286 



NATURE 



\yuly 24, 1879 



SENILIS PR«««RELzV/i,;«> EX STIPIBVSPOSSVIT 

 0///z<LANTE VICTORINO INTER/;-^/<; Z^TINE- 

 Accordingly he translates : — " To the greatest God, for the 

 second time, Flavins Senilis, Head of the Religion, has 

 erected this, from voluntary contributions, the Director 

 of the works being Victorinus, interpreter for the Latin 

 tongue." On the whole the profession of Victorinus is 

 open to some doubt, as several of the letters following 

 INTER are very far gone ; however INIr. King strongly 

 maintains that the hitherto accepted reading of IN. 

 TERAMNATE is impossible. Perhaps a difference of 

 opinion may still be allowed to exist as to the profession 

 of Flavius Senilis also ; but it is tolerably evident both 

 from this inscription and the others already mentioned 

 which were found in the same building, that it was the 

 temple of the god Nodens. That the D. M. with which 

 the dedication begins stand for Deo Maximo is in Mr- 

 King's opinion put beyond doubt by the heading of the 

 votive tablet of Flavius Blandinus. Such a prelude he 

 thinks is designed to mark the god's supremacy, while his 

 name is superfluous in his own temple, every visitor being 

 supposed to recognise him as "the supreme deity of 

 Siluria." He then goes on to produce reasons for sup- 

 posing the rebuilding of the temple to have taken place 

 in the time of Agricola and in consequence of the en- 

 couragement he gave the Britons to engage in works of 

 civilisation. But the fact of the re-erection taking place 

 under the eyes of the Romans will prepare the reader to 

 find this Silurian deity represented in the classical fashion. 

 Mr. King thinks that he was meant for a sea or river god, 

 and that fact is, in his opinion, "placed beyond doubt by 

 the design of the pavement, dedicated to him, be it 

 observed, that decorates the floor of the temple." The 

 description he gives of them is as follows (p. 39) : — " The 

 centre is formed by two sea-serpents, represented in the 

 usual form given by the Greek painters to the dreaded 

 KrfTot, as it is seen in the Pompeian wall-painting of 

 Perseus and Andromeda. This sea-monster closely re- 

 sembles the ichthyosaurus of geologists, with its elongated 

 neck and pectoral paddles, or 'flippers,' which are coloured 

 bright red in our mosaic to augment the savageness of its 

 aspect. The field is occupied with figures of fish, evi- 

 dently salmon, the chief glory of the Severn." We have 

 not yet done with the pavement, for in the part occupied 

 by the dedicatory inscription, but not quite in the centre, 

 seemingly not to cut up the names, as Mr. King thinks, 

 there is what he describes as " a circular opening, nine 

 inches in diameter, surrounded by a broad red band, 

 again inclosed in two others of blue. That some high 

 mystery was involved in the setting of this unsightly 

 object in so conspicuous a position cannot admit of any 

 doubt." He comes to the conclusion that this funnel was 

 meant to receive libations poured to the god, and that 

 they were drunk up by the dry soil beneath. He further 

 compares this opening in the pavement " to the well of 

 salt water, that famous memorial of the former presence 

 of Poseidon, in the Acropolis of Athens." 



In addition to the foregoing inscriptions there has been 

 found there what is described by the editor as " a bronze 

 plaque, clearly intended for personal decoration ; the 

 most obvious purpose to which it can" — he thinks — "be 

 assigned, being that of the frontlet of the head-dress worn 

 either by the idol itself or by the officiating priest, after 



the manner of the large ornamented disks of thin gold so 

 frequently turned up in Ireland." The following is his 

 description of this ornament : — 



" In the centre rises a youthful deity .... he is 

 crowned with rays like Phoebus (or more probably ' his 

 bonnet sedge,' like Camus), carries a sceptre, and is borne 

 over the waters in a car drawn by four sea-horses, like 

 the Roman Neptune. On each side floats in the air a 

 winged Genius, clearly typifying the Winds, one holding 

 forth in his right the leaf-shaped fan commonly seen in 

 the hands of Roman ladies ; the other Zephyr similarly 

 waves a handkerchief ; both grasp in the left hand the 

 end of the shawl or chlaviys, thrown loosely over each 

 arm. Rude as is the engraving, there is a lightness and 

 freedom in the drawing of these figures much to be 

 admired, and expressing with great truth the airy nature 

 of the beings it attempts to embody. Each end of the 

 composition is filled up with a reclining Triton ; the one 

 brandishing two paddles of the very shape still employed 

 by those that navigate the primitive British bark, the 

 coracle ; the other, an anchor, and his proper attribute, 

 the shell-trumpet, the cava buccina, assigned to him by 

 Ovid." 



There remains another piece of ornamentation, which 

 Mr. King regards as a fragment of the foregoing ; but I 

 must give his own words : — 



" On the smaller fragment, evidently part of the same 

 decoration, Triton is yet more distinctly represented ; he 

 is here winding a blast on his conch to call the winds to 

 do him service, whilst he wields the anchor for sceptre ; 

 on the other side sits the votary of Nodens, the Silurian 

 fisherman, enveloped in the hooded frieze mantle worn to 

 this day by his brethren of Naples, and who, by the 

 favour of the god, has just hooked a magnificent salmon." 



Mr. King is somewhat unlucky when he comes to touch 

 on questions of Celtic philology, as will be seen from the 

 following extract : — 



" Dr. McCaul quotes from a letter from Meyrick to 

 Lysons that ' Deus Nodens seems to be Romanised 

 British, which correctly written in the original language 

 would be Deus Noddyns, the " God of the abyss," or it 

 may be "God the preserver," from the verb noddi, to 

 preserve ; both words being derived from nawdd, which 

 signifies protection.' Prof Jarrett, a profound Celtic 

 scholar, to whom I applied for a translation of ' Deus 

 Noddyns' without mentioning Meyrick's explanation, at 

 once rendered it as ' God of the deeps,' a sense that every 

 circumstance confirms.' ' 



What Meyrick may have said to Lysons on Celtic 

 philology had best be forgotten, and with all respect to a 

 Celtic scholar with whose name I do not happen to be 

 acquainted, it will be at once admitted by all those who 

 know Welsh, that Noddyns is gibberish ; nay, I might go 

 so far as to say that it could not be made to fit into the 

 vocabulary of any Celtic language past or present. The 

 word which in all probability suggested it to Meyrick was 

 anoddyn or anoddyfn, "abyss," with which Nodens, how- 

 ever, could not, according to any known rules of Welsh 

 phonology, be connected. This -vvretched bit of philology 

 does not, I am glad to say, vitiate the rest of the editor's 

 reasoning, which seems to me so good that I should like 

 to put him on another tack. In a lecture not yet pub- 

 lished, but delivered before the present volume was 

 published, I ventured to equate the name of the god with 

 that of another, which I thought I detected in an Irish 

 proper name : I allude to Mogh Nuadhad (in an older 

 orthography Mog Nuadat), the name of a Munster prince 



