constitution of his country, by founding his monarchy upon the support of a standing army, more attached to his person than to Rome, and upon the favour of the lowest classes of the capital, he still had not the boldness to alter the forms of the Republic. His crafty successor, Augustus, developed upon principle what his grand uncle had by necessity left standing. The consuls remained, therefore, nominally the first magistrates of the empire, and continued to give the name to the year; and even when Constantine transferred the seat of the empire to Byzantium, and transformed it into a Christian state, the office and dignity of the Consuls was not discontinued. When Theodosius finally divided the Roman world into two independent states, it became even still more important, the Consuls being the last link of union between the two empires, and the symbol of their original union. One of them was always nominated at Rome, the other at Constantinople, and their joint names continued to designate the years, in the east as well as in the west, in preference to the reckoning by the years of Rome, and to the new-fangled era of the Emperor Diocletian, which survived him, under the name of the Era of the Martyrs, only amongst those whom he had persecuted-the Christians. The bulk of the people discarded alike the oflicial era of the years of Rome and that of Diocletian, and continued to call the years by the names of the Consuls, though those chief magistrates no longer wielded any political power, and had but two tasks to perform-to give a name to the year, and to signalise their accession to office by magnificent games and feasts for all the people, and by gorgeous presents to the senators of the empire. The most honorific of those presents were the Consular Diptycha,— sculptured ivory tablets covering the Fasti Consulares, or the register of the Consuls, from L. Junius Brutus down to the year of the donor, who was represented on the outside of the book-covers, clad in his consular costume, mostly sitting on the consular chair, and invested with all the insignia of his high office. His name and title, sometimes his signet, or the busts of the reigning Emperor and Empress, are seen on the top of the Diptychon. At the bottom, the largess of the new Consul is recorded by the representation of games in the Circus, and by the exhibition of the presents, which include money, palm branches as symbols of the prizes of the races and games, cakes for the people, and Diptycha for the grandees. It is by the inscription of the ivory tablets themselves that we know their destination" To be presented to the Senators." One of them contains some Greek Iambic verses, saying, "I, the Consul Philoxenus, offer these gifts to the wise Senate." Another Consul, Petrus, had an elegant Latin distichon engraved on his tablet, saying, in a similar way, "I, the Consul, offer these presents, though small in value, still ample in honours, to my senatorial fathers And such, indeed, was the honour of ivory diptycha, that, by a decree of the Emperor Theodosius, nobody but the ordinary Consuls (to the exclusion of Consuls elect and Consuls by substitution, or Consuls honorary, and of all other officials,) were allowed to make presents of ivory book-covers; and the records we have of the inauguration of the Consuls mention always the presentation of the Diptycha, or Fasti Consulares. From the remaining monuments of this class we see that their size, the material of which they were manufactured, the style of art and the representations carved on them, varied according to the rank of those for whom they were destined. Some of the Consular diptycha are of superior workmanship and choice ivory, others only of bone, and indifferently carved. On some we see the whole-length figure of the Consul, on others his bust, or even only his name. And all those differences relate to the receiver, not to the donor of the gifts, since we possess diptycha of the same Consul in bone and in ivory, some eminently, others rudely carved; again, some showing all the pomp and paraphernalia of Consulship, others plain and little adorned. Many of the Consular tablets, extant in the different museums and church treasuries of Europe, contain the full name and title of the Consul whose inauguration they record; some others are not inscribed, but the representation gives us a clue to the donor of the tablets; a few are anonymous, and cannot be traced to any certain date. [Independent of ANONYMOUS CONSULAR DIPTYCHA, and those which are SACRED OF MYTHOLOGICAL in their character, the following INSCRIBED CONSULAR DIPTYCHA were treated of.] 1. A.D. 248. M. Julius Philippus Augustus, and M. Julius M. F. Philippus, the younger, two leaves; one in the Fejérváry Collection-the other, formerly with Cardinal Quirini. 2. 3. 4. A.D. 308. M. Aurelius Romulus Cæsar, one leaf; formerly in the A.D. 428. Flavius Felix, two leaves; one in the Imperial Library A.D. 430. Flavius Theodosius Junior Augustus, and Flavius Placidius Valentinianus Augustus, two leaves; at Monza. 6. A.D. 434. Flavius Areobindus, two leaves; at Milan, in the Trivulzi Collection. 6. A.D. 449. Flavius Asturius, two leaves. 7. A.D. 454. Flavius Aëtius, two leaves; at Halberstadt. 8. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. A.D. 487. Narius Manlius Boethius, two leaves; formerly with A.D. 506. Flavius Dagalaiphus Areobindus, five leaves; two at A.D. 513. Flavius Taurus Clementinus, two leaves; in the Fejér- A.D. 516. Flavius Petrus Sabbatius Justinianus, three leaves; two in the Trivulzi Collection, one in the Imperial Library at Paris. A.D. 517. Flavius Paulus Probus Pompeius Anastasius, five leaves; two at Paris, two at Berlin, one at Verona. A D. 518. Flavius Anastasius Paulus Probus Magnus, three leaves; A.D. 519. Flavius Anicius Justinus Augustus, one leaf; at Vienna. A.D. 528. Flavius Anicius Justinianus Augustus, one leaf. 17. A.D. 530. Rufinus Orestes, two leaves; in the Soltykoff Collection at Paris. 18. A.D. 541. Anicius Basilius, two leaves; one at Florence, in the Collection of Antiquities. [The FEJERVARY IVORIES now in the possession of Joseph Mayer, Esq., F.S.A., were described under nineteen historical divisions, extending from the time of the ancient Egyptian empire to the eighteenth century; and under three geographical divisions referring to Persia, India and China respectively. It may suffice to give the detailed account of two only.] The first is the mythological Dyptychon of Aesculapius and Hygeia-the most beautiful of all the ancient reliefs in ivory. In the last century, it belonged to the treasures of the Florentine Museum of the Gaddi family; later to Count Michel Wiczay, at Hédervár, in Hungary. It has been published by Gori, by the learned Barnabite, Felix Caronni, and by the celebrated engraver, Raphael Morghen. (See illustration.) On the right leaf of the Dyptychon, Aesculapius is represented standing on an ornamented pedestal, leaning with his thoughtful head on his right hand, which holds a scroll. The left hand is placed on his hip; a club, with a huge serpent coiling around it, and resting upon the head of a bull, supports the figure, which is clad in the manner of Jupiter, the drapery covering only the lower part of the body. The god has a fillet (diadema) in his hair, and elegant sandals on his feet; his diminutive genius Telesphorus, the god of convalesence, clad in a cowl, stands close to him in the act of opening a volume. The group is placed between two pilasters, joined by a garland of oak leaves. One of them supports a casket of flowers on its Corinthian capital; the other has been, at some distant time, broken off. On the left tablet Hygeia, with a chaplet (stephane) in her hair, leans against a tripod, round which coils a huge serpent, raising its head to the right hand of the goddess, who offers him an almond-shaped fruit, or cake. At the feet of the goddess of health, we see Cupid, sufficiently characterised by the quiver and bow, although he has no wings. On the top of one of the Corinthian pilasters there are the sacrificial vessels, the prochûs and the phiala,-the jug and cup for libations; on the other capital, the Bacchic child Iacchus opens a wicker basket (cista mystica) from which a snake is creeping out. On both the tablets, a label surmounts the representations, which contained the dedicatory inscriptions, but no trace of them can now be discovered; they were probably written in colours. A rich border of acanthus leaves and flowers, forms the frame of the beautiful reliefs. The graceful arrangement of the drapery, and the masterly composition of both tablets, which is in contrast to some little inaccuracies of the execution-(thus, for instance, the left foot of Aesculapius is too much turned outwards; the "scurzo" of the thigh of Eros is incorrect; the face of the goddess less expressive than that of Aesculapius) -seems to warrant the supposition, that both reliefs are copies of some celebrated marble statues. This conjecture might likewise explain the uncommon size of the club, and of the snakes which, in the original marble groups, might have formed the artistical supports of the statues. Still, it is impossible even to guess to which temple the originals of the composition might have belonged, since the worship of the gods of health was diffused all over the ancient Græco-Roman world. Carronni, in his commentary on our Diptychon, enumerates no fewer than one hundred and ninety-eight Greek towns which, according to the ancient authors, worshipped Aesculapius and his family in temples erected to their honour, the or made their representations the types of coins. But in any case, present composition is the most important monument of the worship of the gods of health among all we know, on account of the many attributes heaped on them. The club, resting on the head of a bull, is the symbol of Hercules, as representative of the sun; the tripod belongs to Apollo, the stephane to Juno; Cupid is the companion of Venus, and Iacchus of Ceres. In our relief, they are all connected with Aesculapius; and especially with his daughter, who is raised by them to the dignity of a great mother-goddess. This peculiarity, entirely in accordance with the workmanship of the carving, carries us down to the time of the Antoninesan epoch most important in the history of the development of religious ideas. The faith in Greek and Roman mythology had come to a crisis ; and though Christianity was not yet powerful enough to threaten the religion of the state with extinction, still people began to feel that the old faith had accomplished its destinies. Worn out as it was, it could no longer bestow support to the state; on the contrary, it had to be supported by the secular power. It was in vain that the Emperors strove to impart new life to the state religion by frequent pomps and feasts, comemorating antiquated rites and customs. The priests brought, in vain, old, forgotten, and miraculous statues from the hidden recesses of the temples before the multitude, and disclosed the mysteries of worship to the uninitiated crowd. A feeling of uneasiness had caught hold of Roman society; and mythology took its course backwards to the point from which it had proceeded. Starting from the unity and ubiquity of godhead, its manifold manifestations were originally embodied in innumerable personifications; the youthful poetical spirit of Greece found always new characteristic symbols; and as godhead manifests itself in space and time, in nature and history, new myths grew up, symbolical of those manifestations, and formed in their concatenation that lasting monument of the youth and poetical productivity of the Hellenic race, which we possess in its mythology. But life soon departed from the myths when they were transferred to Rome, since the practical Romans adopted only the form, and were unable to understand and to feel the spirit, of Hellenic religion. Its poetry faded; and the rites, deprived of their symbolic meaning, debased and over-clouded the understanding by dark superstition. Accordingly, towards the end of the Republic, and under the first Emperors, the people of Rome turned easily to the still |