LETTER XLII.. Lyons.

LYONS.

I have now spent a month in my second visit to this great and flourishing city, and fortunately took lodgings in a Hotel, where I found the lady and sister of Mons. Le Marquis De Valan, whose politeness to us I mentioned in a former letter at Vienne, and by whose favour I have had an opportunity of seeing more, and being better informed, than I could have been without so respectable an acquaintance. At Vienne I only knew his rank, here I became acquainted with his good character, and fortune, which is very considerable in Dauphine, where he has two or three fine seats. His Lady came to Lyons to lye-in, attended by the Marquis's sister, a Chanoinesse, a most agreeable sensible woman, of a certain age; but the Countess is young and beautiful.

You may imagine that, after what I said of Lyons, on my way to Spain, I did not associate much with my own country-folks. On my return, indeed, my principal amusement was to see as much as I could, in a town where so much is to be seen; and in relating to you what I have seen, I will begin with the Hotel De Ville; if it had not that name, I should have called it a Palace, for there are few palaces so large or so noble; on the first entrance of which, in the vestibule, you see, fixed in the wall, a large plate of Bronze, bearing stronger marks of fire than of age; on which were engraven, seventeen hundred years ago, two harangues made by the Emperor Claudius in the senate, in favour of the Lyonoise, and which are not only legible at this day, but all the letters are sharp and well executed; the plate indeed is broke quite through the middle, but fortunately the fraction runs between the first and second harangues, so as to have done but little injury among the the letters. As I do not know whether you ever saw a copy of it, I inclose it to you, and desire you will send it as an agreeable exercise, to be well translated by my friend at Oxford.

On the other side of the vestibule is a noble stair-case, on which is well painted the destruction of the city, by so dreadful a fire in the time of the Romans, that Seneca, who gives an account of it in a letter to his friend, says,

"Una nox fuit inter urbem maximam et nullum."

i.e. One night only intervened between a great city and nothing.

There is something awful in this scene, to see on one side of the stair-case the conflagration well executed; on the other, strong marks of the very fire which burnt so many ages ago; for there can be no doubt, but that the Bronze plate then stood in the Roman Hotel de Ville, and was burnt down with it, because it was dug up among the refuse of the old city on the mountain called Fourvire, on the other side of the river, where the original city was built.--In cutting the letters on this large plate of Bronze, they have, to gain room, made no distance between the words, but shewn the division only by a little touch thus < with the graver; and where a word eroded with a C, or G, they have put the touch within the concavity of the letter, otherwise it is admirably well executed.

Upon entering into the long gallery above stairs, you are shewn the late King and Queen's pictures at full length, surrounded with the heads of some hundred citizens; and in one corner of the room an ancient altar, the Taurabolium, dug up in 1704, near the same place where Claudius's harangue was found; it is of common stone, well executed, about four feet high, and one foot and a half square; on the front of it is the bull's head, in demi relief, adorned with a garland of corn; on the right side is the victimary knife of a very singular form; and on the left the head of a ram, adorned as the bull's; near the point of the knife are the following words, cujus factum est; the top of the altar is hollowed out into the form of a shallow bason, in which, I suppose, incense was burnt and part of the victims.

The knife, which is cut in demi relief, on the Taurobolium, is crooked upon the back, exactly in the same manner, and form, as may be seen on some of the medals of the Kings of Macedonia.

The Latin inscription under the bull's head, is very well cut, and very legible, by which it appears, that by the express order of CYBELE, the reputed mother of the Gods, for the honour and health of the Emperor Antoninus Pius, father of his country, and for the preservation of his children, children, Lucius Æmilius Carpus received the horns of the bull, by the ministration of Quintus Samius Secundus, transported them to the Vatican, and consecrated, at his own expence, this altar and the head of the bull; but I will send the inscription, and a model of the altar, as soon as I can have it made, as I find here a very ingenious sculptor and modeller; who, to my great serprize, says no one has hitherto been taken from it. And here let me observe, lest I forget it, to say, that Augustus lived three years in this city.

Lucius Æmilius Carpus was a Priest, and a man of great riches: he was of the quality of Sacrovir, and probably one of the six Priests of the temple of Angustus.--Sextumvir Augustalii.

Several inscriptions of this kind have been found both in Italy and Spain, but by far the greater number among the Gauls; and as the sacrifices to the Goddess Cybele were some of the least ancient of the Pagan rites, so they were the last which were suppressed on the establishment of Christianity. Since we find one of the Taurobolian inscriptions, with so recent a date as the time of the Emperor Valentinian the third. The silence of the Heathen writers on this head is very wonderful; for the only one who makes any mention of them is Julius Firmicus Maternus, in his dissertation on the errors of the Pagan religion; as Dalenius, in his elaborate account of the Taurobolium, has remarked.

The ceremony of the consecration of the High Priest of Cybele, which many learned men have mistaken for the consecration of the Roman Pontifex Maximus; which dignity, from the very earliest infancy of the Roman Empire, was always annexed to that of the Emperor himself.

The Priests who had the direction of the Taurobola, wore the same vestments without washing out the bloody stains, as long as they would hold together.

By these rites and baptisms by blood, they thought themselves, as it were re-born to a life eternal. Sextilius Agefilaus Ædesius says, that he was born a-new, to life eternal, by means of the Taurobolium and Criobolium.

Nor were the priests alone initiated in this manner, but also others, who were not of that order; in particular cases the regenerations were only promised for twenty years.

Besides the Taurobolia and Criobolia, which were erected at the expence of whole cities and provinces, there were others also, which were founded by the bounty of private people. We often meet with the names of magistrates and priests of other Gods, who were admitted into these mysteries, and who erected Taurobolia as offerings for the safety of the Emperor, or their own. The rites of the Taurobolia lasted sometimes many days.

The inscription, on the Taurobolium, which is on the same side with the head of the bull, we have endeavoured to explain by filling up the abbreviations which are met with in the Roman character.

TAUROBOLIO MATRIS DEUM MAGNÆ IDÆÆ QUOD FACTUM EST EX IMPERIO MATRIS IDÆÆ DEUM PRO SALUTE IMPERATORIS CÆSARIS TITI ÆLII ADRIANI ANTONINI AUGUSTI PII PATRIS PATRIÆ LIBERORUMQUE EJUS ET STATUS COLONIÆ LUGDUNENSIS LUCIUS ÆMILIUS CARPUS SEXTUMVIR AUGUSTALIS ITEM DENDROPHORUS VIRES EXCEPIT ET A VATICANO TRANSTULIT ARAM ET BUCRANIUM SUO IMPENDIO CONSECRAVIT SACERDOTE QUINTO SAMMIO SECUNDO AB QUINDECEMVIRIS OCCABO ET CORONA EXORNATO CUI SANCTISSIMUS ORDO LUGDUNENSIS PERPETUITATEM SACERDOTIS DECREVIT APPIO ANNIA ATILO BRADUA TITO CLODIO VIBIO VARO CONSULIBUS LOCUS DATUS DICRETO DECURIONUM.

The Model is now in the possession of the ingenious Dr. HARRINGTON at Bath.

The Taurobolium was one of the great mysteries, you know, of the Roman religion, in the observance of which, I think, they dug a large hole in the earth, and covered it with planks, laid at certain distances, so as to give light into the subterranean temple. The person who was to receive the Taurobolio then descended into the theatre, and received on his head and whole body, the smoaking hot blood of the bull, which was there sacrificed for that purpose. If a single bull was only sacrificed, I think they call it a simple Taurabolio, if a ram was added to it, as was sometimes done, it was then called a Torobolia, and Criobolio; sometimes too, I believe a goat was also slain.

After all the blood of the victim animals was discharged, the Priests and Cybils retired beneath the theatre, and he who had received the bloody sacrifice, came forth and exposed himself, besmeared with blood, to the people, who all prostrated themselves before him, with reverential awe, as one who was thereby particularly sanctified, and whose person ought to be regarded with the highest veneration, and looked upon with holy horror; nor did this sanctification, I think, end with the ceremony, but rendered the person of the sanctified holy for twenty years. An inscription cited by Gruter, seems to confirm this matter, who, after speaking of one Nepius Egnatius Faventinus, who lived in the year of Christ 176, says,

"Percepto Taurobolio Criobolioque feliciter,"

Concludes with these words,

"Vota Faventinus bis deni suscipit orbis, Ut mactet repetens aurata fronte bicornes."

The bis denus orbis seems to imply, the space of twice ten years.

And here I cannot help making a little comparison between the honours paid by the Roman citizens to their Emperors, and those of the present times to the Princes of the Blood Royal. You must know that the present King's brother, came to Lyons in the year 1775, and thus it is recorded in letters of gold upon their quay:

LOUIS XVI. REGNANT. EN MEMOIRE DE L'HEUREUX JOUR CINQ. SEPTEMBRE M,DCC,LXXV. OU MONSIEUR FRERE DU ROI ET MADAME SONT ARRIVES EN CETTE VILLE CE QUAI DE L'AGREMENT DU PRINCE ET PAR ORDONNANCE DU CONSULAT DU DOUZE DU MEME MOIS A ETE NOMME A PERPETUITE QUAI MONSIEUR.

If the Bourgeoise of Lyons, however, are not men of genius, they are ingenious men, and they have a most delightful country to dwell in. I think I may say, that from the high hills which hang about this city, and taking in the rivers, fertile vales, rude rocks, vine-yards, and country seats, far and near, that Lyons and its environs, afford a greater variety of natural and artificial beauties, than any spot in Europe. It is, however, by no means a place for the winter residence of a stranger. Most of the natives advanced in years, were carried off last winter. The surly winds which come down the Rhone, with impetuous blasts, are very disagreeable and dangerous. I found the cold intolerable in the beginning of May, out of the sunshine, and the sun intolerable in it. In England I never wore but one under waistcoat; in Spain, and in the south of France, I found two necessary. The Spaniards wear long cloaks, and we laugh at them; but the laugh would come more properly from them. There is in those climates a vifness in the air that penetrates through and through; and I am sure that such who travel to the southward for the recovery of their health, ought to be ten times more upon their guard, to be well secured against the keen blasts the south of France, than even against an easterly wind in England.

The disorder which carried off so many last winter at Lyons, was called the Gripe. In a large hotel only one person escaped it, an English Lady. They called it the Gripe, from the fast hold it took of the person it seized; nor did it let them go till April.

On my way here, I found it sometimes extremely hot; it is now the first of May, and I am shaking by the side of a good fire, and have had one constantly every day for this fortnight.