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

X THE TORCH OF VESTA 379
the whole is an amulet symbolising many divinities ;
that a horizontal line through the centre of each of
these plates passes through a series of identical
objects.
Minervini says that the open hand has not been
sufficiently considered by Jahn ; that it seems to
point upward to the numerous symbols depicted
above it ; that he considers these hands to be of the
same meaning as those Jahn calls votive hands,
here dealt with in the chapter on the Mano Pantea.
Beginning on the left, he compares the two
seriatim. The ladder, he remarks, is doubtful in
its meaning to Jahn, but we see in both plaques the
symbols of the twelve great gods. Ceres however
is wanting, whereas on Barone's lamp she is repre-
sented by the ear of corn ; and he maintains that
what seems to be a ladder is arnese di tessere, i.e.
a loom, and that it represents Ceres in all cases.
In every one of the moulds seen by the writer there
is the ladder unmistakable.
The next symbol, he says, is a lighted torch with
the flame turned to the left. This, Jahn says, is a
two-pronged fork ; but he is surely wrong, for that
would mean nothing.
On Fig. 181 is a nondescript object above the
ladder, corresponding in position to what Minervini
calls a flame. Now, as in the Ashmolean plaque there
is an undoubted torch, we think that in both moulds a
torch with flame turned to the left comes next the
ladder, and that it represents Vesta; so asserts Miner-
vini. On the lamp we see the torch most distinctly.
Next comes a scabbard, which Jahn took for the torch.
It is very plain, and shows the ring by which it is
attached to the belt {baited) on Fig. 183. This