An Account of the remains of the worship of Priapus : lately existing at Isernia, in the kingdom of Naples; in two letters : one from Sir William Hamilton ... to Sir Joseph Banks ... : and the other from a person residing at Isernia : to which is added, A discourse on the worship of Priapus : and its connexion with the mystic theology of the ancients / By R.P. Knight.

Date:
1786
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An Account of the remains of the worship of Priapus : lately existing at Isernia, in the kingdom of Naples; in two letters : one from Sir William Hamilton ... to Sir Joseph Banks ... : and the other from a person residing at Isernia : to which is added, A discourse on the worship of Priapus : and its connexion with the mystic theology of the ancients / By R.P. Knight. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    [ ] rounded with columns) attributed to that God in the Orphic Litanies.^ The remains of one of thefe are ftill extant at Puzzuoli near Naples, which the inhabitants call the Temple of Serapis : but the orna- ments of Grapes, Vafes, &c. found among the ruins^ prove it to have been of Bacchus. Serapis was indeed the fame Deity worfbipped under another form, being equally a perfonification of the Sun.-f- The archi- r tedure is of the Roman times; but the ground plan is probably that of a very ancient one, which this was made to replace; for it exadlly refembles that of a Celtic temple in Zeeland, publilhed in Stukeley’s Itinerary.X The ranges .of fquare buildings which iriclofe it are not properly parts of the temple, but apartments of the Priefts, places for vidtims and facred uteniils; and chapels dedicated to fubordinate Deities introduced by a more complicated and corrupt wor- fhip, and probably unknown to the founders of the ori- ginal edifice. § The portico, which runs parallel with thefe buildings,II inclofed the Temenos^ or area of facred * Hymn. 46. j* * Diodor. Sic. Lib. I. Macros. Sat. Lib. I. C. 20. X See Plate XIII. Fig. i and 2, and Plate XII. Fig. 4. § Plate XIII. Fig. 2. a—a.
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