The Open court . on, especially those of 1609 to 1611, were greatly in demand,and soldiers gladly paid twenty or thirty current dollars for one ofthem. A well-founded report relates how one ofificer succeeded inescaping with his life from an engagement only because he hadcarried a St. George dollar (Gorycntaler) of this particular , too, medals with the figure of the grim and warlike Marsand often covered with cabalistic names and symbols served warriorsas amulets of ofifense and defense, and since this particular classof war amulet arouses a greater interest on account of its relatio
The Open court . on, especially those of 1609 to 1611, were greatly in demand,and soldiers gladly paid twenty or thirty current dollars for one ofthem. A well-founded report relates how one ofificer succeeded inescaping with his life from an engagement only because he hadcarried a St. George dollar (Gorycntaler) of this particular , too, medals with the figure of the grim and warlike Marsand often covered with cabalistic names and symbols served warriorsas amulets of ofifense and defense, and since this particular classof war amulet arouses a greater interest on account of its relationto astrology and often to arithmetic as well, we have here set our-selves the task of illustrating and explaining some of this sort of 54 THE OPEN COURT. medals. Figures 1- and 2 represent two such Mars amulets. Theoriginals are to be found in the history of art department collectionof Austria Hungary at \^ienna in the division of coins and medals,which is probably the richest collection of amulets in the Fig. 1. Turning now to describe the two amulets the first thing thatstrikes us is the figure of an armed warrior with sword, helmet andshield. It is impossible to have any doubt about the personality ofthe warrior. He carries his visiting card with him, so to speak,in both instances. In Figure 1 at the left below the sword werecognize the well-known symbol which stands both for the planetand the planetary deity Mars and in Figure 2 we find the samesymbol above the head of the warrior in the center of the star sup-posed to represent his planet, and then too between its rays wecan even read the name Mars The Hebrew word to be seen oneither side of the war-gods head in Figure 1 reads Camael, andopencourt32_740caru
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade188, booksubjectreligion, bookyear1887
