The burial of superfluous statues can also be paralleled from
ancient Rome: according to Varro, as reported by Aulus Gellius,
_Attic Nights_ 2. 10. 3, the _favisiae Capitolinae_ were
underground chambers and storage areas in which old statues that
had fallen off the temple of Jupiter Best and Greatest on the
Capitol were kept along with other votive offerings consecrated
to him. Both name and thing had been forgotten by the first
century BC, but when the learned jurist Servius Sulpicius Rufus,
having encountered the word, asked the even more learned Varro
what it meant, Varro replied that he remembered the discovery of
the underground chambers during restoration.
(Courtesy of Leofranc Holford-Strevens)
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Bonnie Blackburn
67 St Bernard's Road
Oxford OX2 6EJ
tel. 01865 552808 fax 01865 512237
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
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