Note 303 — Chapter I · SHEEP’S WOOL.
Reading edition
Buonaroti (Osservazioni sopra alcuni Medaglioni Antichi, p. 41.) has exhibited brass coins, in one of which Mercury is riding on a sheep; in a second the sheep is seen with Mercury’s bag of money on its back; and in a third the caduceus is over the sheep, and two spikes of corn, emblems of agricultural prosperity, spring out of the ground before it. Among the gems of the Baron de Stosch, now belonging to the Royal Cabinet at Berlin, No. 381. Class II. represents Mercury sitting upon a rock with a dog by his side: Winckelmann observes, that “the dog is the symbol of Mercury as the protector of shepherds.” Nos. 392, 393, 396-402, in the same collection, represent him with sheep, and one of them (399.) exhibits him standing erect in a chariot drawn by four rams, and holding the bag or purse in his right hand and the caduceus in his left.
Some of the coins of Sicily appear to refer in like manner to the character of Mercury as the promoter of the trade in wool.
The Honorable Keppel Craven (Excursions in the Abruzzi, London, 1838, vol. i. ch. 4. p. 109.) mentions a temple at Arpinum, a city of Latium, which was dedicated, as appears from an inscription found on its site, to MERCURIUS LANARIUS. This title evidently represented Mercury as presiding over the growth of wool and the trade in it.
Perhaps the very ancient idea of Mercury making the fleece of Phryxus golden by his touch may have originated in the same view. See Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica, l. 11. 1144, and Scholion ad locum.