ARCHEOLOGY none is more admirable than this, and none more characteristic of the Greek genius. We represent, in two lines, the composition which adorned one of the sides of this sarcophagus. It represents a victory of Alexander, probably that of Issus (Fig. 39). On the left we see the Macedonian king charging the Persian horse, on the right his general Parmenio, and in the midst a younger officer, perhaps Cleitus. Mingled with the chiefs are foot-soldiers, Greek and Macedonian, with whom the Persians are mingled in unequal fray. What most strikes the modern eye is the remarkable freshness and force of the action and the attitudes. Those, however, who have seen the originals
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have been specially impressed with the colouring, whereof of course our engraving gives no hint, but which is applied to the whole surface of the relief with equal skill and delicacy. There are other features in the relief on which a Greek eye would have dwelt with special pleasure—the exceedingly careful symmetry of the whole, the balancing of figure against figure, the skill with which the result of the battle is hinted rather than depicted. The composition is one in which the most careful planning and the most precise calculation are mingled with freedom of hand and expressiveness in detail. The faces in particular show more expression than would be tolerated in art of the
Pig. 39.—Battle of Issus : sarcophagus from Sidon. Hamdy et Reinach, Necropole a Sidon, PI. 30. previous century. We are unable as yet to assign an contemporary art, that a multitude of heads of the age, author or even a school to the sculptor of this sarcophagus; both of gods and men, and even the portraits of his he comes to us as a new and striking phenomenon in successors, show traces of his type. All the extant the history of ancient art. The reliefs which adorn the portraits of the king are put together, in a pamphlet by other sides of the sarcophagus are almost equally interest- Dr. Koepp. ing. On one side we see Alexander again, in the company Period V. After b.c. 320. of a Persian noble, hunting a lion. The short sides also Our knowledge of the art of the age succeeding show us scenes of fighting and hunting. In fact it can scarcely be doubted that if we had but a clue to the Alexander the Great, the age now commonly by historians interpretation of the reliefs, they would be found to called the Hellenistic, has received a great tar of embody historic events of the end of the 4th century. accession since 1875 through the systematic ^J m a ° ‘ There are but a few other works of art, such as the labours directed by the German Archaeological Bayeux tapestry and the Column of Trajan, which bring Institute, which have resulted in recovering the remains of contemporary history so vividly before our eyes. The Pergamon, the fortress-city which was the capital of the battles with the Persians represented in some of the dynasty of the Philetaeri. Among the ancient buildings of sculpture of the Parthenon and the temple of Nike at Pergamon none was more ambitious in scale and striking Athens are treated conventionally and with no attempt at in execution than the great altar used for sacrifice to realism; but here the ideal and the actual are blended Zeus, a monument supposed to be referred to in the into a work of consummate art, which is at the same time, phrase of the Apocalypse “ where Satan’s throne is.” This to those who can read the language of Greek art, a historic altar, like many great sacrificial altars of later Greece, was a record. The portraits of Alexander the Great which vast erection to which one mounted by many steps, and its appear on this sarcophagus are almost contemporary, and outside was adorned with a frieze which represented on a the most authentic likenesses of him which we possess. gigantic scale, in the style of the 2nd century b.c., the The great Macedonian exercised so strong an influence on battle between the Gods and the Giants. This enormous S. I. — 74
