12. From such causes as
these this also has followed, with your connivance, that the wanton
fancy of artists has found full scope in representing the bodies
of the gods, and giving forms to them, at which even the sternest might
laugh. And so Hammon is even now formed and represented with a
ram’s horns; Saturn with his crooked sickle, like some guardian
of the fields, and pruner of too luxuriant branches; the son of
Maia with a broad-brimmed travelling cap, as if he were preparing to
take the road, and avoiding the sun’s rays and the dust; Liber
with tender limbs, and with a woman’s perfectly free and easily
flowing lines of body;4651
| 4651
Lit., “and most dissolved with the laxity of feminine
liquidity.” |
Venus,
naked and unclothed, just as if
you said that she exposed publicly, and sold to all comers,
4652
the
beauty of
her prostituted body; Vulcan with his cap and hammer, but with his
right
hand free, and with his
dress girt up as a workman
prepares
4653
| 4653
Lit., “with a workman’s preparing.” |
for his
work;
the Delian
god with a plectrum and lyre, gesticulating like a player on
the cithern and an actor about to
sing; the king of the
sea with his
trident, just as if he had to
fight in the gladiatorial contest:
nor can any figure of any
deity be found
4654
| 4654
Lit., “is there any figure to find.” |
which does not have certain
characteristics
4655
bestowed
on it by the
generosity of its makers. Lo, if some witty
and
cunning king were to remove the Sun from
his place before
the
gate4656
| 4656
Ex foribus. Cf. Tertull., de Idol., ch.
15: “In Greek writers we also read that Apollo
Θυραῖος and the
dæmones Antelii watch over doors.” |
and transfer
him to that of Mercury,
and again were to carry off Mercury and
make him migrate to the
shrine of the Sun,—for both are made
beardless by you, and with smooth faces,—and to give to this one
rays
of light to place a little cap
4657
| 4657 So
the edd, reading petas-un-culumfor the ms. -io-. |
on the Sun’s head, how will you
be able to distinguish between them, whether this is the Sun, or that
Mercury, since
dress, not the
peculiar appearance of the face, usually
points out the gods to you? Again, if, having transported them in
like manner, he were to take away his
horns from the unclad
Jupiter,
and
fix them upon the
temples of Mars, and to strip Mars of his arms,
and, on the other
hand, invest Hammon with them, what distinction can
there be between them, since he who had been
Jupiter can be also
supposed to be Mars, and he who had been Mavors can assume the
appearance of
Jupiter Hammon? To such an extent is there
wantonness in fashioning those images and consecrating names, as if
they were peculiar to them; since, if you take away their dress,
the
means of recognising each is put an end to, god may be
believed to be god, one may seem to be the other, nay, more, both may
be considered both!
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