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supposed, but a town which still preserves the original Roman name, Venta, and its British translation, Y-gwent, under the aspirated pronunciation of Havant. This identification is clearly demonstrated by the distances in the imperial itinerary; and yet, by the same authority, Melcombe and Weymouth are Vindogladia.

ON THE WORSHIP OF DIANA IN BRITAIN.

BY THOMAS MORGAN, ESQ.

(Continued from p. 144.)

WHEN, on the 27th March, I read the first portion of my paper, "On the Worship of Diana in Britain," I was not aware that the attention of the Society had been drawn to the subject, in 1852, by the discovery of a bronze lamp with the crescent, the emblem of Diana, upon it, and that allusion had then been made to altars, statues, pottery, and lamps in terra cotta as well as bronze, which it was impossible to mistake as having reference to the goddess Diana; that allusion was also made at that time to the altar with the deity fully equipped for the chase, represented thereon, now in the Hall of the Goldsmiths' Company; and that the passage in Camden, having reference to the temple of the goddess on the site where now stands St. Paul's Cathedral, had at the same time been quoted,--all which will be found in the eighth volume of the Journal, at pp. 56-58. Mr. H. Syer Cuming also referred at that time to a lamp in the Brandenburgh collection, having the same shape, and crescent overshadowing the handle, as those found in London, and bearing the name of the Ephesian Artemis. It gives me great pleasure to see my documentary evidence confirmed. by the speaking testimony of actual discoveries on the spot, and I am induced to offer these further notes on the subject with reference more particularly to the period of time through which Diana's influence prevailed.

An observation was made by Mr. Cuming, in conversation on the terra-cotta head produced on 28th Feb. last, to the effect that its features were like those of Julia Domna. Now if such is the case, we may have empress and goddess under

one, and an era stamped when the worship of Diana was specially encouraged by imperial favour; for that empress, a native of Emesa in Syria, and daughter of Bassianus, a priest of the Sun, was a favourite of the goddess. The inhabitants of Nicoea, in Bithynia, when wishing to flatter that lady in a manner most pleasing to herself, represented her on their coins in the garb of Diana, riding in a chariot drawn at full speed by two harnessed stags. A drawing of the coin is annexed. It was not uncommon for a Roman emperor or empress to appropriate to himself divine honours before the time. She was a woman whose influence in Britain, as elsewhere, would be great; and there is much probability that she rendered Diana more than ever popular in Britain. Gibbon says of her, that "she possessed, even in an advanced age, the attractions of beauty, and united to a lively imagination a firmness of mind and strength of judgment seldom bestowed on her sex. Her amiable qualities never made any deep impression on the dark and jealous temper of her husband; but in her son's reign she administered the principal affairs of the empire with a prudence that supported his authority, and with a moderation that sometimes corrected his wild extravagancies. Julia applied herself to letters and philosophy with some success, and with the most splendid reputation. She was the patroness of every art, and the friend of every man of genius." We can hardly say of her as our own poet said of another Roman lady, that she was

"The moon of Rome, chaste as the icicle

That's curdled by the frost from purest snow,
And hangs on Dian's temple."

Her husband was the great Emperor Septimius Severus, who was a man of mark, and consolidated the Roman dominion in Britain. We find him, at the age of sixty, coming over to Britain with his wife and two sons, Caracalla and Geta, and a large army, to restrain the Picts and Scots. He had to be conveyed in a litter to York, in consequence of a fit of the gout. But his arms were successful; and the immense stone wall he built, 12 feet high and 8 feet wide, from the east coast, near Tynemouth, to the Solway Firth at Boulness, testifies to the energy and genius of his reign. He was much given to superstition and practices of magic, and had been guided in his choice of a wife by observation of

the stars. Julia's horoscope destined her to mount a throne. He resolved to unite his fortunes with her's. He triumphed over his rivals, and consolidated a tottering empire. A native of Africa, he may have been addicted to the worship of Isis and Serapis, foreign divinities who had been legally admitted into the fraternity of the gods of Rome some hundred years before. In 1833 was discovered at York a stone with the inscription that Hieronymus, of the sixth legion, had raised there a temple to Serapis, the Egyptian god,

"Deo sancto Serapi templum a solo fecit."

Turner, in his Anglo-Saxons, mentions this stone. Severus died at York A.D. 211. From this time up to the death at York of another Roman emperor, Constantius Chlorus, A.D. 306, when the great Constantine, his son, was hurrying post haste to Britain, to receive the last breath of a dying father, how much that is interesting in the history of religious feeling in Britain occurred, and how little do we know of the history of those times! How far did the doctrines of the new Platonists, the philosophy of Alexandria and the schools, affect the sacrifices at the altars of Diana and her kindred divinities? The stirring events, the dire famines which swept over and depopulated the empire from its centre to its extremities, at intervals throughout this century, must from time to time have recalled many a pater-familias in Britain from dreamy abstractions to the visible altars and images of the gods, and he would exclaim, like Horace,

"Parcus deorum cultor et infrequens
Insanientis dum philosophiæ

Consultus erro, nunc retrorsum
Vela dare atque iterare cursus
Cogor relictos."

But we look in vain for writers of the school of the Augustan age to touch in us a chord of sympathy in relating the habits and feelings of daily life. The "pictured page" of a Livy or a Tacitus is wanting to rescue from oblivion the history of those stirring times; and though Britain is so rich in the varied treasures which tell of her civilisation during the latter period of the Roman occupation, the actors in the scene have passed away into the darkness of night because the faithful chronicler and poet are wanting to keep alive. the memory of their actions. The youth of Britain seem

to have been amongst the best soldiers of Severus in the battle fought near Lyons, which secured the victory to his party. But what anecdotes do we know of the "crack" regiments in York, the sixth ("the Victorious") or the ninth ("the Spanish")? How did they behave towards the natives? Could a captain or lieutenant tread with impunity upon the toes of a civilian, as they did on those of Juvenal's friend in Rome? (Sat. 111, 248). And where were situated the courts of law, the fora, the comitia, the temples, and the frequented resorts of the fashionable loungers of York, Chester, Caerleon, Maldon, and other centres of life in Britain? Our archæological societies have done much to illumine this dark period, but much remains to be done to galvanise into life the remains we have and those which are still buried in the earth.

From the time of Constantine to Honorius, or another hundred years, notwithstanding the efforts of devout empresses favouring the new religion, and the fervour of the new sectaries, we find Claudian, anno 390-400, praising in his most eloquent strains the goddess Diana. He describes her as convening an assembly on the top of the Alps, presided over by herself and her seven commanding officers of her own sex, with three little armies of wood nymphs provided with all the requisites for the chase, and they were to be sent to distant lands to gladden and assist the natives now that peace was about to bless the earth. There were present also at this Alpine gathering hounds and dogs of all the best known breeds, and among them the British bulldog figures conspicuously. Here is a pedigree for him which a noble might be proud of:

"Variæ formis et gente sequuntur,
Ingenioque canes illæ gravioribus aptæ
Morsibus; hæ pedibus celeres, hæ nare sagaces,
Hirsutæque fremunt Cressæ, tenuesque Lacænæ,
Magnaque taurorum fracturæ colla Britannæ."

(In Sec. Cons. Stilich, vv. 297-301.)

The same poet, too, can pay no higher compliment to the young Emperor Honorius than to say that he was nourished in the bosom of the immortal goddesses Diana and Minerva : "Uberibus sanctis, immortalique dearum

Crescis adoratus gremio; tibi sæpe Diana
Monalios arcus venatricesque pharetras
Suspendit, puerile decus; tu sæpe Minervæ

Lusisti clypeo, fulvamque impune pererrans
Egida tractâsti blandos interritus angues."

(De IV Cons. Honorii, vv. 159-164.)

Here we will leave Diana, calling attention to a coin (of which I exhibit a drawing), where the same idea prevails, of the united efficacy of Diana and Minerva in human affairs.

ON HUNGARIAN POLITICAL AND COUNTY INSTITUTIONS,

AND THEIR ANALOGY TO OUR OWN.

BY AUGUSTUS GOLDSMID, ESQ., F.S.A.

This is

It is a singular fact that the European country whose administrative and political institutions present considerable analogy to our own, and whose inhabitants, both by their general habit of thought and manner of life, most resemble us, should be so little generally known to us. probably to be explained (apart from the too general indifference of Englishmen to the institutions of foreign countries not affecting their political or commercial interests) by the comparative remoteness of the country, and by the peculiarity of a national dress still prevalent in a large portion of it, as well as of a language of oriental origin, differing entirely from others spoken in Europe. To these latter causes may also be attributed the fact that resemblances between the two countries have been less attended to.

The object of this paper is to point out to the consideration of archæologists some singular and interesting affinities in the old Hungarian political and county institutions with our own, and to endeavour to direct further public attention to a land where the love for and knowledge of English institutions and English literature are so widely spread; lastly, and perhaps not least, where Englishmen are so kindly and so hospitably welcomed by all classes.

Hungary, without Transylvania, is, like England, divided into fifty-two counties, in each of which there is a lordlieutenant (comes supremus), whose appointment has, as in our own country, long been vested in the government; and

1872

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