twin boys Heracles and Iphicles in Amphytrion’s buckler; and the same practice prevailed, as might have been expected, at Sparta, where war constituted to men the sole object of life.[339] Elsewhere other symbols spoke to the future sense rather than the present of the new citizen. In agricultural countries the military symbol was replaced by a winnowing van, not unfrequently of gold or other costly materials;[340] though it may be doubted whether the word so rendered meant not rather a cradle in the form of that rustic implement. Footnote 335: Antiq. ii. 320. Footnote 336: Coray, ad Hippoc. de Aër. et Loc. ii. 309. Footnote 337: Even so early as the age of Montaigne the necessity of some change was felt. “Les liaisons et emmaillottements des enfans ne sont non plus necessaires.” He then alludes to the practice of the Spartan nurses.—Essais, ii. 12. However, in certain habits of body, swaddling is not merely useful, but necessary: as Hippocrates remarks in his account of the Scythians (de Aër. et Loc. § 101), and as his able commentator, Coray, confirms by example. _ubi sup._ Footnote 338: Theoc. Eidyll. xxiv. 4. ἢ τὰν ἢ ἐπὶ τὰς. Plut. Lacæn. Apophtheg. t. ii. p. 187. Footnote 339: Nonn. Dionys. xli. 168. seq. Sch. Thucyd. ii. 39. Footnote 340: Callim. Hymn. in Jov. 48. In another custom, long on these occasions observed, we discern traces of that serpent-worship which at different epochs diffused itself so widely over the world. Among opulent and noble families at Athens new-born children were laid on golden amulets in the form of dragons by which they were supposed to commemorate Athena’s delivery of Erichthonios to the care of two guardians of that description.[341] Footnote 341: Eurip. Ion. 15. sqq.—There were certain amulets, too, called περίαπτα which superstitious mothers hung about the necks of their children to defend them from fascination and the evil eye. Pollux, iv. 182. Vict. in Arist. Ethic. Nicom. p. 42.