were the wine-casks of early times, before they were superseded by the cooper's art; and they were placed in the soft earth of the cellars, and supported by reeds and withes, of which their sides often bear the marks at the present day. They were destined to contain corn, oil, wine, and other articles of domestic consumption. Whole stacks of these amphoræ have been discovered in Apulia; and within the last three months a range of them of enormous size has been disinterred at Nantes in France. Each of the Nantes amphora is said to have been capable of containing 8 to 10 hectolitres, (a measure of 22 gallons English). There is another singularly-shaped amphora upon the table, its form being that of an inverted pear, the narrower part being obviously intended to be fixed in the ground. Another vase, here exhibited, approaches nearly to the shape of the Stamnos of the old writers; while another, of rather more elegant form, with ribbed handles, contains human bones and ashes, and has therefore been a cinerary urn in which the ashes of the dead were deposited after cremation. Some of the smaller vases have evidently been lecythi and lachrymatories. Some may have held the unguents the dead used when in life. There are also two or three lamps-none, however, of peculiarly elegant or rare form. As to the age of these vases, it may be observed that in the island of Malta the original types were probably long perpetuated after more elegant forms and richer ornamentation had been adopted in Magna Græcia and elsewhere. Malta has afforded few of those splendid vases that adorn many of the greater collections, and especially the museums of Naples and Rome. On the other hand, if contiguity of site be absolute proof, numerous vases of the kind here shown have been discovered in Malta along with Phœnician inscriptions. Thus, the Canon Bonici, at Malta, possesses a fine and quite perfect Phoenician inscription of six lines, which was found near the hospital at Rabbato, in an excavation like a tank, which contained, also, a large number of vases filled with the bones of animals and birds. Similar vases containing similar remains have been fre quently met with in Egypt. We think it extremely probable that the Maltese vases are of very early date, coeval with Phoenician rule in the Mediterranean, and that they consequently belong to a period of several centuries anterior to the Christian era. They exhibit the partial transition from the rude forms of Egyptian to the refined shapes of the highest period of Grecian art, and, as such, even though we cannot positively fix the date of their manufacture, are of high interest to the archæological student.

GWYN'S MEMOIR.-Mr. Longstaffe exhibited a MS. book belonging to Mrs. Allgood, of the Hermitage, labelled "Hunter's Gift," having been presented by her relative Dr. Hunter, the Durham antiquary, to Mrs. Elizabeth Baker, formerly Conyers. On the back is the bookplate of her grandson, George Baker of Elemore. It comprises the feats of Captain John Gwyn, of the House of Trelydan, in Montgomeryshire, in the Royalist service, prepared "in regard of his Grace the Duke of Monmouth's late commands that whosoever rides in the Royal Troope

of Guards must give an account how long and in what capacity he had served the King, and whether gentleman or mechanick." To prove his quality Gwyn gives his pedigree and arms. Among the "replyes I made when examined before the enemy," is the following adventure at Newcastle::

"When all our hopes of risings or any good to be don in or about London were at an end, then I tooke a jurney (though never so ill provided for it) to Newcastle, to see what the Scotts would do. And by that time I came, there was an order of Parliament sent to the Scotts that they should not entertaine any into their army who formerly had served the King. But, awhile after, in the extremity I was in to subsist, and by attempting to get to the town to find a friend, I was ceized upon for a malignant, and sent with a file of musqueteers before the Major of New-Castle, who was an exact fanatique, and lays it to me thus:- Well, had it please God to give you victory over us, as it pleased his divin will to give us victory over you, ye had called us villains, traytors, sons of whores; nay, ye had kickt us too.' • You are in the right on't, sir,' said I: at which he sullenly ruminats, whilst some of his aldermen could not containe themselves for laughing; but, being both of one opinion as to the point, he only banisht me the town, with a promise that, when I came againe, he would provid a lodging for me, which was to be in the Castle Dungeon, where many a brave fellow that came upon the same account as I did, in hope the Scotts would declare for the King, were starved to death by a reprobat Marshall.

"When I had waited a tedious time up and downe about New Castle in pennance to know what the Scotts would do, and in conclusion all to prove starke nought, then I designed to go for Scotland. In the meantime some of the Scotts officers very kindly invite me with them into Scotland, assurcing me that from thence were frequent opportunities for Holaad."

He went, but found his party under such a cloud that with some difficulty he came back by sea to Newcastle, and thence departed to London and Holland.

MONTHLY MEETING OF THE SOCIETY.
6 June, 1860.

Matthew Wheatley, Esq., Treasurer, in the Chair.

DONATIONS OF Books.-From the University of Christiana. Cronica Regum Manniæ et Insularum. The Chronicle of Man and the Sudreys, edited, with notes, from the Cotton MS., Julius, A. VII., by Professor P.A. Munch: Christiania, 1860.

VOLUNTEERS.-The use of the great Hall of the Castle having been granted by the Society to some local bodies of Volunteers for private drill, letters of thanks from them have been received.

NEW MEMBER.-Hugh Taylor, Esq., M.P., Backworth Hall.

ROMAN COINS.-Mr. Robert Fell, of Newcastle, presented an iron key and 17 Roman coins of brass, found at Old-Ford, near London, about 10 feet below the surface and 10 yards from the side of the River Lea, in the excavations for a main sewer contracted for by Mr. William Moxon. It is supposed that the level where the key and coins were was that of the surface where the Romans crossed an "old ford."

ROMAN BRIDGE AT CILURNUM.-Dr. Bruce exhibited Mr. Mossman's drawings of portions of the massive masonry disclosed in excavating this work.

VIEW OF NEWCASTLE.-Mr. John Hudson Smith, of 21, St. Paul's Street, Portland-square, Bristol, had presented the Prospect of the Town of Newcastle-upon-Tyne from the South: Sold by Tho. Taylor at the Golden Lyon in Fleet Street, London. The donor, who, in visiting the Castle, had observed our want of this rarity, observes that a similar engraving and by the same hand, in his possession, is dedicated to Henry Lord Bolingbroke, one of Her Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State," and from this infers that the View of Newcastle may also be dated about 1710 or 1712. It is not accurate, being probably improved by the engraver from a very hasty sketch; for instance, the steeple of St. Nicholas' Church has a story too many.

ROMAN INSCRIPTIONS AT LISBURN.-Dr. Bruce exhibited photograms of two Roman inscribed stones prepared for the Duke of Northumberland on his personally observing these remains, which Murphy, in his Travels in Portugal, roughly engraves without explanaplanation. Dr. Bruce ventured, from the brilliantly expressed grain of the larger stone, to say that it is of sienetic granite, and read the following remarks:

The larger inscription is unfortunately imperfect. It has been split vertically, and the right hand portion of it is wanting. Any attempt to complete the inscription must be, to a large extent, conjectural. The letters which we have I give below in Roman capitals: those that I have ventured to supply I have marked in Italics: MERCVRio etCAESAri divi f.—AVGVSTO-C. IVLIVS H..... PERMISSV DECvrionvm -DEDIT Dicavit. It may be translated: "To Mercury and Augustus Cæsar, the son of the deified Cæsar, Caius Julius H.

by

permission of the decurions, gave and dedicated this."-The stone has more the appearance of a slab to be inserted in the front of a temple, than of an altar. The principal objection which an ordinary reader would take to the reading which I propose, is the apparent impiety of associating Augustus with the god Mercury. Those conversant with inscriptions will be the rather disposed to wonder that any imaginary deity was allowed to share in the adoration offered to a living emperor. Ovid does not hesitate to address Augustus by the name of the king of gods and men.

Parcite, cærulci, vos parcite, numina ponti;
Infestumque mihi sit satis esse Jovem.

Spare me, ye deities of the azure ocean, spare me : let it be enough that Jove is incensed with me." And most of us will remember the lines of Horace in which the poet conceives of the emperor assuming the person of Mercury (the very deity in question):

Sive mutata juvenem figura
Ales in terris imitaris, almæ
Filius Maiæ, patiens vocari
Cæsaris ultor:

:

which our noble and learned Vice-President thus translates :

Lord Ravensworth rightly remarks upon this ode "To invest the emperor with the divine attributes, and even personalities, of Apollo, Venus, Mars, and Mercury, in succession, seems to surpass all bounds of poetical license and courtly adulation." The passage, however, fully bears me out in associating Augustus with Mercury. It is in vain to attempt to supply the family name of the dedicator, as only one letter of it remains. It is, however, worthy of remark, that in Gruter (ccccxii. 3) there is an inscription which appears to have been placed in the vestibule of a temple in Alatri, a town of Latium, to this effect:-"To Caius Julius Helenus, a freedman of Augustus, (erected) by decree of the decurions of the municipality, on account of his merits." This may have been the person we have to deal with. Few would be so ready to offer adulation to an emperor as his own favourite freedman. The decuriones were the members of the senate the town-councillors, in short - of the municipium.

The other incription presents no difficulties. It is :-DEVM MATRI— T. LICINIVS—AMARANTHVS-V. S. L. M.-"To the Mother of the Gods, Titus Licinius Amaranthus dedicates this, in discharge of a vow, deservedly on her part and willingly on his." Inscriptions to the Mother of the Gods are by no means rare. Some times she is addressed singly, and sometimes in conjunction with other deities,

8166

The following Delphin note may be added to Dr. Bruce's quotation "Vulgaris erat opinio et fama, Mercurium Julii Cæsaris vindicem fuisse assumptâ juvenili figurâ Augusti, qui natus erat annos tantum novemdecim quando Cæsar interfectus est."

especially Isis and Atis. The epithet magna-the Great Mother-is often applied to her. In our own collection we have an inscription, found at Caervoran, in which she is thus addressed ::-VIRGO EADEM MATER DIVVM, PAX, VIRTVS, CERES, DEA SYRIA.- "The same Virgin is the Mother of the Gods, is Peace, is Virtue, is Ceres, is the Syrian Goddess." When men forsake the worship of the living and true God, they usually give that adoration to some of the noblest and most useful of His creatures which is due to him. Hence the sun and moon are worshipped. To worship that life and vitality to which the rays of the sun so largely contribute, is but one step further in the downward career of idolatry. Hence we find the generative principle has been extensively idolatrized under one form or another. And, as all nature is redolent of reproduction, the pantheistic system is soon attained. It is easy to suppose that nature, or the generative principle, would, in different countries, be differently personified, and each impersonation would receive a different name. When, however, the Romans brought the whole world into union, the identity of the various deities which they had been worshipping appeared. We find this acknowledged in the Caervoran slab. Apuleius, in the 11th book of his Metamorphosis, shows more at length the identity of several of the deities of antiquity. He is describing the mode in which he was initiated in the mysteries of Isis and Osiris. Isis addresses him thus: "Behold, Lucius, I, moved by thy prayers, am present with thee: I, who am Nature, the parent of things, the queen of all the elements, the primordial progeny of ages, the supreme of divinities, the sovereign of the spirits of the dead, the first of the celestials, and the uniform resemblance of gods and goddesses. I, who rule by my nod the luminous summits of the heavens, the salubrious breezes of the sea, and the deplorable silences of the realms beneath; and whose one divinity the whole orb of the earth venerates under a manifold form, by different rites, and a variety of appellations. Hence the primogenial Phrygians call me Pessinantica, the mother of gods; the Attic aborigines, Cecropian Minerva; the floating Cyprians, Paphian Venus; the arrow-bearing Cretans, Diana Dictymna; the threetongued Sicilians, Stygian Proserpine; and the Eleusinians, the ancient goddess Ceres. Some call me Juno, others Bellona, others Hecate, and others Rhamnusia; and those who are illuminated by the incipient rays of the divinity, the sun, when he rises, the Ethiopians, the Arii, and the Egyptians, skilled in ancient learning, worshipping me by ceremonies perfectly appropriate, call me by my true name, Queen Isis."

I cannot conclude these few remarks without observing that there is nothing new under the sun. The principles and practices of the ancient heathen world have their favourers still. Not to enter upon questionable points, most of us will call to mind the commencement of Pope's universal prayer, the pantheistic principle of which is nearly as apparent as the creed of Cæcilius on the Caervoran slab, or of Apuleius in the passage I have just quoted.

ROMAN STATIONS IN THE WEST.-Dr. Bruce exhibited drawings by Mr. Mossman from several objects in the museum at Alnwick Castle, and from the localities mentioned in the following paper