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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 January 2012
The very singular, or rather, as regards Italy, the unique bronze relique that I have now undertaken to describe and explain, I consider to be the same that was discovered January 4th, 1800, at the steep pitch of the hill just below the castle of Lucera. This we learn from an account of the discovery given by the Cavaliere Onofrio Bonghi, quoted by Gerhard.
page 275 note a Bulletin de l'Institut de Correspondance Archéologique. Rome, 1830, p. 15.
page 275 note b The dimensions of this bronze are here given for the convenience of those who may not have an opportunity of seeing the original:—
None of the figures have feet, but are stuck into the disc, like pegs.
It is hard to account for the oval aperture in the centre of the disc, unless we can suppose it left to receive a lamp or incense vessel.
Such objects of antiquity are certain to present some inexplicable feature. In the present case the wheels stand in such triangular fashion that they cannot possibly run together. The point of each axle probably stood originally 10 inches distant from that of the next set of wheels.
The whole group stands fairly within a circle of 8 inches radius.
As regards the animals figured in the group, a celebrated palæontologist sees in the bull an unmistakeable representation of the bos primigenius; and of the cervus alces in the stag. To this it might be added that the caprine heads, which project over the wheels, rather resemble those of the capra ibex. If we could venture to consider so rude a work of primitive art a basis sufficiently solid for so interesting an attribution, this relique would become of great importance to Italy. It would show that the urus, the elk, and ibex, frequented the forests of the Apennines at the period when this bronze was in the hands of its unskilled artist.—W. M. W.
page 277 note a Etruskische Spiegel, vol. i. pi. xviii.
page 277 note b [Gerhard does not notice the goose, which, together with one human figure partly clothed, complete the series of nine as we have it at present ]
page 277 note c See the wood-cut overleaf, which gives figs. 5, 7, 10, 11, and 12 of Gerhard's plate in Etruskische Spiegel.
page 278 note a By one of the strange freaks which archaeological fortune occasionally plays, this missing portion of the group seems to have found its way into the British Museum, where I believe I recognised it among other disjecta membra of this collection.—W. M. W.
page 279 note a Livy, lib. i. c. 5. “Lycæum Pana venerantes …‥ quem Romani deinde vocarunt Inuum.” Arnobius adv. Nat. iii. 23. Hieronym. in Isaiam, lib. v. c. xiii. 21.
page 279 note b Plutarch, Q. R. 68. Justin, xliii. 1, § 7. Val. Max. ii. 2, 9.
page 279 note c Prudentius contr. Symm. ii. 861. Plut. loc. cit. Festus voce Creppos. Schol Juvenal, ii. 142. Plut. in Cæs.
page 279 note d Ovid. Fast. ii. 425, v. 102. Minuc. Octav. c. 24.
page 279 note e Rutilius, Itin. lib. i. 235 : “Dum renovat largo mortalia semina fœtu Fingitur in Venerem pronior esse Deus.”
page 279 note f Arnob. adv. Nat. iii. 23. Serv. ad Æneid. vi. 776.
page 280 note a Varro, R. R. ii. 4 ; iii. 113. Propert. iv. 10, 29, “pastoris buocina lenti.”
page 280 note b Hygin. Poet. Astron. c xxviii. sub voce Capricornus.
page 280 note c Val. Flacc. Argonaut, iii. 48. Theocrit. Syrinx.
page 280 note d Eratosth. c. xxvii. Schol Arati, p. 39, ed. Oxon. 1672. Hygin. Poet. Astron. ubi supra.
page 280 note e The woodcut in the margin represents the sitting figure now detached from the bronze, but still extant. The other, which is now lost, is given in the woodcut on the previous page, from Etruskische Spiegel. These sitting figures were possibly suspended from an upper portion of the relique which no longer exists.
page 281 note a Archæologia, vol. xxxvi. page 349.
page 281 note b Alterthümer unserer heidnischen Vorzeit, Band ii. Heft 3.
page 282 note a Carm. iii. xv. 13.
page 282 note b Virgil, Georg. i. 339.
page 282 note c Compare Herodotus, ii. 48–51.
page 282 note d Livy, lib. vii. c. 2.