The evil eye. An account of this ancient and wide spread superstition

IX ANIMALS ON THE MANO PANTEA 327
two
shaped helmet worn by the Dioscuri (Castor and
Pollux) ; one a vine-
others have the Thyrsus ;
branch ; and no less than nine of those known to
Jahn have the two-handled Cantharus. One has the
moon, which Jahn says Is perhaps the badge of
Mars {der Harnisch deni Ares). Besides all these
there are the symbols of the Phrygian orgies
the tympanum on one, bells on one, crotala (kind of
cymbal) on two ;
cymbals
—
on three ; the Phrygian
flute on four ; knife on two ; and the whip on four.
The ox head is on two, and the ram's head on five.
Egyptian cultus is again represented by the sistrum
upon two of these hands. What seems like a round
offering cake, divided by cross lines into four parts,
appears upon two hands. They are precisely like
the round, flat cakes found at Pompeii, now in the
Naples Museum, and at Oxford, except that the
terra cottas in the Ashmolean are not only imitation
loaves, but smaller than real ones, thus doubly cheat-
ing the dead.^^*
The scales are found on no less than nine, and
Jahn gives besides a list of animals depicted on
these hands—a bird, unknown, on two ; a frog on
ten ; a tortoise on twelve ; a lizard or crocodile
on nine ; but he does not say on how many he has
noted the serpent. He remarks that it is certainly
not by chance that we meet again and again with
the same animals, which play so significant a part
among protectives against the evil eye ; all the less
so {i.e. by chance), as amongst the other symbols
met with, come out the well-known signs of the
phallus on one, and the vulva also on another.
534 We would refer again to the cakes upon the tables in Figs. 156, and
113, 116 from Ravenna. In any case the coincidence is remarkable.