to a five-stringed lyre resting on his thigh; his left plays it with extended fingers. A red mantle is fastened by a brooch (fibula) on his right shoulder, and drawn back over the breast; it falls behind on the seat, and thence to the ground. The under-garment is of a greenish blue colour, with a black border; it reaches to the calf of the leg. A magpie on the spectator's left, and a raven on his right, are perched on trees; they listen with closed beaks to the harmonious sounds, while below a dog opens his mouth wide, and looks up towards the musician. In the opposite corner we see a bird which might be a heron or an ostrich, but is too imperfect to be certainly identified.

The plectrum (λктроν) was a short stick with which the player struck the chords. Its form is much better shown in a photograph of the Palermitan mosaic, which I exhibit, than in the compilations generally used for educational purposes; here Orpheus is represented holding the plectrum almost at arm's length away from the lyre. Cicero, De Natura Deorum, II, lix, 149, says that his fellow-countrymen were accustomed to compare the tongue to the plectrum, the teeth to the strings, and the nostrils to the horns of this instrument.1 At Palermo Orpheus wears only a short tunic that comes. down to his knees, but the chief difference from that at Rottweil consists in the greater number of birds and beasts--nineteen altogether-that surround him."

Philostratus Junior wrote a book which bears the title Imagines (Eikóves). It professes to be an account of pictures which he had seen; which, however, some suppose to have been only imaginary. It delineates in animated language the birds and beasts-all alike, wild and tame listening to the music of Orpheus, and subdued by it; but I refer to this passage especially be-

"Ea (lingua) vocem immoderate profusam fingit et terminat, quae sonos vocis distinctos et pressos efficit, quum et ad dentes et ad alias partes pellit oris. Itaque plectri similem linguam nostri solent dicere, chordarum dentes, nares cornibus iis, qui ad nervos resonant in cantibus."

2 This mosaic shows an utter want of arrangement, the various creatures being

scattered promiscuously; it is just the opposite to that near Kreuznach, where symmetry prevails throughout the composition. See my paper on "Antiquities. in the Museum at Palermo," Arch. Jour., XXXVIII, 151–153.

3 On the other hand, at Corinium (Cirencester) we see the influence of music over savage animals indicated,. and probably with a symbolic allusion.

cause the description of Orpheus corresponds so well with our mosaic. "He is represented as a youth-the first down of a beard sprouting on his chin-wearing a tiara that gleams with gold, looking upwards with eyes expressing tenderness, inspiration and devotion to the service of the gods." Such enthusiasm, strongly marked in the countenance of Orpheus at Rottweil, is the feature by which it excels all other figures of the kind that I have seen in ancient pavements.

The story of Orpheus is one of the most interesting of the old Hellenic myths; I might even go farther, and say that for the inquiring archæologist it has more attractions than any other, whether he considers the earlier and later legends, the recurrence of the subject in GræcoRoman art, the adoption of this type by the Christians, or the frequent references to it made by our own epic poet. Even the difficulties that attend these researches only increase the fascination of the pursuit. At first we find the power of music symbolized by animals, trees, and stones moving at the sound of the lyre; afterwards a new myth was added, and Orpheus is punished by the gods for the benefits he had conferred upon men.'

Very numerous are the mosaics, in localities far removed from each other, portraying the bard amidst birds and beasts, and it is not an improbable conjecture that the Romans preferred this subject as indicating the blessings of civilisation, which they diffused among barbarous races whithersoever they went and conquered. Professor Paul Knapp, in his treatise Über Orpheusdarstellungen, Beilage zum Jahresbericht 1894-5 des Kgl. Gymnasiums in Tübingen, reprinted separately, p. 29,

has enumerated ten places where mosaics of this class have been discovered at St. Marinella, near Cività Vecchia, Carnuntum (Lower Austria), Vienne (Isère), Isle of Wight, North Africa, etc. He omits the fine specimens which adorned the ancient villas in England. Foreign savants often show great ignorance concerning Romano-British antiquities, but we cannot censure them, being ourselves no better informed about continental

monuments.

Orpheus occurs in sculpture also, not infrequently; but for the present a single example must suffice. That at Pettau (Poetovio, Colonia Ulpia Trajana Poetovio in Pannonia Superior) is described at length by a wellknown archæologist, Professor Alexander Conze, of Berlin, in his Römische Bildwerke Einheimischen Fundorts in Österreich (Separatabdruck aus dem XXIV Bande der Denkschriften der Philosophisch-Historischen Classe der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften 1875). Plate V is an engraving of a tomb-stone at Pettau." In the reliefs of the lower part, which has been much injured, we may still discern that the visit of Orpheus to the lower world is represented. On the spectator's right, Mercury, easily recognised by his petasus and herald's staff, stands behind a throne on which a male and female divinity are seated-Pluto and Proserpine, I presume. Orpheus stands in front of them, playing his lyre. The figures behind him are effaced to such an extent that the attribution is quite uncertain-one of them may possibly be "his half-regained Eurydice."

1 Poetorio appears to be a more correct form than Petovio (v. Orelli's note on Tacitus, Histories, III, 1). Pettau is a town in the south-east of Styria (Steiermark) near the frontiers of Croatia and Carinthia (Krain); it is also a station on the railway from Pragerhof to Buda-Pest (Ofen). Many antiquities have been discovered there recently; some of them have been removed, as is usually the case in Continental Europe, to the capital of the province, Graz. The legion XIII Gemina was quartered at this place (my paper on Buda-Pest, Arch. Jour., L, Appendix, sub finem).

2 Milton, L'Allegro :
"That Orpheus' self might heave his
head

The most important

From golden slumber on a bed
Of heap'd Elysian flowers, and hear
Such strains as would have won

the ear

Of Pluto, to have quite set free

His half-regain'd Eurydice." Ausführliche Lexikon der Griech ischen und Römischen Mythologie. herausgegeben v. W. R. Roscher, 43 and 44 Lieferung, 1901, contains a very elaborate article on Orpheus-pp. 1058-1207. See esp. pp. 12021207. Altchristliche Orpheus-dars'ellungen, with figure 17. Orpheus unter den Tieren; Rückwand eines Arcosoliums in S. Domitilla (nach Bottari, Scult. e pitt. sagre 2, 71). This class of monuments belongs to the second to fourth centuries.