; HERALDRY. 
had, from some extraordinary causes, become hereditary 
’ and transmissible. © : hap yas 
_ §. Aventinus, descended from Hercules, carried a 
he: nydra on his buckler;/and one of the Corvini is mens 
' tioned by Silius Italicus as having the raven of his an- 
- cestors for his crest. In Ovid, “Egeus recognises his 
son Theseus by the marks of his family on the pommel 
‘of his sword. Hypolitus-carried, in the same manner, 
* marks of his rap Be re | surety - ny and 
ypsipilus bore as vice the ship. of the Argo« 
nauts.. See fineid, Ve : ; 
a  ——Victores ostentat equos satus Hercule pulcro 
*  Pulcher, Aventinus, clypeoque insigne paternum 
~ Centum angues, cinctamque gerit serpentibus Hydram, 
aa 2 Staats rd + 
_ See also Sil. Ital. 5... ; dab 
_ Corvinus phebmxa sedet cui casside fulva 
Ostentans ales proavite insignia pugna. 
Ovid Metam. 7. 
Cum pater in capulo gladii cognovit eburno 
Signa sui generis. 
_ Seneca in Hypolito. 
Regale parvis asperum signis ebur 
Capulo refulget gentis Actzre decus. 
e.: 
among the ancient writers, ty sms THs. weATHS 
«eres, was the well-known i of the Median 
and Persian ki (Xeno: 
cuirasses ; but they by no means prove that these figures 
were armorial of the 
we have cited, prove nothing more than that certain 
warriors adorned their shields, and the pommels of their 
aurum Celtas umbene ferebat. 
‘ ‘ Sil. It. 4 
Yet who would think of asserting that the Capitol, and 
Gauls weighing were the armorial bearings of 
Chryxus? Wiecace rasiataine this, must admit that 
713 
all the images and 
and shields, were armorial bearings in the same manner 
as these, and he will find not afew who bore the whole 
history of a-country, or a few dozens of the metamor- 
phoses, for their blason. It seems evident then, that all 
these authorities prove nothing concerning the origin of 
heraldic bearings, more than they do concerning thet of 
emblems or of devices ; because the signs of which they 
make mention do not appear either to have been fixed 
in their forms, or of any determined colour, or univers 
sally hereditary. The far greater part appear to be 
the mere fictions and ornaments of poetry ; such as the 
chimera on the casque of Turnus; Io changed into a 
cow ;.Argus who watched her ; and Inachus with his 
5 pics which a stream descended on his buckler, 
n. 7 
figures of ancient casques, cuirasses, Stes 
7. The pretended arms of the tribes of Israel are en- Rabbinical 
tirely the reveries of the Rabbins of the later times, who heraldry. 
have amused themselves with imagining these figures, 
on the authority of certain allegorical expressions of 
which Jacob made use, to prediet to his children the for- 
tunes of their descendants... They assign to the tribe 
of Judah a lion, because he said to one. of his sons, 
«* Judah is a lion’s whelp ;, from the prey my son thou 
art gone up,” &c. Gen, xlix: 9. And to that of Zabu- 
Jon an anchor, on account of this prophecy, “ Zabulon 
shall dwell at the haven of the sea.” Gen, xlix. 13. 
And as they have not been able to find any thing very 
appropriate for Ruben in the malediction of his father, 
ey blazon for him the mandrakes which he presented 
to his mother Leah. 
To say nothing of the evident absurdity of all this, 
the authors in w writings these bearings are men- 
tioned are very far from being consistent among them- 
selves. Some give to Dan an eagle, others a serpent, 
and some an eagle choking a serpent. Barnabas Mo- 
reno de Vargas, indeed, blazons ‘al the tribes of Israel 
in a manner different from what has been mentioned 
above ; as, ** Los de tribu de Ruben porque su padre 
lo comparo al aqua posieron. por armas unas ondas de 
aqua: Los de Zabulon pusieron una nave,” &c. Dis- 
curs. 18. De la Noblez. ‘ 
8. Neither does there appear any greater certainty Classical 
among the Greek writers. Ulysses, in Lycophron, car~ heraldry. 
ries a dolphin on his buckler, and is ccomndinely styled 
YAPivooneos; but Homer assigns to him the figure of 
the giant Typheus. Agamemnon, in the Iliad, carries 
the gorgon’s head, but, in Pausanias, the head of a ; 
lion; and elsewhere we find him described with one 
dragon.on his helmet and three on his shield. As for 
the celebrated shields of the seven chiefs against Thebes, 
it is rather amusing to find, that, after all the many ar- 
guments which have been founded on the accurate ac- 
count of them in /ischylus, that great poet does not 
coincide, in any one particular, with the equally minute 
and laborious description of Euripides. 
Even when the authors are perfeetly consistent, the 
utmost that can be made out of their report is, that 
these warriors bore certain emblems, which may per- 
haps have bad some mystical meaning ; but can ne- 
ver be proved to have been marks of noble birth, as 
our armorial bearings are, even though some of them 
may have trom father to son ; otherwise we must, 
believe, on the credit of Suetonius, that the Domitian 
* At levem clypeum sublatis cornibus Io 
Auro insignibat, jam setis obsita, jant bos 
r Argumentumgq. ingens, et custos virginis Argus 
ian Celataque amnem fundens pater Inachus urna. 
VOL. X, PART II. 
4x 
