ISO RUINS OF VLATMA. 
Ill 
CHAP, to US. The legend not being entire upon any 
one of them, we could only conjecture, from the 
subjects represented, that they were medals of 
Chalcis in Euhcea. In front they exhibit the 
same head of Ceres that appears upon the 
smaller Carthaginian medals; and upon their 
obverse sides, an eagle devouring a serpent, which 
may be considered as an invariable type of the 
medals of Chalcis\ Besides these, both here 
and at Platana, we obtained a few very small 
bronze coins of Bceotia, with the usual symbols 
— the Boeotian shield, a trident, and the legend 
BOmrnN. No medal of Platcea could be 
procured, either here, or in any other part of 
Bceotia ; nor is there an example of such a 
medal in any European collection. It has 
been said, in order to explain this, that the city 
was destroyed at a very early period ; but after 
its restoration, first by Philip, and afterwards 
by Alexander, it continued to be inhabited until 
a very late age. Pausanias, in the second 
(l) This curious symbolical representation of the Enisle and Serpent 
may admit of a conjectural illustration, when it is considered, that the 
bird of Jove denoted apotheosis, or lynmortalUy : and the serpent typified 
life. Perhaps, therefore, it was one of those mysterious allusions to a 
state of existence after death which existed among the Antients. 
Anusy a king of Lucedamon, affixed his signet, with this representation, 
upon the Letter he senttoOwfa^, High-priest of iheJews ; as it is related 
by Josephus. See also Du Pin, Bibl. Univ. p. 8. Jmst. 1708. 
