1890.] Punch-marked r.oim nf niiiduntaii , ^c. 211 
each kind offered at the dedication of the ark. Seven were tho planets 
worshipped in Chaldsea and seven the days of the week. Seven was the 
number of the Pleiades, seven the Champions of Christendom, the sages 
of Greece, the sleepers of Ephesus, and the llishis of Hindustan. Holy 
was the seventh day in Hesiod’s Calender (among others) for thereon 
Leto gave birth to Apollo. Seven times did the tuneful swans (as Calli- 
machus tells us in his Hymn to Pelos) circle round the head of the 
goddess in her travail, and seven strings, in commemoration thereof did 
her son attach to his lyre. Seven w'as the number of the gates of Thebes 
and the warriors who attempted to sack that city. Seven were the 
female captives, second in beauty to Argive Helen alone, whom Aga- 
memnon preferred to Achilles to win his forgiveness, and seven the 
folds of tough bulls’ hides which fenced the heart of Telamonian Ajax. 
Seven were the horses of Surya and the Princesses in tho Indian tale 
of ‘ Punckhin,’ but the examples might be multiplied indefinitely were 
it necessary, and we may even trace the idea in such larger totals as 
the appointed span of man’s days, and the seven hundred wives of 
Solomon. 
Without therefore seeking for more positive indications whether 
this symbol bears a planetary reference or some other religious or esoteric 
allusion, we may feel cei’tain it is not fortuitously septiform in design, 
but intentionally framed, with reference in some way or other to that 
mystical number which seems to dog the student through the mazes of 
history, mythology and folk-lore alike. 
21. A ‘ Stupa ’ composep op two or three Hemispherical Cells. Fig. 47. 
The simple stupa is of rare occurrence on these coins, but the 
variants thereof to be enumerated belovv are among tho commonest 
symbols after perhaps the ‘solar wheel.’ 
Regarding the attribution of certain of these symbols to Buddhist 
ideas Mr. Thomas remarks in his essay on “Ancient Weights,” Numis- 
mata Orientalia Part I, p. 58. “ So also amongst the numerous symbols 
or esoteric monograms that have been claimed as specially Buddhist, 
there is not one that is absolutely and conclusively an origination of or 
emanation from that creed.” Now this assertion is altogether too hy- 
percritical to merit complete acceptance, though it may be partially 
true. The Cross is an emblem by common consent of Christians, allowed 
to be symbolical of their faith, yet if wo accept the above conclusion of 
Mr. Thomas, it would cease to have any claim to be so regarded, be- 
cause, long anterior to Christianity it was an esoteric emblem of a 
different charactor, or if we put aside this argument, still the instrument 
used by the Romans anteriorly to the birth of Christ for the punishment 
