Alexander Stuart Murray

“ Fanciful shapes are equally common in bronze. The standard form of handle consists of a ring for the forefinger and above it a kind of palmette for the thumb. Instead of the palmette is sometimes a crescent, no doubt in allusion to the moon. It would only be with bronze lamps that the cover protecting the flame from the wind could be used, as was the case out of doors in Athens. Such a lamp was in fact a lantern. Apparently it was to the lantern that the Greek word lampas, a torch, was first transferred, probably from a custom of having guards to protect the torches also. ”

“ As the torch gave way to the lamp in fact, so also it gave way in mythology. In the earlier myths, as in that of Demeter, it is a torch with which she goes forth to search for her daughter, but in the late myth of Cupid and Psyche it is an oil lamp which Psyche carries, and from which to her grief a drop of hot oil falls on Cupid and awakes him. Terra-cotta lamps have very frequently the name of the maker stamped on the foot. ”