cover their heads; and a monument found at Metz represents the three standing, and holding in their hands fruit or flowers. To come back to the land of the Allobroges, one is led to suppose, from the number of inscriptions and sculptures in honour of the Mothers, that their worship was far the most popular there, and the same remark would probably apply to the rest of Gaul.
Usually, but not always, they have the official title of Augustae given them, as in the following inscription found at Sainte-Colombe, near Lyons: Matris Augustis, C. Titius Sedulus ex voto.[1] And a remarkable specimen on a piece of stone at the church of Aoste, near La Tour-du-Pin in the Isère, reads:[2] Matris Aug(ustis) ex stipe annua denariorum xxxv et d(onis). . . . Here it may be observed that an offertory of only thirty-five denarii in the course of a whole year is pretty clear evidence that the faithful who practised the cult of the Mothers at Aoste were all poor people, and that the service was of the simplest and most rustic nature. One more of these inscriptions deserves to be mentioned, namely, that found at Grenoble, and reading, so far as it is still legible:[3] Matris Nemetiali(bus) Lucretia Q. Lib(erta) . . . . After the analogy of other instances, Nemetiali is taken to be an abbreviation for Nemetialibus, and this last has further been supposed to be a sort of Gallo-Roman equivalent of the official Augustis; but it is much more likely to be a topical epithet referring to some spot where they had a shrine: compare Matrebo Namausicabo, 'to the Mothers of Nîmes,' and Matribus Treveris, 'to the Mothers of Treves.' But if this should be thought an unsatisfactory explanation,
