The animation of the body, one of the most abstracted ideas, was represented by the loveliest, most poetical images. An artist, who should imagine he could express this idea by the Mosaick creation, would be mistaken; for his image would be merely historical, and nothing but the creation of Adam: a history altogether too sacred for being either admitted as the allegory of a mere philosophical idea, or into every place: neither does it seem poetical enough for the flights of the art. This idea appears on coins and gems[221], as described by the most ancient poets and philosophers: Prometheus forming a man of that clay, of which large petrified heaps were found in Phocis in the time of Pausanias[222]; and Minerva holding a butterfly, as an image of the soul, over his head. The snake encircling a tree behind Minerva, on the above coin of Antoninus Pius, is a supposed symbol of his prudence and sagacity. It cannot be denied that the meaning of many an ancient allegory is merely conjectural, and therefore not to be applied on every occasion. A child catching a butterfly on an altar was pretended to signify _Amicitia ad aras_, or, “which is not to exceed the borders of justice[223].” On another gem, Love, endeavouring to pull off the branch of an old tree, where a nightingale is perching, is said to allegorize love of wisdom[224]. _Eros_, _Himeros_, and _Pathos_, the symbols of Love, Appetite, and Desire, are represented, they say[225], on a gem, encompassing the sacred fire on an altar; Love behind the fire, his head only over-reaching the flames; Appetite and Desire on both sides of the altar; Appetite with one hand only in the fire, with the other holding a garland; Desire with both his hands in the flames. A _Victoria_ crowning an anchor, on a coin of king Seleucus, was formerly regarded as an image of peace and security procured by victory, till by the help of history we have been enabled to give it its true interpretation. Seleucus is said to have been born with a mark resembling an anchor[226], which not only he himself, but all his descendants, the Seleucidæ, have preserved on their coins[227]. There is another Victoria with butterfly’s wings[228], fastened on a trophy. This, they say, is the symbol of a hero, who, like Epaminondas, died in the very act of conquering. At Athens such a statue[229], and an altar to an unwinged Victoria, was the symbol of their perpetual success in battle: ours may admit of the same explication as Mars in chains at Sparta[230]. Nor was she, as I presume, provided at random with wings usually given to Psyche, her own being those of an eagle: they perhaps signify the soul of the deceased: however, all these conjectures might be tolerable, if a Victoria fastened on trophies of conquered enemies could reasonably correspond with their being vanquished.