464 APPENDIX, 21

The mosaic lines the floor and sides of a bath, and, as was commonly the case in the baths of the ancients, serves as a figurative representation of the water it contained.

On the sides are hippocamps, figures riding on dolphins, and islands, on which fishermen stand; on the floor are fish, crabs, and shrimps.

These, as in the vase with Europa, indicate the bottom of the sea; the same symbols of the submarine world appear on many other ancient designs. Thus in vase pictures, when Poseidon upheaves the island of Cos to overwhelm the Giant Polybotes, the island is represented as an immense mass of rock; the parts which have been under water are indicated by a dolphin, a shrimp, and a sepia, the parts above the water by a goat and a serpent (Lenormant et De Witte, i., Tav. 5).

Sometimes these symbols occur singly in Greek art, as the types, for instance, of coins. In such cases they cannot be interpreted without being viewed in relation to the whole context of mythography to which they belong. If we find, for example, on one coin of Tarentum a shell, on another a dolphin, on a third a figure of Taras, the mythic founder of the town, riding on a dolphin in the midst of the waves, and this latter group expresses the idea of the town itself and its position on the coast, then we know the two former types to be but portions of the greater design, having been detached from it, as we may detach words from sentences.

The study of the fuller and clearer examples, such as we have cited above, enables us to explain many more compendious forms of expression. We have, for instance, on coins several representations of ancient harbours.

Of these the earliest occurs on the coins of Zancle, the modern Messina, in Sicily. The ancients likened the form of this harbour to a sickle, and on the coins of the town we find a curved object, within the area of which is a dolphin. On this curve are four square elevations placed at equal distances. It has been conjectured that these projections are either towers or the large stones to which galleys were moored still to be seen in ancient harbours (see Burgon, Numismatic Chronicle, iii. p. 40). With this archaic representation of a harbour may be compared some examples of Roman period. On a coin of Sept. Severus struck at Corinth (Millingen, Sylloge of Uned. Coins, 1837, p. 57, Pl. II. No. 30), we have a female figure standing on a rock between two recumbent male figures holding rudders. From an arch at the foot of the rock a stream is flowing: this is a representation of the rock of the Acropolis of Corinth; the female figure is a statue of Aphrodite, whose temple surmounted the rock. The stream is the fountain Pirene. The two recumbent figures are impersonations of the two harbours, Lechreum and Cenchreia, between which Corinth was situated. Philostratus (Icon. ii., c. 16) describes a similar picture of the Isthmus between the two harbours, one of which was in the form of a youth, the other of a nymph.

On another coin of Corinth we have one of the harbours in a semicircular form, the whole are being marked with small equal divisions, to denote the archways under which the ancient galleys were drawn, subductæ; at either horn or extremity of the harbour is a temple; in the centre of the mouth, a statue of Neptune. (Millingen, Médailles, Inéd., Pl. II. No. 19. Compare also Millingen, Ancient Coins of Cities and Kings, 1831, pp. 59-61, Pl. IV. No. 15; Mionnet, Suppl. vii. p. 79, No. 246; and the harbour of Ostium, on the large brass coins of Nero, in which there is a representation of the Roman fleet and a reclining figure of Neptune.)

[Version 0.04: March 2008]