But if we consider the history of this medal, we shall find more fancy in it than the medallists have yet discovered. Nero and Octavia were not only husband and wife, but brother and sister, Claudius being the father of both. We have this relation between them marked out in the tragedy of Octavia, where it speaks of her marriage with Nero.

Fratris thalamos sortita tenet
Maxima Juno: soror Augusti
Sociata toris, cur à patriâ
Pellitur aulâ ?

To Jove, his sister consort wed,
Uncensured shares her brother's bed:
Shall Cæsar's wife and sister wait,
An exile at her husband's gate?

SEN. OCT. act. i.

Ibid. act. ii.

Implebit aulam stirpe cœlesti tuam
Generata divo, Claudæ gentis decus,
Sortita fratris, more Junonis, toros.
Thy sister, bright with every blooming grace,
Will mount thy bed t' enlarge the Claudian race:
And, proudly teeming with fraternal love,
Shall reign a Juno with the Roman Jove.

They are, therefore, very prettily represented by the sun and moon, who as they are the most glorious parts of the universe, are in poetical genealogy brother and sister. Virgil gives us a sight of them in the same position that they regard each other on this medal.

Nec Fratris radiis obnoxia surgere Luna.

VIRG. GEORG. i.

The flattery on the next medal1 is in the same thought as that of Lucretius.

Ipse Epicurus obît decurso lumine vitæ;

Qui genus humanum ingenio superavit, et omneis

Præstrinxit, stellas exortus uti ætherius sol. LUCRET. lib. iii.

Nay, Epicurus' race of life is run;

That man of wit, who other men outshone,

As far as meaner stars the mid-day sun.

MR. CREECH.

The emperor appears as the rising sun, and holds a globe in his hand, to figure out the earth that is enlightened and

actuated by his beauty.

Sol qui terrarum flammis opera omnia lustras.

-ubi primos crastinus ortus

Fxtulerit Titan, radiisque retexerit orbem.

When next the sun his rising light displays,

VIRG.

Idem.

And gilds the world below with purple rays. MR. DRYDEN.

On his head you see the rays that seem to grow out of it. Claudian, in the description of his infant Titan, descants on this glory about his head, but has run his description into most wretched fustian.

Invalidum dextro portat Titana lacerto,.

Nondum luce gravem, nec pubescentibus altè

Cristatum radiis; primo clementior ævo

Fingitur, et tenerum vagitu despuit ignem.

CLAUD. DE RAPT. PROs. lib. ii.

An infant Titan held she in her arms;

Yet sufferably bright, the eye might bear

The ungrown glories of his beamy hair.

Mild was the babe, and from his cries there came

A gentle breathing and a harmless flame.

The sun rises on a medal of Commodus,1 as Ovid describes him in the story of Phaëton.

Ardua prima via est, et quà vix manè recentes
Enituntur equi-

OV. MET. lib. ii.

You have here, too, the four horses breaking through the clouds in their morning passage.

Pyroëis, et Eöus, et Æthon,

Solis equi, quartusque Phlegon

Corripuere viam, pedibusque per aëra motis

Obstantes scindunt nebulas

Ibid.

Ibid.

The woman underneath represents the Earth, as Ovid has

drawn her sitting in the same figure.

Sustulit omniferos collo tenus arida vultus;

Opposuitque manum fronti, magnoque tremore

Omnia concutiens paulum subsedit.

The earth at length

Uplifted to the heavens her blasted head,
And clapped her hand upon her brows, and said,

(But first, impatient of the sultry heat,

Sunk deeper down, and sought a cooler seat).

Ibid.

The cornu-copiæ in her hand is a type of her fruitfulness, as in the speech she makes to Jupiter.

That herbs for cattle daily I renew,
And food for man, and frankincense for you?

So much for the designing part of the medal; as for the thought of it, the antiquaries are divided upon it. For my part I cannot doubt but it was made as a compliment to Commodus on his skill in the chariot-race. It is supposed that the same occasion furnished Lucan with the same thought in his address to Nero.

Seu te flammigeros Phœbi conscendere currus,

Telluremque, nihil mutato sole, timentem

Igne vago lustrare juvet

Luc. lib. i., AD NERONEM.

Or if thou choose the empire of the day,

And make the sun's unwilling steeds obey;

Auspicious if thou drive the flaming team,

While earth rejoices in thy gentler beam. MR. ROWE.

This is so natural an allusion, that we find the course of the sun described in the poets by metaphors borrowed from the Circus.

Quum suspensus eat Phœbus, currumque reflectat
Huc illuc agiles, et servet in æthere metas.

MANIL. lib. i.

Idem.

Hesperio positas in littore metas. Ov. MET. lib. ii. Et sol ex æquo metâ distabat utrâque. However it be, we are sure in general it is a comparing of Commodus to the sun, which is a simile of as long standing as poetry, I had almost said, as the sun itself.

I believe, says Cynthio, there is scarce a great man he ever shone upon that has not been compared to him. I look on similes as a part of his productions. I do not know whether he raises fruits or flowers in greater number. Horace has turned this comparison into ridicul seventeen hundred

years ago.

-laudat Brutum, laudatque cohortem,

Solem Asiæ Brutum appellat

He praiseth Brutus much and all his train;
He calls him Asia's Sun-

HOR. Sat. 7, lib. i

MR. CREECH.

You have now shown us persons under the disguise of stars, moons, and suns. I suppose we have at last done with the celestial bodies.

The next figure you see, says Philander, had once a place in the heavens, if you will believe ecclesiastical story. It is the sign that is said to have appeared to Constantine before the battle with Maxentius. We are told by a Christian