Page:A Complete Guide to Heraldry.djvu/24

 figure it resembled, because geese were looked on as fortunate omens to mariners, for that they swim on the top of the waters and sink not. was the flag whereby ships were distinguished from one another; it was placed in the prow, just below the, being sometimes carved, and frequently painted, whence it is in Latin termed pictura, representing the form of a mountain, a tree, a flower, or any other thing, wherein it was distinguished from what was called tutela, or the safeguard of the ship, which always represented some one of the gods, to whose care and protection the ship was recommended; for which reason it was held sacred. Now and then we find the tutela taken for the, and perhaps sometimes the images of gods might be represented on the flags; by some it is placed also in the prow, but by most authors of credit assigned to the stern. Thus Ovid in his Epistle to Paris:—


 * 'Accipit et pictos puppis adunca Deos.'


 * 'The stern with painted deities richly shines.'

"The ship wherein Europa was conveyed from Phœnicia into Crete had a bull for its flag, and Jupiter for its tutelary deity. The Bœotian ships had for their tutelar god Cadmus, represented with a dragon in his hand, because he was the founder of Thebes, the principal city of Bœotia. The name of the ship was usually taken from the flag, as appears in the following passage of Ovid, where he tells us his ship received its name from the helmet painted upon it:—


 * 'Est mihi, sitque, precor, flavæ tutela Minervæ,
 * Navis et à pictâ casside nomen habit.'


 * 'Minerva is the goddess I adore,
 * And may she grant the blessings I implore;
 * The ship its name a painted helmet gives.'

"Hence comes the frequent mention of ships called Pegasi, Scyllæ, Bulls, Rams, Tigers, &c., which the poets took liberty to represent as living creatures that transported their riders from one country to another; nor was there (according to some) any other ground for those known fictions of Pegasus, the winged Bellerophon, or the Ram which is reported to have carried Phryxus to Colchos."

To quote another very learned author: "The system of hieroglyphics, or symbols, was adopted into every mysterious institution, for the purpose of concealing the most sublime secrets of religion from the prying curiosity of the vulgar; to whom nothing was exposed but the beauties of their morality." (See Ramsay's "Travels of Cyrus," lib. 3.) "The old Asiatic style, so highly figurative, seems, by what we find of