guardian to watch over the Mercy Seat and Altar and what was in it., viz., the Sacred Law. Looked upon as "Guardians" in this symbolical picture, surely Masons may be permitted to imagine that they are still performing their important functions with respect to the building in front of which they are placed, which, if a Lodge or its equivalent, would surely have somewhere safely bestowed in it that Great Light in Masonry, the volume of the Sacred Law.

The Gladiators, looked at Masonically, might, in the symbolic victory obtained by the Secutor over the man who holds the trident and net, symbolize that the race is not always to the swift, but that a bold heart, and a skilled and rightful use of the means afforded to us to defend ourselves from evil, will in the end lead to safety and success, and crown with glory him who at all times is armed for the fight.

The northern panel exemplifies the well-known fable of the Fox and the Grapes. Cowans may well learn by this not to depreciate that philosophical science which they fail, though perhaps much wishing it, to attain. There is also perhaps another hidden meaning in this illustration, inasmuch as arched domes, such as the one here shown, have been found at Nepata in Meröe, the cradle of Egyptian art, and in pyramidal remains at Djebel el Berkel. The arched dome seems to have taken its origin in Etruria and was used in all probabilty by the Augurs, whose business it was to observe the flight of birds; the stations of these Augurs were called Templa and placed on the summits of hills. To shelter such and give a free view no building was more proper and suitable than a dome on columns. The Templa, therefore, might be typical of the Temple at Jerusalem, supposed to have been built by Masons, and this suggestion seems confirmed in a great measure by the presence of the grape vine, the entrance to the Porch of the Temple being also adorned by a colossal vine and grapes, symbolical of the "Noble Vine" and "Vineyard."

The passage along the corridor from Room No. III. is over a tesselated pavement of four or five different colours. It is probable, so says the Guide Book, "that this corridor included "room No. 3-as we are not at all certain whether a satisfactory wall existed between them, "in which case the whole length would be 65 ft." Looking at the plan this seems very likely-probably there were short projecting piers from each side of the corridor connected by an arch. A curtain across this would then make No. 3 Room either a part of the corridor or not, as most convenient.

I may mention with reference to the colored pavement in the corridor that the outer court of the Temple was paved with stones of various colours. We are taught also in Masonry that as the steps of man are attended by various and uncertain accidents of life, and as our days are chequered with a strange contrariety of events, and our passage through existence often beset with a multitude of evils, so is a Masonic Lodge furnished with tesselated or Masonic work to remind us of the precariousness of our state on earth.

In the centre of this passage, or corridor, or colonnade, which is 50-feet long (or with chamber No. III., a total length of 653-feet) is a square panel of ornamental pavement enclosing a medallion on which is a representation of Orpheus and which the Guide Book most accurately describes as follows.

"Here occurs an interesting subject representing Orpheus seated, wearing a red Phrygian cap and playing a lyre, by which he is attracting several animals, i.e. a monkey with a red cap, a coote, a fox, and a peacock. Orpheus pavements have been discovered at Woodchester, Withington, Horkstow, Winterton, Littlecote-on-Humber, and Saltford, between Bath and Bristol, but none have yet been noted in which a monkey forms portion of the design. Such a representation of Orpheus accords with the period to which the occupation of the Villa may be assigned. The subject was one especially favoured by the early Christians, indeed it has been clearly shown, that in advocating the new faith its promoters frequently selected the divinities of antiquity as creations familiar to the popular mind, and in the figure of Orpheus a convenient type existed for the illustration of the Good Shepherd and other symbols more especially associated with Christianity. It is remarkable that when Alexander Severus placed pictures of Abraham and of Christ in his Lararium, he included that of Orpheus also.'

This design of Orpheus would seem to have a double signification. Other representations of this Deity are generally fully robed which this figure is not: but Orpheus here is clothed Masonically as, on close inspection, it will be seen that he is garbed with a Mason's apron, and of the oldest pointed type moreover, and his red robes would seem to be partially withdrawn in order to give prominence to this fact. Not impossibly this Orpheus was also typical of another Orpheus, an ancient philosopher whose idea was that Ether, or the Heavens, was created by the Counselling Light, Invisible, Incomprehensible, and Creator of all things. The prominent position of this Orpheus lozenge is almost a guarantee that the Roman building was constructed and used for other than heathen purposes.

Seven feet beyond the Orpheus square is a stone subway 7-feet long, and 7-feet again beyond this subway is the entrance to the Room No. XII., making a total of 21-feet of corridor from Orpheus to Room XII.

G

This subway is supposed to have led to a furnace for heating the hypocaust beneath floors of Rooms XIII. and IX. The entrance to this furnace seems very peculiarly situated, placed as it is in the centre of a handsomely paved corridor, and at the entrance to the main and most important room in the building. We can hardly imagine that such designers, as were the Romans, could have permitted so questionable an arrangement as this without some specially good reason. There is no lack of space in this Villa and an entrance to the furnace, or indeed the furnace itself, might well have been constructed in some other locality where it would have equally well performed its necessary function of heating the rooms.

Looking at this arrangement from a Masonic point of view, and with the knowledge that the Romans did not bury but burnt their dead, is it not possible that this peculiarly shaped recess may have been used for the purpose of a typical cremation? or utilized in some similar manner at a very solemn part of the ceremony?

Passing from No. VI. passage we enter the eastern division of No. XII. Chamber, which, says the admirably written Guide Book, “contains the largest and most important of the mosaics yet discovered. In the centre is a large medallion containing the head of Medusa, one of the Gorgon sisters, such as are represented both at Bignor and Bramdean; its position is slightly orientated. Springing from this centre are four compartments arranged crosswise, as shown in the accompanying illustration; each of these is bordered by the guilloche pattern. At the angles, north and south, east and west, are triangular compartments illustrating figures of bucolics blowing the buccina, or neatherd's horn; on their heads is the petasus of Mercury. Over the left shoulder is a pallium or other form of cloak. The designs which make up the four panels referred to are of considerable interest, each containing two figures, a male and female. The subjects appear to be of a pastoral character, as evidenced by the south-west compartment of the lower portion of the pavement. It presents a group admirably worked in small tessera of varied colours. There is a female figure partially draped after the manner of the Saltatrix or dancing girl of Greece and Italy, the musical instrument upon which she is playing with the right hand, is suggestive of some of the Pompeian paintings which illustrate the Tympanistria or female player of the Tympanum or tambourine, her companion is a male figure of more than ordinary interest, on account of the peculiarities presented by the costume worn-he wears a Phrygian cap, a skirted tunic with small cloak or pallium fastened on the right shoulder, and what is very unusual with such figures he appears with bracca or trousers, these are loose and plainly distinct above the ankle, and calceus or the boot or shoe beneath. The peculiarity of this dress leads to the opinion that it may be that in fashion at the time the mosaic was laid down, because the form given to the bracce is different to that usually met with in the costume attributed to the barbarians' or provincial nations in Roman sculpture. The Pandean pipe, a musical instrument formed from stalks of reed or cane, which is held by the figure in the right hand, and the presence of the shepherd's crook denote the pastoral meaning of the group.

"A second panel comprises a design, the meaning of which is at once intelligible, a female figure, tall and closely draped is seen bearing in one hand a staff, and in the other ears of corn, which she is presenting to a man, who though perfectly nude holds by the left hand the bura or buris, viz., the hinder part of the ancient plough. The subject is clearly that of Ceres offering the fruits of the earth to Triptolemus, who according to the stories of mythology was the inventor of the plough and agriculture. In the Georgics of the ever to be remembered Virgil we read how Ceres first taught humanity to plough the land2 with iron 'Prima Ceres ferro mortales vertere terram instituit,'

and again, how the sower was both to plough and sow naked,

'Nudas ara, sere nudus'

be

writes the poet, a passage which from the words in another place 'leviter vestiti' may rendered as 'lightly clad,' a condition requisite in an uncertain climate, but in the pictorial representation before us we note even more than a literal translation."

On entering No. XII. Chamber and examining its mosaics Masonically, one is struck at once with the fact that the circular lozenge which is in the centre of the square, together with the four rectangular shaped panels by which it is flanked, are diagonally placed in another large square, which contains the whole of the mosaic; but whilst this design is hardly of true Masonic form it has nevertheless a hidden meaning of its own.

The subjects on this floor are very certainly Pagan or heathenish in signification, but the form in which the diagrams are placed is that of the well-known Grecian cross. The arrangement is peculiar but striking, and is emphasized by the triangles in the corners of

1 According to heathen mythology there were three, Stheino, Euryale, and Medusa. Of these the latter alone was mortal, her locks of hair were transformed into serpents by Athena. As an emblem in ancient art the head of Medusa is, as a rule, significantly Pagan. It often symbolises Death, and is typical of all that is hopeless and lost. 2 Georgics, lib. i, 147.