arthur J. Evans 

 found a diorite statue with hieroglyphic inscriptions of the Xllth Egyptian 

 dynasty ; whilst, on the other hand, pottery associated with this dynasty, but of 

 JEgsean origin, has been discovered at Kahun. 



