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Zeus, it must be remembered, wears the aegis, or goat-skin said to be the hide of the goat Amaltheia who suckled him in his infancy; there are a number of legends which connected the Arcadian Artemis with the worship of the bear, Apollo with the wolf, and so forth.
Rhea fled to Crete to bear her son, either in the Idæan or the Dictæan cave, where he was nourished with honey and goat's milk by the nymph Amaltheia until the time was ripe for his vengeance upon his father. In the Dictæan cave, also, Zeus grown to maturity, was united to Europa, the daughter of man, in the sacred marriage from which sprang Minos, the great legendary figure of Crete.
In view of all the religious associations of Crete, it can scarcely be doubted that these grotesque images, 'not made with hands, represent Mother Rhea, the infant Zeus, and the goat Amaltheia.
He even adds that he will himself be murdered by him sooner than I injured. The negotiation is going on. As soon as anything is settled I will write you word. If I have to fight, I will summon you to share in the work. If I am let alone, I won't rout you out of your "Amaltheia." About politics I will write briefly: for I am now afraid lest the very paper should betray me.
This hall is wrought in stucco and painted with stories of Jove namely, his birth, his being nursed by the Goat Amaltheia, and her coronation, with two other stories on either side of the last-named, showing her being placed in the heavens among the forty-eight Heavenly Signs, and another similar story of the same Goat, which alludes, as also do the others, to the name of Caprarola.
The first was a Hercules that has just killed the Hydra, six braccia in height, in the round and overlaid with silver, which was placed at that corner of the Piazza di S. Felice that is at the end of the Via Maggio, with the following inscription in letters of silver on the base: UT HERCULES LABORE ET ÆRUMNIS MONSTRA EDOMUIT, ITA CÆSAR VIRTUTE ET CLEMENTIA, HOSTIBUS VICTIS SEU PLACATIS, PACEM ORBI TERRARUM ET QUIETEM RESTITUIT. Two others were colossal figures eight braccia high, one representing the River Bagrada, which was resting upon the skin of the serpent that was brought to Rome, and the other representing the Ebro, with the horn of Amaltheia in one hand and in the other the helm of a ship; both coloured in imitation of bronze, with inscriptions on the bases; below the Ebro, HIBERUS EX HISPANIA, and below the other, BAGRADAS EX AFRICA. The fourth was a statue five braccia in height, on the Canto de' Medici, representing Peace, who had in one hand an olive branch and in the other a lighted torch, with which she was setting fire to a pile of arms heaped up on the base on which she was placed; with the following words: FIAT PAX IN VIRTUTE TUA. He did not finish, as he had hoped to do, the horse seven braccia in length that was set up on the Piazza di S. Trinita, upon which was to be placed the statue of the Emperor in armour, because Tasso the wood-carver, who was much his friend, did not show any promptitude in executing the base and the other things in the way of wood-carving that were to be included in the work, being a man who let time slip through his fingers in arguing and jesting; and there was only just time to cover the horse alone with tin-foil laid upon the still fresh clay.
I will correct the mistake of Castricius, and yet Quintus had made it in his letter to me 15,000, while now to your sister he makes it 30,000. Terentia sends you her regards: my boy Cicero commissions you to give Aristodemus the same answer for him as you gave for his cousin, your sister's son. I will not neglect your reminder about your Amaltheia. Take care of your health.
I wish you would describe your Amaltheium to me, its decoration and its plan; and send me any poems or stories you may have about Amaltheia. I should like to make a copy of it at Arpinum. I will forward you something of what I have written. At present there is nothing finished. The juries were now made up of three decuriæ senators, equites, and tribuni ærarii.
But since the senate has so determined, let us commend it, and not be in a minority of one. My "Amaltheia" is waiting and longing for you. My Tusculan and Pompeian properties please me immensely, except that they have overwhelmed me me, the scourge of debt! not exactly in Corinthian bronze, but in the bronze which is current in the market. In Gaul I hope peace is restored.
How few of these gentry are able to convey a letter rather weightier than usual without lightening it by skimming its contents! Besides, I do not always care to send whenever anyone is starting for Epirus: for I suppose that, having offered victims before your Amaltheia, you at once started for the siege of Sicyon.
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