Forlong - Rivers of Life

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Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
wards, like mythic Abram and the patriarch of Meka, dug his sacred well, and built
a tank or reservoir, on which, up to Pliny’s time, grew the beautiful Nymphean flower
Kamāla, and also the sacred Lotus—goddess of love and fertility. Do these characteristics
not point to a Turnanian or Tuscan, as well as Aryan source—lands, where Tree
and Serpent faiths had flourished, and which the later Latins also cherished, and more
or less planted in their new home? From natural conformations then, in the first place,
and afterwards as being the abode of these old faiths; did the Tiber site, I think,
become so holy, and remain so through all its later history.
Here is a slightly detailed plan of the Palatine, showing some of the sacred buildings
from Romulus to the Cesars. At the western angle the Roman founder appears
Fig. 161.—PLAN OF ANCIENT PALATINE—ROMULUS TO THE CESARS.
to have made his entry, or taken up his position on beginning his duties; and here he
erected (as every Indian would do at this day) his Maha-deva or Phallic Hercules.
Long after would come the famous Jupiter Stator, still an unveiIed god, indecent by
name and nature, who was placed on the slopes of the eastern summit, no doubt to
command the first view of Sol, whom he symbolised. Later still came Jupiter
Victor, also placed on the slope, but to the west, in view of the declining god of day,