282 ATHENS. 
car, with four horses : the workmanship of this 
cameo was exceedingly fine 1 . The author also 
obtained here, for forty piastres, the fine silver 
tetradrachm of Lysimachus, exhibiting the por- 
trait of Alexander the Great, which he caused to 
be engraved for a Dissertation upon the Soros 
brought from Alexanders Tomb; and he after- 
wards procured, from an Albanian family, a 
silver medal of Athens, of equal size, and almost 
Symbol of equal beauty. The well-known symbol of the 
Amphora void Amphora, lying horizontally upon the re- 
verses of Athenian medals, has never received any 
' satisfactory illustration. It is accompanied by 
an owl, and the bird is represented sitting upon 
the vessel. The mythological principle implied 
by the one may therefore be supposed to have 
an allusion also in the other; and that this is 
true, and that the principle so expressed was 
passive as to its nature, may be clearly shewn 
by reference to a few facts. The owl was the 
symbol of Pallas, because it denoted the priva- 
tion or the absence of light; and the author has 
(l) The same subject is represented, but with the addition of the 
Giants and their serpent legs, precisely after the same manner, by the 
fine antique engraved in the Paris edition of ffinkelmann's Works. 
Vay. CEuvres complete* de ffinkelmann, torn. II. lib. iv. c. 8. p. 115. 
Paris, An 2. 
