Page:Sir Thomas Browne's works, volume 3 (1835).djvu/411

 Charles the Great, (which seems the first remarkably closed crown,) was framed after this manner; with an intersection in the middle from the main crossing bars, and the interspaces unto the frontal circle, continued by handsome net-work plates, much after this order. Whereon we shall not insist, because from greater antiquity, and practice of consecration, we meet with the radiated, and starry crown, upon the head of Augustus, and many succeeding emperors. Since the Armenians and Parthians had a peculiar royal cap; and the Grecians, from Alexander, another kind of diadem. And even diadems themselves were but fasciations, and handsome ligatures, about the heads of princes; nor wholly omitted in the mitral crown, which common picture seems to set too upright and forward upon the head of Aaron; worn sometimes singly, or doubly by princes, according to their kingdoms; and no more to be expected from two crowns at once, upon the head of Ptolemy. And so easily made out, when historians tell us, some bound up wounds, some hanged themselves with diadems.

The beds of the ancients were corded somewhat after this fashion: that is, not directly, as ours at present, but obliquely, from side to side, and after the manner of net-work; whereby they strengthened the spondæ or bedsides, and spent less cord in the net-work: as is demonstrated by Blancanus.

And as they lay in crossed beds, so they sat upon seeming cross-legged seats; in which form the noblest thereof were framed: observable in the triumphal seats, the sella curulis, or Edile chairs; in the coins of Cestius, Sylla, and Julius. That they sat also cross-legged, many nobler draughts declare; and in this figure the sitting gods and goddesses are drawn in medals and medallions. And, beside this kind of work in retiary and hanging textures, in embroideries, and eminent needle-works, the like is obvious unto every eye in glass windows. Nor only in glass contrivances, but also in lattice and stone work, conceived in the temple of Solomon; wherein the windows are termed fenestræ reticulatæ, or lights framed like nets. And agreeable unto the Greek expression concerning