Subito cum pondere victus
Insiliente mari submergitur alveus undis.
Scuta virum cristæque, et inerti spicula ferro
Tutelæque deûm fluitant.

Sunk by a weight so dreadful, down she goes,
And o'er her head the broken billows close:

SIL. IT. lib. xiv.

Bright shields and crests float round the whirling floods,
And useless spears confused with tutelary gods.

-trabe ruptâ Bruttia saxa

Prendit amicus inops, remque omnem surdaque vota
Condidit: Iönio jacet ipse in littore, et unà
Ingentes de puppe Dei, jamque obvia mergis
Costa ratis laceræ.

My friend is shipwrecked on the Bruttian strand,
His riches in the Ionian main are lost;
And he himself stands shivering on the coast:
Where, destitute of help, forlorn and bare,
He wearies the deaf gods with fruitless prayer.
Their images, the relics of the wreck,
Torn from their naked poop, are tided back
By the wild waves; and, rudely thrown ashore,
Lie impotent, nor can themselves restore.
The vessel sticks, and shows her opened side,

PERS. SAT. vi,

And on her shattered mast the mews in triumph ride.

MR. DRYDEN.

You will think, perhaps, I carry my conjectures too far, if I tell you that I fancy they are these kind of gods that Horace mentions in his allegorical vessel, which was so broken and shattered to pieces; for I am apt to think that integra relates to the gods as well as the lintea.

Non tibi sunt integra lintea,
Non dii, quos iterum pressa voces malo.
Thy stern is gone, thy gods are lost,

HOR. Od. 14, lib. i.

MR. CREECH.

And thou hast none to hear thy cry, When thou on dangerous shelves art tost, When billows rage, and winds are high. Since we are engaged so far in the Roman shipping, says Philander, I'll here show you a medal1 that has on its reverse a rostrum with three teeth to it; whence Silius's trifidum rostrum and Virgil's rostrisque tridentibus, which in some editions is stridentibus, the editor choosing rather to make a false quantity than to insert a word that he did not know the meaning of. Flaccus gives us a rostrum of the

same make.

Volat immissis cava pinus habenis

Infinditque salum, et spumas vomit ære tridenti.

VAL. FLAC. ARGON. lib. i.

A ship-carpenter of old Rome, says Cynthio, could not have talked more judiciously. I am afraid, if we let you alone, you will find out every plank and rope about the vessel, among the Latin poets. Let us now, if you please, go to the next medal.

The next, says Philander, is a pair of scales,1 which we meet with on several old coins. They are commonly interpreted as an emblem of the emperor's justice. But why may not we suppose that they allude sometimes to the Balance in the heavens, which was the reigning constellation of Rome and Italy? Whether it be so or not, they are capable, methinks, of receiving a nobler interpretation than what is commonly put on them, if we suppose the thought of the reverse to be the same as that in Manilius.

Hesperiam sua Libra tenet, quâ condita Roma
Et propriis frænat pendentem nutibus orbem,
Orbis et Imperium retinet, discrimina rerum
Lancibus, et positas gentes tollitque premitque:
Qua genitus cum fratre Remus hanc condidit urbem.

MANIL. lib. iv.

The Scales rule Italy, where Rome commands,
And spreads its empire wide to foreign lands:
They hang upon her nod, their fates are weighed
By her, and laws are sent to be obeyed:
And as her powerful favour turns the poise,
How low some nations sink and others rise;
Thus guide the scales, and then, to fix our doom,
They gave us Cæsar, founder of our Rome.

2

MR. CREECH.

The thunder-bolt is a reverse of Augustus.3 We see it used by the greatest poet of the same age to express a terrible and irresistible force in battle, which is probably the meaning of it on this medal, for, in another place, the same poet applies the same metaphor to Augustus's person.

Scipiadas

VIRG. EN. lib. vi.

The Scipios' worth, those thunderbolts of war? MR. DRYDEN.

-duo fulmina belli

Who can declare

While mighty Cæsar, thundering from afar,

Seeks on Euphrates' banks the spoils of war. MR. DRYDEN. I have sometimes wondered, says Eugenius, why the Latin poets so frequently give the epithets of trifidum and trisulcum to the thunderbolt. I am now persuaded they took it from the sculptors and painters that lived before them, and had generally given it three forks, as in the present figure. Virgil insists on the number three in its description, and seems to hint at the wings we see on it. He has worked up such a noise and terror in the composition of his thunderbolt as cannot be expressed by a pencil or graving tool.

Tres imbris torti radios, tres nubis aquosæ
Addiderant, rutili tres ignis, et Alitis Austri.
Fulgores nunc terrificos sonitumque metumque
Miscebant operi, flammisque sequacibus iras.

VIRG. EN. lib. viii.

MR. DRYDen.

Three rays of writhen rain, of fire three more, Of winged southern winds, and cloudy store, As many parts, the dreadful mixture frame; And fears are added, and avenging flame. Our next reverse is an oaken garland, which we find on abundance of imperial coins. I shall not here multiply quotations to show that the garland of oak was the reward of such as had saved the life of a citizen, but will give you a passage out of Claudian, where the compliment to Stilico is the same that we have here on the medal. I question not but the old coins gave the thought to the poet.

Mos erat in veterum castris, ut tempora quercu
Velaret, validis qui fuso viribus hoste
Casurum potuit morti subducere civem.
Ad tibi quæ poterit pro tantis civica reddi

Mænibus aut quantæ pensabunt facta coronæ ?

CLAUD. DE LAUD. STIL. lib. iii..

Of old, when in the war's tumultuous strife

A Roman saved a brother Roman's life,

And foiled the threatening foe, our sires decreed

An oaken garland for the victor's meed.

Thou who hast saved whole crowds, whole towns set free,
What groves, what woods, shall furnish crowns for thee?

It is not to be supposed that the emperor had actually covered a Roman in battle. It is enough that he had driven out a tyrant, gained a victory, or restored justice; for in any of these or the like cases he may very well be said to have

1 Fig. 5.

saved the life of a citizen, and by consequence entitled to the reward of it. Accordingly, we find Virgil distributing his oaken garlands to those that had enlarged or strengthened the dominions of Rome; as we may learn from Statius, that the statue of Curtius, who had sacrificed himself for the good of the people, had the head surrounded with the same kind of ornament.

Atque umbrata gerunt civili tempora quercu.

VIRG. EN. lib. vi.

MR. DRYDEn.

Hi tibi Nomentum, et Gabios, urbemque Fidenam,
Hi Collatinas imponent montibus arces.
But they who crowned with oaken wreaths appear,
Shall Gabian walls and strong Fidena rear:
Nomentum, Bola, with Pometia, found;
And raise Collatian towers on rocky ground.
Ipse loci custos, cujus sacrata vorago,
Famosusque lacus nomen memorabile servat,
Innumeros æris sonitus, et verbere crudo
Ut sensit mugire Forum, movet horrida sancto
Ora situ, meritâque caput venerabile quercu.

STATIUS SYL. lib. i.

The guardian of that lake, which boasts to claim
A sure memorial from the Curtian name;
Roused by the artificers, whose mingled sound
From the loud Forum pierced the shades profound,
The hoary vision rose confessed in view,

And shook the civic wreath that bound his brow.

The two horns that you see on the next medal are emblems of plenty.'

-Apparetque beata pleno
Copia cornu.

HOR. CARM. SÆC.

Your medallists tell us that two horns on a coin signify an extraordinary plenty. But I see no foundation for this conjecture. Why should they not as well have stamped two thunderbolts, two Caduceuses, or two ships, to represent an extraordinary force, a lasting peace, or an unbounded happiness. I rather think that the double cornu-copiæ relates to the double tradition of its original. Some representing it as the horn of Achelous broken off by Hercules, and others, as the horn of the goat that gave suck to Jupiter.

-rigidum fera dextera cornu

Dum tenet, infregit; truncâque à fronte revellit
Naiades hoc, pomis et odoro flore repletum,

Sacrârunt; divesque meo bona copia cornu est.

Fig. 6.

Dixerat: at Nymphe ritu succincta Dianæ
Una ministrarum, fusis utrinque capillis,
Incessit, totumque tulit prædivite cornu
Autumnum, et mensas felicia poma secundas.

DE ACHELOI CORN. OV. MET. lib. ix.

Nor yet his fury cooled; twixt rage and scorn,
From my maimed front he bore the stubborn horn:
This, heaped with flowers and fruits, the Naiads bear,
Sacred to Plenty and the bounteous year.

He spoke; when lo! a beauteous nymph appears,
Girt like Diana's train, with flowing hairs;

The horn she brings, in which all autumn's stored;
And ruddy apples for the second board.

Lac dabat illa deo: sed fregit in arbore cornu :
Truncaque dimidiâ parte decoris erat.

MR. GAY.

Sustulit hoc Nymphe; cinctumque recentibus herbis,
Et plenum pomis ad Jovis ora tulit.

Ille, ubi res cœli tenuit, solioque paterno
Sedit, et invicto nil Jove majus erat,

Sidera nutricem, nutricis fertile cornu

Fecit; quot dominæ numc quoque nomen habet.

DE CORNU AMALTH. OV. DE FAST. lib. v.

The god she suckled, of old Rhea born;

And in the pious office broke her horn,
As playful in a rifted oak she tost

Her heedless head, and half its honours lost.
Fair Amalthea took it off the ground,

With apples filled it, and with garlands bound,
Which to the smiling infant she conveyed.
He, when the sceptre of the gods he swayed,
When bold he seized his father's vacant throne,
And reigned the tyrant of the skies alone,

Bid his rough nurse the starry heavens adorn,
And grateful in the zodiac fixed her horn.

Betwixt the double cornu-copia, you see Mercury's rod.
Cyllenes cœlique decus, facunde minister,

Aurea cui torto virga dracone viret. MART. lib. vii. Epig. 74. Descend, Cyllene's tutelary god,

With serpents twining round thy golden rod.

It stands on old coins as an emblem of Peace, by reason of its stupifying quality that has gained it the title of virga somnifera. It has wings, for another quality that Virgil mentions in his description of it.

Hac fretus ventos et nubila tranat. VIRG.

Thus armed, the god begins his airy race,
And drives the racking clouds along the liquid space.

MR. DRYDEN.

The two heads over the two cornu-copiæ are of the emperor's