Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/117

EARLY SCULPTURE. 9tf erected in honor of a god, did not even pretend to be an image, but was often nothing more than a pillar, a board, a shapeless stone, a post, etc., fixed so as to mark and consecrate the local- ity, and receiving from the neighborhood respectful care and dec- oration, as well as worship. Sometimes there was a real statue, though of the rudest character, carved in wood : and the families of carvers, who, from father to son, exercised this profession, represented in Attica by the name of Diedalus, and in the yEgina by the name of Smilis, adhered long, with strict exactness, to the consecrated type of each particular god. Gradually, the wish grew up to change the material, as well as to correct the rudeness, of such primitive idols ; sometimes the original wood was retained as the material, but covered in part with ivory or gold, in other cases, marble or metal was substituted. Dipre- nus and Skyllis of Krete acquired renown as workers in marble, about the 50th Olympiad (580 B.C.), and from them downwards a series of names may be traced, more or less distinguished ; moreover, it seems about the same period that the earliest temple- offerings, in works of art, properly so called, commence, the golden statue of Zeus, and the large carved chest, dedicated by the Kypselids of Corinth at Olympia. 1 The pious associations, however, connected with the old type were so strong, that the (i, 98) and Pausanias (x, 38, 3) give different accounts of Theodoras, bat the positive evidence does not enable us to verify the genealogies either of Thiersch or O. Muller. Herodotus (iv, 152) mentions the 'Hpalov at Samos in connection with events near Olymp. 37 ; but this does not prove that the great temple which he himself saw, a century and a half later, had been begun before Olymp. 37, as Thiersch would infer. The statement of O. Miillcr, that this temple was begun in Olymp. 35, is not authenticated (Arch, der Kunst, sect. 53). 1 Pausanias tells us distinctly that this chest was dedicated at Olympia by the Kypselids. descendants of Kypsclus ; and this seems credible enough. But he also tells us that this was the identical chest in which the infant Kypselus had been concealed, believing the story as told in Herodotus (v, 02). In this latter belief I cannot go along with him, nor do I think that there is any evidence for believing the chest to have been of more ancient date than the persons who dedicated it, in spite of the opinions of 0. Muller and Thiersch to the contrary ( 0. Muller, Archaol. der Knnst, sect. 57; Thiersch, Epochen der Griechischen Kunst, p. 169, 2il edit 1 Puusan. v, 17, 2).