Chapter 5 begins with griffins and gorgons, exploring the connections between wondrous objects and hybrids. Gorgons also prompt a discussion of gender and hybridity. This chapter juxtaposes the gorgon and other female demons who threaten mothers and children with the satyr, an exaggerated figure of the man identified by and with his penis. These matched exaggerations, by turns horrific and comic, illustrate the function of the hybrid as a projection of certain human anxieties: what if the man were no more than his erection? What if the woman were as dangerous as she is beautiful? What if a mother devoured her children instead of protecting them? Each caricature exists as a counterpoint to the ordinary men and women encountered in our daily lives, but in recognizing these alternatives the Greeks are also using the contrafactual to ask what exactly it means to be human. For this reason, transformation is a recurring theme in early Greek culture, with a wide range of applications from the stage to ritual initiation. Here too the cosmos is a space of entanglement. If a human shares some characteristic with an animal, does the divine also partake of this mutability?

This chapter focuses on the historical and intellectual context of the discovery and interpretation of Roman remains at Bath in the 18th and 19th century. It explores these contexts through two extended case studies in particular: 18th and early 19th century reactions to the Bath Gorgon, and the personal and professional networks of James T. Irvine, a prominent member of the Bath antiquarian community in the second half of the 19th century.

This chapter examines the position of Sulis Minerva and her sanctuary within the wider networks of empire and how Roman imperialism was negotiated in different ways throughout the site’s history. It starts by arguing that the foundation of the sanctuary in the Flavian period should be read primarily as an imperialist act designed to proclaim ownership of an indigenous sacred site; this is supported by the iconography datable to this period, especially the pediment of the temple. While this emphasis on imperial domination faded in later periods, Aquae Sulis continued to be a place where individuals, especially soldiers, used the worship of Sulis, and in particular epigraphy linking the deity to the imperial cult, to structure their identity and relationship to the emperor specifically and broader conceptions of empire more generally. The possibility that some of the votives from the sacred spring reflect similar concerns is also explored. Comparative material from other sites in Britain and Gaul is woven into the discussion throughout, and used to argue for a broad understanding of the pervasiveness of emperor-worship and the imperial cult in provincial religion.