File:Denarius of Severus Alexander (Musgrave).jpg

English: "Penates (Household Gods) Dug Up at Devises in Our Belgium in the Year 1714, Table 6."

WITH these Little Statues was found a Coin of Alexander Severus with this Inscription:

IMP. M. SEV. ALEXANDER AUG.

And on the other side,

PAX AUG.

The coin indicates that these Statues were placed in the Earth in the time of that Alexander.

ON the Coin PAX AUG. shows that it was made after the Persian Triumph and indeed it is probable that it, together with the Penates, was placed in the ground around the year 234, when the soldiers were called up from Britain for the German War. It is certain that that Emperor was killed in the following year, when the war was nearly finished.

BY Lampridius we are taught that that Emperor was not a little taken and amused by the veneration of icons of this kind. "He did the divine thing", he said, "in the Household Shrine in which he had with the greater figures both the primary Gods and also the best men and Holier spirits including Apollonius and—so far as the Writer of his times says—Christ, Abraham, and Orpheus and Gods of this kind." Here Casaubon notes that Alexander had knowledge of CHRIST through his Mother Mammaea, who was initiated into the Mysteries of the Christian Religion, and it is clear that he was informed from the First. Lampridius relates "He wanted to make a Temple for Christ and to receive him among the Gods." Casaubon says the same thing: "He did the divine act either through Sacrifice (which is properly speaking the divine act) or by adoring the ground and placing incense, in which this was the way of many. Just so, as the Blessed Augustine writes, were the Images of Jesus, Paul, and Homer and Pythagoras worshipped in the Household Shrine of his kin Marcellina Carpocrates in the same way." This according to Casaubon.

NOR was this worship of the Little Statues foreign to the other Emperors. Augustus had his Thurinus and Hadrian had this same after him, given to him as a gift by Suetonius who possessed it for some time. Sulla had the Little Image of Apollo and Asclepiades of the heavenly Goddess, as we have discussed elsewhere. Moreover, it is evident in mentions within Arnobius, Minutius Felix, and Tertullian that there was a Rattling God whose very ancient bronze statue—three or four Inches in height—was said to have been dug up in France a few years ago.

Notes: "To the Most Noble Prince Frederick, the destined Royal Heir, Great Britain's hope, Delight, and most yearned for Spirit, son of the Most High George and grandson of the Most August George, William Musgrave, Fellow (?) of Exeter College, Oxford, of his own will and in Obedience to his Oath wished these here Penates, hidden by the Earth for 1500 years, to be dedicated.

"These Penates [found] by William Cadby, Gardener at Devizes, engraved on Brass and printed on Imperial Paper, are available for sale at the Booksellers Knapton in London, Clements in Oxford, and Yeo in Exeter. 1717."

A depiction of the obverse (face) of a Roman denarius discovered in the Southbroom Hoard near Devizes, Wiltshire, in 1714, from Figure 9 in Musgrave's 3rd illustration of the hoard. The coin bears a portrait in profile with the legend IMP M AVR SEV ALEXAND AVG, abbreviated Latin for "Marcus Aurelius Severus Alexander, Caesar Augustus and Emperor" (Imperator Caesar Marcus Aurelius Severus Alexander Augustus).