eir temples. They were
sometimes laid on the floor, sometimes hung upon the walls,
doors, pillars, roof, or any other conspicuous place.
Sometimes the occasion of the dedication was inscribed, either
upon the thing itself, or upon a tablet hung up with
it."[259:4]

No one custom of antiquity is so frequently mentioned by ancient
historians, as the practice which was so common among the _heathens_, of
making votive offerings to their deities, and hanging them up in their
temples, many of which are preserved to this day, viz., images of metal,
stone, or clay, as well as legs, arms, and other parts of the body, _in
testimony of some divine cure effected in that particular
member_.[259:5]

Horace says:

"----Me tabula sacer
Votiva paries indicat humida
Suspendisse potenti
Vestimenta maris Deo." (Lib. 1, Ode V.)

It was the custom of offering _ex-votos_ of _Priapic_ forms, at the
church of Isernia, in the _Christian_ kingdom of Naples, during the last
century, which induced Mr. R. Payne Knight to compile his remarkable
work on Phallic Worship.

Juvenal, who wrote A. D. 81-96, says of the goddess _Isis_, whose
religion was at that time in the greatest vogue at Rome, that the
painters get their livelihood out of her. This was because "the most
common of all offerings (made by the heathen to their deities) were
_pictures_ presenting the history of the miraculous cure or deliverance,
vouchsafed upon the vow of the donor."[260:1] One of their prayers ran
thus:

"Now, Goddess, help, for thou canst help bestow,
_As all these pictures round thy altars show_."[260:2]

In _Chambers's Encyclopaedia_ may be found the following:

"Patients that were cured of their ailments (by _AEsculapius_,
or through faith in him) hung up a tablet in his temple,
recording the name, the disease, and the manner of cure. _Many
of these votive tablets are still extant._"[260:3]

Alexander S. Murray, of the department of Greek and Roman Antiquities in
the British Museum, speaking of the miracles performed by _AEsculapius_,
says:

"A person who had recovered from a local illness would dictate
a sculptured representation of the part that had been
affected. _Of such sculptures there are a number of examples
in the British Museum._"[260:4]

Justin Martyr, in his _Apology_ for the Christian religion, addressed to
the Emperor Hadrian, says: