446 ISLAND OF COS; 
CHAP, this antient custom may yet be observed; the 
. -' . dona votiva being often suspended in the form of 
*you. And they 'Jul so ; and they laid the Ark of the Lord upon the 
* cart, and the coffer with the mice of gold, and with the images of 
* their emerods*.' 
" This, we have no doubt, is the earliest mention of the custom we 
are considering. ^Ve have observed at Phoccpa in the antient Lydia, 
at JEleusis, at jithnns, and other parts of Greece, holes of a square 
form, cut ill the limestone rOck, f(>r the puipose of receiving these 
vo/ifc offerings : sometimes the offerings themselves, ejes, feet, hands, 
have been discovered. At Cyzicum there is a representation of two 
feet on marble, with an inscrijition ; probably the vow of some person 
who bad performed a prosperous journey. The same subject is 
referred to in the engraving of a tablet published by Tomasini, on 
which are seen two feet, accompanied with these letters, QVIE 
lANAE H D, shewing that it was an offering by a person of the nam? 
of Janii to Hi/geia : and if the word Quit- be properly explained, 
quiescentU, the whole has reference, as we have observed, to a journey 
performed with safety. 
" Women, after child-birth, made votive offerings; and a represen- 
tation of the girdle was consecrated to DiANAf. j^vavtherus exjilains 
the subject of a niari)le, in which a person of the naivVe of Laomedon 
makes an offering to the Locldan Diana, on the safe delivery of hL< 
wife. 
"All these offerings, which were made either during illness, or after 
recovery from it, were termed p^a^iffrfi^ia t^s curx^las -. the words 'iu^»*> 
^a^nrfia, avaSni/^a, were also used : and in Latin, Donn, and Donaria. 
** As the temples of Neptune received the votive tributes of those 
whu had escaped the dangers of the sea; so the temples of ^scxilapiui 
were adorned with tablets presented by persons restored to health. 
Invalids were allowed to sleep in tlie porticoes, and the interior, of the 
fanes of Isis and JEscalupius ; and there, by the way of drenm, they 
received 
» 1 SamaW vi. 5,11. " Solcbant Veteres, (says Bocharl, on this passaRe.) aliqvt» 
metu vel periculo defunoli, lurEteritoiuni malorum insignia ac monumenta illis DiU 
onspciarc, aqnibus se liberatos putabant." Hieroz. Uh. xi. c. 36. 
t Cali'd Diana Avait^wvo^. '/.unam solvere, in Latin, has reference to marriage 
among lUe Greala, it rcfeircd to tkebirtli of tlie first child. Scali^er on Catullut. 
