firm the conjecture: he there says, that " in a temple of Minerva was placed a wooden image of Jupiter with three eyes; two of them were placed in the natural position, and the other was placed on the forehead:" He adds, "one may naturally suppose that Jupiter is represented with three eyes as the God of the Heaven, as the God of the Earth, and as the God of the Sea." But this Jupiter with his three eyes was, though Pausanias was ignorant of the fact, an emblem of the trinity. This inquisitive antiquary has recorded the curious tradition that it came from Troy. Now, Sir, you will immediately recollect that the Trojans acknowledged a trinity in the divine nature, and that the Dii Penates, or the Cabiri, of the Romans, came from Troy! The Scholiast upon Apollonius of Rhodes' (in B. 1. v. 917.) supposes that the Cabiri derived their name from a district of Phrygia; so well known was it to have been their parent country! I may add, as a confirmation of the supposed eastern origin of this three-eyed Jupiter, that it is an oriental emblem of the trinity, as will appear by the subsequent quotations from the Atlas Chinesis of Montanus, translated by Ogilby. We read in p. 569, vol. 2 & 3, “ The modern learned, or followers of this first sect, who are overwhelmed in idolatry, divide generally their idols, or false gods, into three orders, viz. celestial, terrestrial, and infernal: In the celestial they acknowledge a

εἶναι τῷ Λαομέδοντος πατρῷον, ἐν ὑπαίθρῳ τῆς αὐλῆς ἱδρυμένον, καὶ ὅτε ἡλίσκετο ὑπὸ ̔Ελλήνων Ιλιον, ἐπὶ τούτου κατέφυγεν ὁ Πρίαμος τὸν βωμόν· ἐπεὶ δὲ τὰ λάφυρα ἐνέμοντο, λαμβάνει Σθένελος, ὁ Καπανέως, αὐτὸν, καὶ ἀνάκειται μὲν διὰ τοῦτο ἐνταῦθα· τρεῖς δὲ ὀφθαλμοὺς ἔχειν ἐπὶ τῷδε ἄν τις τεκμαίροιτο αὐτόν· Διὰ γὰρ ἐν Οὐρανῷ βασιλεύειν, οὗτος μὲν λόγος κοινὸς πάντων ἐστὶν ἀνθρώπων· ὃν δὲ ἄρχειν φασὶν ὑπὸ γῆς, ἔστιν ἔπος τῶν Ὁμήρου. Διὰ ὀνομάζον καὶ τοῦτον,

Ζεύς τε καταχθόνιος, καὶ ἐπαινὴ Περσεφόνεια. [11. θ. ν.

457.]

Αἰσχύλος δὲ, ὁ Εὐφοριώνος, καλεῖ Διὰ καὶ τὸν ἐν θαλάσσῃ τρισὶν οὖν ὁρῶντα ἐποίησεν ὀφθαλμοῖς· ὅστις δὴ οὖν ὁ ποιήσας, ἅτε ἐν ταῖς τρισὶ ταῖς λεγομέναις λήξεσιν ἄρχοντα τὸν αὐτὸν τοῦτον Θεόν. Pausanias says here, that Æschylus calls Jupiter the God of the Sea. I have met with one other instance in the poems of C. S. Sidonius Apollinaris (Carmen xxii. v. 158.)

Sacra tridentiferi Jovis hic armenta profundo.

Pluto is styled by the Latin Poets Jupiter inferus, Stygius.

Κάβειροι δὲ δοκοῦσι, προσαγορεῦσθαι ἀπὸ Καβείρων τῶν κατὰ Φρυγιὰν ὁρῶν· ἐπεὶ ΕΝΤΕΥΘΕΝ ΜΕΤΗΝΕΧΘΗΣΑΝ,

trinity of one godhead, which they worship, and serve by the name of a Goddess called Pussa; which, with the Greeks, we might call Cybele, and with the Egyptians Isis, and Mother of the Gods: This Pussa (according to the Chinese saying) is the governess of nature, or, to speak properly, the Chinese Isis, or Cybele, by whose power they believe that all things are preserved and made fruitful, as the three inserted figures relate:" We are then told, that in the first figure," on her forehead, just above her eyes, is a round speck, or O, in form of a third eye." Again, in the description of the second print, p. 570, "on her forehead is a speck, or O, in manner of a third eye, for a testimony of her being able to see all things." Again, in the description of the fourth print, p. 572, "The fourth fgure appearing in the middle represents the idol Fe, or Fo, which signifies Preserver: on his forehead is a speck, or O, instead of a third eye; on the right side sits the Goddess Pussa, and hath likewise a sign for a third eye on the forehead." Again, in the account of the deified Xekia, (who is said, in p. 574, to have received his knowledge" from four Gioghis, which are hermits of India") we are told in p. 576, that " his image is represented in the temples, in the shape of a fair youth, with a third eye in his forehead."

PART II.

I hasten now to make my promised remarks upon the passage, which I quoted in my first letter, from the 43d c. of Tacitus's Gerit is thus translated in the concise, and, I may add, the many: accurate version of Dr. Aikin.' "In the country of the latter [Naharvali] is a grove consecrated to religious rites of great antiquity: a priest presides over them, dressed in woman's apparel; but the gods worshipped there, are said, according to the Roman interpretation, to be Castor and Pollux: their attributes are the same; their name Alcis: no images, indeed, or vestiges of foreign superstition appear in their worship, but they are revered under the character of young men and brothers." Not one of the commentators upon Tacitus, whom I have seen, has thrown any light upon

1 Apud Naharvalos antiquæ religionis lucus ostenditur: præsidet sacerdos muliebri ornatu; sed deos, interpretatione Romanâ, Castorem Pollucemque memorant : ea vis numini: nomen Alcis: nulla simulacra, nullum peregrinæ superstitionis vestigium; ut fratres tamen, ut juvenes venerantur.

this curious passage: it is, however, evident that there was a twofold distinction in this divinity, that his name was Alcis, and that the priest, who attended him, was dressed in the clothes of a woman; but Tacitus must be mistaken in referring this duality to Castor, and Pollux: perhaps the reason why the priest was enjoined to wear a female dress, was to point out the androgynous nature of the deity; for we know, from the Northern Antiquities of Mallet, that the Scandinavians considered their deity as a hermaphrodite. With respect to the word Alcis, I find it to be the name of a woman in Pausanias (B. ix. c. 17.), and the name of a man in B. iv. c. 9. Lempriere, in his Classical Dictionary, says from Apollodorus that one of the daughters of Ægyptus was called Alcis; and Livy,' in the 51st c. of his 42d B. says that the Macedonians call their Minerva Alcis, and informs us that Perseus made to her a royal sacrifice of one hundred victims: Cicero says, if I mistake not, in his Nature of the Gods, that one person, in one of the three orders of Anaces, whom he mentions, is named Alco. A friend has suggested that the word Alcis is derived froin the Hebrew Al, i. e. "the powerful one." The two last hypostases of the trinity were, as you well know, considered as emanations from Jupiter: in the course of time, these, the real Dioscuri, were confounded with Castor and Pollux, the fabulous Dioscuri, who were known only to the Grecians, as Herodotus expressly asserts in the 43d c. of his 2d B. Castor and Pollux were always represented as brothers, and as young men; and the real Dioscuri, or Cherubim of the Classics, were also represented as brothers, and as youths. I hope that I have proved to your satisfaction, in my first Letter, that the Samothracian Cabiri were the Pelasgic trinity. Now it is well known to every scholar,

2

3

1 Citium (Macedoniæ oppidum est) copias omnes contrahit; ipse centum hostiis sacrificio regaliter Minervæ, quam vocat Alciden, confecto-, profectus Citium est.

2 Αἰγύπτιοι οὔτε Ποσειδέωνος, οὔτε Διοσκούρων, τὰ ὀνόματά φασι εἰδέναι, οὐδέ σφι Θεοὶ οὗτοι ἐν τοῖσι ἄλλοισι Θεοῖσι ἀποδεδέχαται.

3 Heyne, in the 9th Excursus of the Second Eneid on the Dii Penates; says, Quia, duorum adolescentum, prisco more, tanquam fratrum junctorum, signa oculis occurrebant, confusi tandem illi sunt cum Dioscuris." This profound scholar had before mentioned a very curious fact from Dionysius of Halicarnassus, which I shall give in his own words: "Dion. Halic. 1, 68: Romæ in Æde Deum Penatium sub Veliâ-duos Genios, seu Adolescentes, sedentium habitu et hastam manu tenentium, viderat, eòque Timæi fidem elevat, qui mera núna [sc. Penates], caduceos, esse ab indigenis audierat ; fortè tamen nec hoc falso, si id ad informia rudis artis opera referas."

that the Samothracian Gods have often been confounded with Castor and Pollux'; but if these Samothracian gods were a trinity, I imagine that I hear you ask, how could this have been the case? I reply, that though the Cabiri might appear by the visible representations in the Samothracian temples as a Duad, yet the image of the Great Third was left to the imagination to conceive. Pausanias says, in cited in my a passage last Letter, that "the people of Amphissa observe a religious solemnity in the honor of the youths, who are called Anactes: men differ in their opinions about the nature of these gods; some say that they are Castor and Pollux, or the Dioscuri; some believe them to be the Cureta; while others, who pretend to a more accurate knowledge of these abstruse matters, identify them with the Cabiri." This passage supplies us with two important facts: it not only proves that Castor and Pollux, the fabulous Dioscuri, were often confounded with the real Dioscuri, but also proves that the Cabiri, or Pelasgic trinity, were often con`sidered by the Grecians as a Duad, because, as I have intimated above, there was often no visible representation of the Creator. I may appeal to the Scholiast of Apollonius the Rhodian, who says, in a passage to which I have before referred, that in ancient times there were only two Cabiri. I may appeal again to Pausanias, who says in B. viii. c. 20.3 that "among the Clitorians there is a temple erected to the Dioscuri, who are there called the Great Gods," or Cabiri. I may also appeal to the fact, which has been stated in a note from Dionysius of Halicarnassus, that, in the temple of the Penates, erected under the eminence of Velia, near the Roman Forum, there was a visible representation only of two gods, and that this Duad was represented as two young men. I wish you particularly to notice the fact that this was the temple of the Dii Penates; but the Dii Penates were, as Bishop Horsley and yourself have

1 Gesner says, in his Latin Thesaurus, under Samothraces: "Dii Samothraces vulgò putabantur Castor et Pollux, sed refellit hanc opinionem Varro de L. L. 4, 10. et ita potiùs statuit: Hi mas, et fœmina, et hi, quos Augurum [sc. Romanorum] libri scriptos habent sic, Divi Potes, et sunt pro illis, qui in Samothrace sol dúvator: hæc duo cælum et terra, quod anima et corpus, humidum et frigidum." I may here remark, that this passage of Varro completely identifies the Samothracian Gods with the Divi Potes, or Penates, or Cabiri of the Romans.

2 Οἱ δὲ δύο εἶναι τοὺς Καβείρους φασὶ πρότερον, πρεσβύτερον μὲν Διὰ, νεώτερον δὲ

Διόνυσον.

3 Κλειτορίαις δὲ καὶ Διοσκούρων, καλουμένων δὲ ΘΕΩΝ ΜΕΓΑΛΩΝ, ἐστιν ἵερον ὅσον τέσσαρα ἀπέχον στάδια ἀπὸ τῆς πόλεως, καὶ ἀγάλματά ἐστιν αὐτοῖς χαλκά.

shown, the Roman Trinity, and therefore these two youths were the real Dioscuri, the Alcis of the Germans, the Anactes of Pausanias, and the Duad of Varro.

But this temple of the Penates appears to me to be the identical temple, which is generally called the temple of Castor and Pollux. Dionysius says, in the passage, to which I have before referred, that the temple of the Penates was situated by the Roman Forum, not far from the temple of Vesta. Now, if you turn to Suetonius's Lives of the Twelve Cæsars, examine the 10th c. of the first book, as well as the 22d c. of the fourth book, read the notes in the Variorum edition by Berneggerus and by Torrentius; and then turn to the note of Marlianus in the Variorum edition of Valerius Maximus, you will find that these critics are greatly puzzled to discover the exact situation of the temple of these fabulous Dioscuri, from the apparent contradiction in some passages of the classical writers. I do not mean to enter into a full discussion of this subject at the present moment, and it will be sufficient for me to produce one testimony in the support of my assertion, that the temple of the Penates has often been confounded with the temple of Castor and Pollux. Marlianus, in the note, to which I have referred, says from Appian, that "when Asellius the Prætor happened one day to be sacrificing to Castor and Pollux in the Forum, some one discharged the contents of a cup upon a stone, and the Prætor ran to the temple of Vesta." "Hence," says Marlianus," 2" it is evident that the temple of Castor and Pollux was near to the temple of Vesta." Now, Sir, it was, as we are told by Heynè, in the note above, the temple of the Penates, which was contiguous to the temple of Vesta: hence, then, you see that Appian has confounded the real, and the fabulous Dioscuri. If we suppose (as we may suppose with a great probability, from what has been said above) that the temple, erected to Castor and Pollux, was placed in a different part of the Forum from the temple of the Penates, and bear in our minds the remembrance of the confusion between the fabulous, and the real Dioscuri, all the critical difficulties, which arise from the

I

Heynè, in the Excursus mentioned above, says: "Penatium ædes Romæ fuit sub Veliâ, non longè ab æde Vestæ, v. Dionys. ibid, incendio Neroniano deleta: v. Tac. Ann. xv. 41; non enim rectè alii tradiderunt in Vestæ templo Penates servatos: v. ad Tac. 1. c. Cf. Donat 3, 3. de urbe Româ."

2 Appianus autem commemorat Asellium, Prætorem, fortè sacra Castori et Polluci in foro facientem, cùm quidam lapide phialam excussisset, ad Vestæ ædem cucurrisse: ex quibus verbis apparet ædem Castorum prope Vestæ, forumque Romanum ita sitam, ut à fronte hoc, illum verò à tergo habuerit.