A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, Volume II (of 2) by Philip Thicknesse
page 17 of 136 (12%)
page 17 of 136 (12%)
|
the heads of _Constantine_, _Faustina_, and his son; and they say the
Emperor saw this miracle in the heaven from the very _Cimetiere_ in which this monument stands, i.e. in the year 315; the fifth is the tomb of _St. Dorothy_, Virgin and Martyr of _Arles_; the sixth _St. Virgil_, and the seventh _St. Hiliare_, (both Archbishops of _Arles_,) who has borrowed a Pagan sepulchre, for it is adorned with the principal divinities of the ancients in bass relief.--It seems odd to see on a Christian Bishop's tomb _Venus_, and the three Destinies. The people here say, that this tomb represents human life, as the ancients believed that each God contributed something towards the being. Be that as it may, the tomb is a very curious one, and much admired by the _Connoisseurs_, for its excellent workmanship; but what is more extraordinary than all these, is, that this catacomb, standing in the middle of the others, with its cover well and closely fixed, has always water in it, and often is quite full, and nobody can tell (_but one of the priests perhaps_) from what source it comes. There is also in this church the tomb and a long Latin Epitaph of _St. Trophime_, their first Bishop; but the characters are very Gothic, and the Cs are square, [Image: E E with no mid bar]; he came here in the year 61, and preached down that abominable practice of sacrificing three young men annually. He died in the year 61, at 72 years of age. On the front of the Metropolitan church of _Arles_, called _St. Trophime_, are the two following lines, in Gothic characters, cut above a thousand years: Cernitur eximius vir Christi Discipulorum, De Numero Trophimus, hic Septuaginta duorum. This church was built in the year 625, by _St. Virgil_, and is a curious piece of antiquity within, and particularly without; but I will not |
|