'Z2C THE COKBRIDGi: LANX.

quotes the old ]iistoii;iu CleoJcmus about the strange omen presaging the Athenian disasters at Syracuse, hoY a vast ilork of crows ahghtcd upon their donarium, and pecked to j'ieces the ow], spear, robes of Pallas, and the dates of her tree. Tiiis brings back our attention to the branch held forth in Apollo's hand ; in Nvhich it is impossible to recognise the bay tYig, the customary- badge of the god, in the character in which he is here depicted. It is unniistakeably cut from a chesnut tree — one havinc; no connexion ^Yitll this 2:od under any of his many titles — the trees consecrated to him being the jialm and the bay ; from cither of ^Yhicll were ^Yoven the wreaths given for prizes to the victors in his games. The only conjecture that suggests itself to me in explanation of the anomaly is that the Roman artist, to add stronger expression to the character filled by the god in the present scene, has chosen to equip him Avith a sprig of the oracle-giving riyos of Dodona. That the latter Avas the chesnut, not the oal-, as commonly understood, is evident from the distinction Pausanias makes between its fruit (as the sole edible mast) and that of other S/>v!,-;7 as avcU as from the name ^^tt"*' /^dAaro;,' a})pro}Miated by the Greeks to the sweet, or Spanish, chesnut. To the famous omphalos, '• the centre-point of earth," is given due prominence, in the shape of the conical pillar in front of Apollo ; it AYas made, Pausanias tells us, of white marble." The present figure of this primicval monument is higldy valuable, as it has the look of a faithful picture of the original ; for, although it regularl}' forms the seat of Apollo on the coins of the Seleucidrc, yet the minuteness of the space there available reduces the cop}' to a merely conventional representation. The pillar at the back of Themis, supi)i)rting a celestial (jlohc (or, pcrhap.s, suu-dial) is frequently introduced in sculptures and gems representing astrologers and their operations, and may therefore Ijc rca.sonably supposed to have reference in this place to the visible jiresence of the solar ileity. The sulijects filling the exergue remain to bo noticed. The dwarf /;yv' at the right haiul extremity, with its singular fan-shaped terminations, can be meant for nothing else than the palmetto, ^vhicll doubtless was then cultivated at Delphi " I. 17, 5, for tlio nature of tliu tree nt It exactly coneHpoinlH in kIiajms to tl»o Do<l<na; 'III. 1, G, f»r itn fruit, tlit; IliiKloo Ani^a^ji, llio iiiiivcrK.kl ciMltloinof djjicovpry <>f which lie njnigiw to '>-^'^'>», llioC'naUjr, niid w.-w in nil i>rob;ibiUty tJio the civili/ur of the aburigitial Arculimi 1. urigiiml idul of iIk.' ii<>ly |i'iicu.