Jove and Giant pillars, as I have called them, have been exhaustively treated in a German work (_Hertlein_, 1910). Espèrandieu, in his volumes on Roman sculptures in Gaul, very fully illustrates two of these monuments, one at Cussy-la-Colonne, near Autun (2032), and another at Merten (4425), also a large number of fragments. He describes the Cussy column as having been about 44 ft. high (including the sculptured group) and 2 ft. in diameter; the bottom of the pillar was carved in a trellis pattern (Fig. 53). The column at Merten was about 48 ft. high with a diameter of 2¼ ft. Under the number 4130, Espèrandieu says of a square sculptured stone: “It is generally agreed that these ‘four-god stones’ are not altars but pedestals. They supported a second stone, usually of octagonal form, with representations of the Gods of the Week upon it. From this rose a column and capital, and, crowning all, a god riding and crushing under the hoofs of his steed a giant who terminates in two snakes.” Such columns had a religious significance, and “their frequency, above all on the banks of the Rhine, is surprising” (No. 4425). A good résumé of what had been said of these monuments was given by Mrs. Strong in 1911 (_J.R.S._); the general conclusion was that the Jove of the pillar was a sun and thunder divinity, “A Romanised sun-god”; the columns embodied “a whole allegory of times and seasons.” “Hertlein interprets the columns as Irmin-säulen, symbols of the universe; columns such as, according to Teutonic mythology, supported the heavens, here typified by Juppiter as lord of the skies.” Some writers had preferred to see a Roman emperor riding over a barbarian. In the British Museum there is a carved fragment of a highly decorated column which, I have little doubt, belonged to a Jove and Giant column. This stone was found built into the lower part of the City Wall along the river bank. Roach Smith, in whose collection it was, described it first in 1844 (_Archæol. Jour._, vol. i.) as: “A portion of a decorated stone which appears to have formed part of an altar.” Later he visited the Jove and Giant column near Autun, and in describing it in _Collectanea Antiqua_ (vol. vi.) he refers to our stone. Subsequently in the Catalogue of his collection he spoke of the stone as: “Fragment in green sandstone, with a trellis pattern with leaves and fruit. It appears to have formed part of a sepulchral monument, and was taken from the foundations of a Roman wall in Thames Street.” In saying this he doubtless had the Cussy monument in his mind, for that was understood to be a sepulchral monument. Our fragment is from a circular shaft which must have been about 2½ ft. in diameter. The surface is carved over with a pattern like a trellis of laths, in the interspaces of which appear leaves and bunches of grapes Fig. 54 is restored from the fragment). [Illustration: FIG. 54. ] [Illustration: FIG. 55. ]