Originally Posted by
dazza
You'd think that polytheism was alive and well in Victorian society, but I guess is was just recycling existing Egyptian, Greek and Roman myths, art, literature and styles of architecture, rather than personally upholding a belief in the gods they once represented.
Hi Fortinian and Dazza
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I think it was less that the Victorians and the Georgians before them believed in pagan ideas and more that those styles of design and architecture were popular. Egyptian influences of course came in after Napoleon's adventures in Egypt.
Major General Robert Ross's 100-foot granite obelisk in Rostrevor, County Down is obviously based on classical designs of similar monuments in Rome but it has a winged eye device on it that comes from Egyptian motifs, as does Baltimore's triumphant Battle Monument to the dead of the Battle of Baltimore of September 1814 and in celebration of the defeat of the British during which Ross was killed in a skirmish before the Battle of North Point.
Ross's monument in St. Paul's Cathedral, London, shown at bottom, is obviously also of classical design with the weeping figure of Britannia and another figure holding a laurel wreath over the general's head. But no one would say Ross was not a Christian. In fact his elder brother Thomas Ross was a minister of the episcopal Church of Ireland.
Chris
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