Bracelets, in the form of serpents, were worn by the Grecian women in the time of Clemens Alexdrinus, who thus reproves the fashion: "The women are not ashamed to place about them the most manifold symbols of the evil one; for as the serpent deceived Eve, so the golden trinket in the fashion of a serpent misleads the women." The children also wore chaplets of the same kind. We must not omit to notice the Caduceus, which forms, it is said, one of the most striking examples of the talismanic serpent. According to Montfaucon, Kirchen and others, the notion that this belonged exclusively to Hermes or Mercury is erroneous, as it can be seen in the hand of Cybele, Minerva Amebis, Hercules Ogmius and the personified constellation Virgo, said by Lucian to have had her symbol in the Pythian priestess. Variously represented in the main, the Caduceus always preserved the original design of a winged wand entwined by two serpents. It is found sometimes without the wings, but never without the serpents; the varieties consisting chiefly in the number of folds made by the serpents' bodies round the wand, and the relative positions of the wings and serpents' heads. It was regarded as powerful in paralyzing the mind and raising the dead. Kirchen says that the Caduceus was originally expressed by the simple figure of a cross, by which its inventor, Thoth, is said to have symbolized the four elements proceeding from a common centre. "Ophiolatreia," says Deane, "had taken such deep root in Egypt that the serpent was not merely regarded as an emblem of divinity, but even held in estimation as the instrument of an oracle. The priests of the temple of Isis had a silver image of a serpent so constructed as to enable a person in attendance to move its head without being observed by the supplicating votary. "But Egyptian superstition was not contented with worshipping divinity through its emblem the serpent. The senseless idolater soon bowed before the symbol itself, and worshipped this reptile, the representative of man's energy, as a god."