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right hand, and an owl in her left, representing Pallas or Minerva, according to the verse:

Before the chapel of Minerva located on the Capitoline, three kneeling statues were once seen, which some called the *Nixidiae*, because they were believed to be present for the labors and pains of those in childbirth. Deliberately omitting the image of Venus, shown as a beautiful woman with doves, and the image of Juno, expressed by a figure of a woman with peacocks, we move on to consider the image of a venerable woman with a girdle in her hand, whom the ancients called *Viriplaca*. She was so named because she was said to reconcile spouses who were at odds due to bitter hatred; indeed, a husband and wife, as soon as hatred arose between them, would flee to the statue of Viriplaca.

Furthermore, three nude images of girls embracing each other, under the names Aglaia, Euphrosyne, and Thalia, represented the statue of the three Graces. To these they added three female figures whom the ancients named the fatal goddesses, namely the Fates (*Parcae*), because they spare no mortal; of them it is sung:

From here we gradually arrive at the Tartarean seats, where a dark-colored man crowned with ebony was said to be seen sitting on a tribunal, with a three-headed dog at his feet; with this image, Cartari expresses Pluto. Alternatively, the image of Pluto was painted with a rod or club in his hand, and sometimes with a woman sitting on another tribunal holding a key in her right hand. The man signifies Pluto, king of the infernal regions; the woman denotes Proserpina; the key signifies guardianship, and the three-headed dog was said to strike terror into souls so they would not leave the Underworld—or rather, it indicates the earth, which seems to devour the flesh of those buried, just as that three-headed dog was believed to devour souls seeking an exit. Otherwise, according to the opinion of Valeriano, the figure of two human heads depicted on tombs with the letters D.M. manifested the *Di Manes* (the ancestral spirits), under whose protection the deceased were said to be.

In the Underworld they also painted an old man of horrific appearance, with flaming eyes, a long and tangled beard, and dressed in tattered clothes, whom they named Charon. There too, the image of a man immersed up to his mouth in water with fruit-bearing trees around the banks indicates Tantalus. There are other images to be explained: for those intending to signify Orpheus, they depicted a man dressed in philosophical robes, playing the lyre, with a multitude of various animals and even trees that seem to hasten to hear him. However, Coustau used such an image to demonstrate the power of eloquence, which Euripides called the "Queen" and Ennius called the "Soul-bender."

The images of Giants were revealed by the ancients through figures of great stature, with hair spread over their shoulders, a beard hanging down to the chest, and serpentine legs. Among these men of vast bulk, they marveled at Typhon, covered in feathers, with a huge mouth breathing flames, his head touching the stars, and one hand stretched to the east and the other to the west. But the image of a youth pressing the genitals of Typhon signifies Horus, who overcame Typhon, though he did not kill him, since he departed having transformed into a crocodile. Finally, if figures of Nymphs are seen, some offering a helmet and others winged sandals to a youth, they show Perseus preparing for the slaughter of Medusa.

To these let us add, as a sort of crowning touch, a certain Egyptian image figured with the form of a man and a beast, called a Sphinx, which was placed in the vestibules of temples. Indeed, they venerated this as a sacred symbol of the combination of two virtues, namely Prudence and Fortitude. For through the image of the beast they understood strength, and through the icon of the man, Prudence; with these joined together, they considered everything to be impregnable. Clement of Alexandria also recorded in his writings that in a sacred building called the Pylon in the city of Diospolis, there were seen a young boy, an old man, a hawk, a fish, and a crocodile, with this inscription: "O YOU WHO ARE BORN AND DIE, GOD HATES IMPUDENCE." Since through the boy