tion of the Achaian League, and the partial restoration of their country, recalled them once more to their deserted schools. But the prospect of tranquillity was illusory; the continued dissensions of the League, or their rivals, tended to impoverish the cities of Greece; and so degenerate had the feelings of the nation already become, that in the bitterness of their strife the belligerents turned their arms even against the monuments of art possessed by their opponents. During the scene of endless turmoil which preceded the subjugation of Achaia, the practice of the arts was in a great degree suspended; and for nearly half a century previous * Scopas, according to Polybius, in the war between the Etolians and Achaians, burned the galleries and other edifices, and destroyed the statues of the Macedonian city of Dios, which had been abandoned by its inhabitants on his approach : ἀνέστρεψε δὲ καὶ τὰς εἰκόνας τῶν βασιλέων άπασας· x. T. λ. (l. iv. p. 326.) Dorimachus, the Ætolian prætor, in the same war plundered and overturned the temple of Jupiter at Dodona; wapayevóμevos dè wpòs tò wapà Aodwvy iepov, τάς τε στοὺς ἐνέπρησε, καὶ πολλὰ τῶν ἀναθηματων διέφθειρε, κατέσκαψε δὲ καὶ τὴν ἱεραν οἰκίαν. (ibid. l. iv. p. 331.) For these sacrilegious atrocities the Macedonians under Philip made ample reprisals, by the destruction of the monuments of Thermium. (ibid. 1. iv. p. 358.) They burned the porticoes, destroyed the offerings in the temple, and broke or carried away, according to the same historian, not less than two thousand statues; ἀνέστρεψαν δὲ καὶ τοὺς ἀνδριάντας, οὐκ ἐλάττους διχιλίων ὄντας. (ibid. l. v. p. 358.) to the capture of Corinth, no one sculptor of eminence appeared in Grecce. Nor was their slumbering genius quickly aroused from its lethargy, since, from the latter period till the time of the triumvirate, the page of her history is equally barren in brilliant names. The first symptoms of decline were discoverable in the passion for extreme delicacy of labour, in preference to chasteness of design, manifested by the Grecian sculptors under the successors of Alexander. It had before this time acquired its summit of excellence in the works of the artists from Praxiteles to Lysippus, who form what has been termed the "School of Beauty" in the history of the arts.† The Torso, or Hercules Belvidere, executed by Apollonius, an Athenian, about two centuries before Christ, and the celebrated Hercules Farnese by Glycon, attributed to the same period, are generally considered as the last great works of the Grecian chisel previous to the fall of Corinth. Winkelmann, 1. vi. c. 4. Musée Franc. p. 93. Disc. Sculp. The reader will perhaps remember the beautiful verses addressed to the former by the first of female poets: "Consummate work, the noblest and the last Of Grecian freedom, ere her reign was past," &c. Mrs. Hemans' Restoration of the Works of Art to Italy, p. 24. ↑ Winkelmann, adopting the idea of Scaliger regarding poetry, has assigned five epochs to the history of art among the Greeks; its invention, improvement, perfection, decline, and decay. The first of these he denominates the ancient style, dating it from Dedalus to Phidias; the second In their hands invention and ideality had reached as it were their limits; and all that remained for future aspirants was an imitation of the immortal masters who had preceded them. Extraordinary precision of finish then became a substitute for boldness of conception; and sculpture, swerving from its masculine character, abandoned itself to the study of polish and decoration.* It was at this crisis of her history that sculpture, after the ruin of Greece, was cast a dependant on the protection of the Romans. Athens, as the taste of Italy gradually improved, became the workshop for their supply; the sublime, which continued from Phidias to Praxiteles, during which period ideality was added to the correct and rigid delineations of natural forms introduced by the early painters and sculptors; the third, or beautiful school, extends to the age of Alexander, when grace and expression were superadded to imagination and design; the fourth was the era of the decline, of which I now treat; and the fifth, its decay, usually includes the period from Septimus Severus to Constantine the Great, when art virtually ceases to exist.Winkelmann, 1. iv. c. 6. Agincourt, v. ii. Sculp. Introd.p. 11. "Sous les règnes des empereurs et un peu avant, les artistes commencèrent à mettre une application singulière à traiter le marbre avec soin, et surtout à rendre flottantes les boucles des cheveux ; ils s'attachèrent à rendre tous les détails jusqu'aux poils des surcils," &c. (Winkelmann, l. iv. c. vi.) "On croyoit montrer un talent particulier en prononçant fortement les veines, contre la maxime des anciens." (ibid.) and Cicero, in one of his epistles to Atticus, charges him to procure for him various productions of her artists. But the number of Athenians who had forborne to desert their country was trifling when compared with the crowd of distinguished names who during the Augustan age pursued the profession of the arts at Rome. Amongst the latter were Dioscorides and Pasiteles, the lapidaries; Gnaios, the sculptor of the head of Hercules in the Strozzi cabinet;* Evander, of whom Horace makes honourable mention; † Diogenes, who adorned the Pantheon of Agrippa; Crito, Nicolaus, Stephanus, and Menalus, to the latter of whom has been attributed the Orestes and Electra of the Villa Ludovisi. Her bereavement of such sons as these soon tended to depress the popular taste of Athens; and on comparing the Grecian medals and other relics of this age with those executed in Italy, the preference is decidedly in favour of the latter. It is a proof, however, of that fictitious feeling among the Romans, to which I have elsewhere alluded, that the works of these artists, numbers of whose productions have been justly classed Evandri manibus tritum dejecit."-1. i. Sat. iii. 1. 90. VOL. II. Q with those of their immortal ancestors,* were but lightly esteemed at Rome. As the city became crowded with the spoils of Greece,t their possessors, gradually imbibing a new species of rivalry, vied with each other, not in the excellence, but the antiquity of their marbles; ‡ and the beauties of a modern work were overlooked and despised, when brought into competition with the rude efforts of a remoter age.§ * Musée Franç. p. 93. + Pliny, l. xxxiv. c. 7. I "Insanit veteres statuas Damasippus emendo." And again, Horace, 1. ii. s. 3. 1. 63. "I nunc argentum, et marmor vetus, æraque et artes The first epistle of his second book is exclusively devoted to the censure of this absurd mania, which operated likewise to the prejudice of literature. Quintilian refers to the same absurd custom in the tenth chapter of his twelfth book, which contains his admirable essay on varieties of oratorical style. "Primi quorum quidem opera non vetustatis modo gratiâ visenda sunt, clari pictores fuisse dicuntur Polygnotus atque Aglaophon, quorum simplex color tam sui studiosos adhuc habet, ut illa prope rudia ac velut futuræ mox artis primordia, maximis, qui post eas exstiterunt auctoribus præferantur, proprio quodam intelligendi (ut mea fert opinio) ambitu." § The passion seems to have continued down to the time of Domitian, as we may infer from Martial: "Non est fama recens, nec nostri gloria cœli; Nobile Lysippi munus, opusque vides."-Lib. ix. e. 44. |