He is described as a youth of a plump figure, and naked, with a ruddy face, and an effeminate air; he is crowned with ivy and vine leaves, and bears in his hand a thyrsus, or javelin with an iron head, encircled with ivy and vine leaves: his chariot is sometimes drawn by lions, at others by tigers, leopards, or panthers; and surrounded by a band of Satyrs, Bacchæ, and Nymphs, in frantic postures; whilst old Silēnus, his preceptor, follows on an ass, which crouches with the weight of his burden. The women who accompained him as his priestesses, were called Mænădes, from their madness; Thyădes, from their impetuosity; Bacchæ, from their intemperate depravity; and Mimallōnes, or Mimallonĭdes, from their mimicking their leaders. The victims agreeable to him were the goat and the swine; because these animals are destructive to the vine. Among the Egyptians they sacrificed a swine to him before their doors; and the dragon, and the pye on account of its chattering: the trees and plants used in his garlands were the fir, the oak, ivy, the fig, and vine; as also the daffodil, or narcissus. Bacchus had many temples erected to him by the Greeks and the Romans. Whoever attentively reads Horace's inimitable ode to this god, will see that Bacchus meant no more than the improvement of the world by tillage, and the culture of the vine. [Illustration: JUNO & MINERVA GOING TO ASSIST THE GREEKS. SATURNIA LENDS THE LASH, THE COURSERS FLY. Pope's Homer's Illiad, B. 8. L. 47. Pl. 4.] MARS was the son of Jupiter and Juno, or of Jupiter and Erys. He was held in high veneration among the Romans, both on account of his being the father of Romulus, their founder, and because of their own genius, which always inclined them to war. Numa, though otherwise a pacific prince, having, during a great pestilence, implored the favor of the gods, received a small brass buckler, called _ancīle_ from heaven, which the nymph Egeria advised him to keep with the utmost care, as the fate of the people and empire depended upon it. To secure so valuable a pledge, Numa caused eleven others of the same form to be made, and intrusted the preservation of these to an order of priests, which he constituted for the purpose, called _Salii_, or priests of Mars, in whose temple the twelve ancilia were deposited. The fiercest and most ravenous creatures were consecrated to Mars: the horse, for his vigor; the wolf, for his rapacity and quickness of sight; the dog, for his vigilance; and he delighted in the pye, the cock, and the vulture. He was the reputed enemy of Minerva, the goddess of wisdom and arts, because in time of war they are trampled on, without respect, as well as learning and justice.