Message #190070

[Demiurge]

But in the whole long catalogue of emblems, not one expressed the abstract idea so definitely as that most frequently employed in such sense--the Gorgon's Head. Accepting the explanation already offered (p. 167), that at its origin this terrific visage was designed for the "vera effigies" of the Queen of the dead, it was the most speaking emblem of her office that could possibly be chosen. In the Heroic ages it was universally painted, or embossed upon the warrior's shield; and with the progress of art, cut in cameo, became the regular decoration of the imperial breastplate; † in which post it served, as Lucian remarks ('Philopatris'), "both to terrify enemies and to avert all danger from the wearer," conveying to all beholders the menace of death exactly as now by an un designed coincidence does the death's head and cross-bones painted upon the pirate's flag. The Byzantines, in the true spirit of their gloomy superstition, discarded the Præ-Italian type for whose beauty they had lost all feeling, and reverted to the image invented by the horror-loving genius of Pelasgic barbarism. They saw in it the most faithful representation of their Μοῖρα, the destroying demon or ghoul, still believed by the Greek peasant to haunt

p. 185