586
ARCHEOLOGY
(CLASSICAL)
made by Greek artists for wealthy Roman amateurs. The extensive excavations and alterations which have ^orTIC_ taken place at Rome in recent years have been very fruitful in this way; the results may be found partly in the palace of the Conservator! on the Capitol, partly in the new museum of the Terme. Among recently found statues none excel in interest some bronzes of large size dating from the Hellenistic age. We engrave (Fig. 41) the figure of a seated boxer, in scale somewhat exceeding life. Attitude and gesture are expressive. Evidently the boxer has fought already, and is awaiting a further conflict. His face is cut and swollen; on his hands are the terrible csestus, here made of leather, and not loaded with iron, like the csestus described by Virgil. The figure is of astounding force; but though the face is brutal and the expression savage, in the Fig nwppn nf - 41.-Bronze sweep OI the tne limbs ilinos there meie Benkmdler boxer: des Inst.Rome. PI. 4. Ant. is nobility, even ideal beauty. To the last the Greek artist could not set aside his admiration for physical perfection. Another bronze figure of more than life-size is that of a king of the Hellenistic age standing leaning on a spear. He is absolutely nude, like the athletes of Polycleitus. Another large bronze presents us with a Hellenistic type of Dionysus. Sculpture of the Roman age has not in recent years been discovered to the same extent. We have gained rather by a closer and more exact study of monuments already known than from the discovery of fresh monustands for the victory of Greek civilization over Gallic bar- ments. The columns of Trajan and of Antoninus have barism ; and this meaning is made more emphatic because been re-published in a series of excellent photographic the Gods are obviously inferior in physical force to their plates. Many provincial monuments, such as the Roman opponents, indeed, a large proportion of the divine com- tomb at S. Remy, the arch of Beneventum, the monument batants are goddesses. Yet everywhere the Giants are of Adam Klissi, have been more carefully published. overthrown, writhing in pain on the ground, or transfixed Many additions have been made to our already vast series by the weapons of their opponents; everywhere the Gods of Roman portraits, and the gigantic publication of Arndt are victorious, yet in the victory retain much of their divine on Greek and Roman portraits has for the first time put calm. The piecing together of the frieze at Berlin has together the necessary materials for a more satisfactory been a labour of many years, and is even yet incomplete. arrangement of portraits, as well as for their identification. We still await a final and monumental publication of it. Unfortunately, at present the great mass of portraits, both Some of the groups, however, have become familiar to Greek and Roman, have to be labelled “ unknown person.” students from photographs, especially the group which In Italian and other museums it has been the custom to represents Zeus slaying his enemies with thunderbolts, and assign names to portraits for reasons which will not bear the group wherein Athena seizes by the hair an overthrown investigation. Bernoulli’s Romische Ikonotjrciphie is, howopponent, who is winged, while Victory runs to crown her, ever, a scientific work; a similar work by Bernoulli on and beneath is seen Gaia, the earth-goddess who is the Greek iconography is now in course of publication : the mother of the Giants, rising out of the ground, and book of Visconti is quite out of date and untrustworthy. The most important discovery at Pompeii, during the mourning over her vanquished and tortured children. Another and smaller frieze which also decorated the altar- last quarter of a century, has been that of the Domus place gives us scenes from the history of Telephus, who Vettiorum, a house whereof the walls are adorned with opposed the landing of the army of Agamemnon in Asia an unusually important series of paintings, partly scenes Minor and was overthrown by Achilles. This frieze, from Greek mythology, partly scenes which give us which is quite fragmentary, is put together by Dr glimpses of daily life. Among the former are Achilles in Schneider in the Jahrbuch of the German Archaeological Scyros, the punishment of Dirce, the death of Pentheus, Dtedalus and Pasiphae. Among the latter we especially Institute for 1900. Since the Renascence Rome has continually produced a note the series of scenes in which Cupids are represented ■crop of works of Greek art of all periods, partly originals as engaged in various kinds of manufacture and commerce, brought from Greece by conquering generals, partly copies a Hellenistic fashion of introducing the actual in a manner
frieze is now one of the treasures of the Royal Museums of Berlin, and it cannot fail to impress visitors by the size of the figures, the energy of the action, and the strong vein of sentiment which pervades the whole, giving it a certain air of modernity, though the subject is strange to the Christian world. In early Greek art the Giants where they oppose the Gods are represented as men armed in full panoply, “ in shining armour, holding long spears in their hands,” to use the phrase in which Hesiod describes them. But in the Pergamene frieze the Giants are strange compounds, having the heads and bodies of wild and fierce barbarians, sometimes also human legs, but sometimes m the place of legs two long serpents, the heads of which take with the Giants themselves a share in the battle. Sometimes also they are winged. The Gods appear in the forms which had been gradually made for them in the course of Greek history, but they are usually accompanied by the animals sacred to them in cultus, between which and the serpent - feet of the Giants a weird combat goes on. We can conjecture the source whence the Pergamene artist derived the shaggy hair, the fierce expression, the huge muscles of his Giants (Fig. 40); probably these features came originally from the Galatians, who at the time had settled in Asia Minor, and were spreading the terror of their name and the report of their savage devastations through all Asia Minor. The victory Fig. 40.—Giant from great altar : Pergamon. over the Giants clearly
