Chapter X: Part 10

Chief among the public buildings of Hellas, after the agoras and stoas, were the arrangements for the festive games. These were divided into two classes: bodily exercises and scenic representations. The former were the more important, forming a prominent part in the education of every Greek citizen. Palaistras and gymnasia were provided for the manœuvres, stadia and hippodromes for the public contests and races. In primitive times the palaistras had no architectural character; a meadow and a sandy reach, generally upon the bank of a brook and shaded by trees, sufficed as a training-ground. The private palaistras seem never to have exceeded this simplicity; but the great importance of drill for the military power of the State early demanded the erection of suitable structures, and there resulted the gymnasion, a combination of covered chambers and halls with open courts, which provided separate and fitting spaces for the different gymnastic exercises and for the baths, as well as for the higher intellectual entertainments of the philosophers, rhetoricians, and poets. These structures were probably varied in character until the most suitable arrangement was decided by experience. It seems early to have become customary to surround a rectangular space by colonnades, to which were added extensive wings, semicircular exedras, and the like, for scientific and æsthetic instruction. Upon one side were grouped a number of chambers known as the Ephebeion, Apodyterion, Elaiothesion, Conisterion, Corykeion, Laconicon, Lutron, etc., serving the youths as places of assemblage, rooms for dressing and anointing, hot and cold baths, etc. Opposite to them extended the stadion, while, within the enclosure, promenades between groups of trees and beds of flowers alternated with grounds for shorter races, quoit-throwing, wrestling, and other contests. Some examples, like those of Ephesos, Hierapolis, and Alexandria, still display in their ruins the chief features of this arrangement, though more or less influenced by the customs of imperial Rome, where the baths had been in great measure separated from the gymnasia. The spirit of emulation was excited by the publicity of these institutions, and increased by the periodical festive competitions to a height far exceeding our modern conceptions. A wreath of laurel or olive leaves, a small quantity of oil, a tripod, or other similar rewards of victory, such as were given as prizes in the games of Olympia, Delphi, Nemea, Corinth, and Athens, conferred almost divine honor, even the years being known by the name of the temporary hero of Olympia. The five chief divisions of the gymnastic exercises, the pentathlon--running, jumping, wrestling, boxing, and the throwing of the discos--were practised in the stadion, a space from 180 m. to 300 m. long, usually chosen close to the side of a hill, which, more or less prepared by terracing and grading, provided seats for spectators. If a narrow valley were near at hand, as in the case of the Athenian stadion of the suburb Agrae, the opposite slopes were thus occupied. The seats near the goal were naturally the more desirable, and it was here that the architectural features were concentrated, terraces being carried in a semicircle around this centre. Examples are not wanting, as in Aphrodisias in Asia Minor, where both ends were thus terminated, and the space for spectators carried around the entire race-course, thus pointing the way to a building of this form, the amphitheatre, which was to become the delight of the Roman world. The stadion of Messene (_Fig._ 183) shows how natural inclinations were followed and utilized, though at the expense of a symmetrical disposition; yet this example dates from the later extravagant period of Greek history, and is far removed from the patriarchal simplicity of primitive times. The stadion did not suffice for the races of horses and chariots which had been favorites with the Greeks since the Trojan war. In such early ages, any goal chosen in the plain was sufficient, like the oak-trunk mentioned by Homer; but it could not have been long before the need was manifest of a sloping stand for the spectators and an enclosure for the contestants, and thus the hippodrome, the race-course, was developed similarly to the smaller stadion. The most celebrated, and perhaps the oldest, hippodrome of Greece, that of Olympia, is described by Pausanias. The right side, the longer, consisted of an artificial embankment of earth, while the slope of a hill was employed for the left; at the entrance was a colonnade devoted to the preparations of the charioteers. The starting-point, the aphesis, had, according to the expression of Pausanias, a form like the prow of a vessel--that is, advanced in a pointed form--to facilitate the start. The plan here given, _Fig._ 184, is altered from Visconti’s restoration by these gates being opened towards the first turning-point, the _taraxippos_, or terror of the horses.

The theatres, as enclosures for musical and scenic representations, offered greater scope for architectural development. When possible, the auditorium was in a situation where a natural semicircular inclination served instead of the immense foundations which would otherwise have been necessary for the elevated seats; the stage and surrounding buildings were, however, free-standing works of architecture. The arrangement of the Greek theatre is described by Vitruvius: three squares were inscribed in a circle, thus forming a twelve-pointed star (_Fig._ 185); one of the sides, _a b_, served as the line of the front foundation of the stage. This platform, the logeion, was closed at the rear by a wall, treated like a façade, and forming a background, the skene; its position being decided by the tangent _c d_, parallel to the front side. The remainder of the circle, the orchestra, was reserved for the evolutions of the chorus and for the stand of the musicians, the thymele; it was not until the development of the Roman theatre that spectators were admitted to this enclosure. Its extent was slightly increased by drawing the outline from the diameter, _e f_, to the stage with a doubled radius. Around seven twelfths of the original circle was constructed the concentrical auditorium of ascending seats, divided by a platform at half-height, the diazoma, into two parts, and accessible by radial passages. The statement of Vitruvius, who, as usual, substitutes a thought-saving canon for the living individuality of Hellenic art, is not borne out by the numerous remains of Greek theatres. The orchestra and auditorium exceed the semicircle in every instance where local conformations have not rendered this impossible; but they either do this by elongating the arc with tangents, as in the theatres of Segesta (_Fig._ 186), Syracuse, Tyndaris, and Tauromenion, or by continuing the circumference of the original circle without deviation, as in those of Athens, Epidauros, Megalopolis, Delos, Melos, Cnidos, Laodikeia, Side, Myra, Telmissos, Patara, Aizanis, etc. Among all known Greek theatres only two, those at Mantinea and Alabanda, are situated in the plain and entirely built of masonry; the others, contrary to Roman custom, utilize natural inclinations, as before explained. The seats were either cut in the native rock, or were walled and reveted with slabs of marble; when the slope was of earth, important foundations were undertaken.

The arrangements of odeions, or partially covered theatres for festive musical representations, appear to have preceded, and in some degree influenced, the architecture of the theatres. The oldest known example of these structures is the Skias in Sparta, a circular building provided with a pitched roof, which was probably built in accordance with forms customary in Asia Minor, as a Samian architect (Theodoros, the son of Telecles) was called from Samos to superintend its erection. The odeion upon the Ilissos near Athens appears to have been of similar disposition, and, like the former, constructed chiefly of wood.

The private dwellings of Greece stood in no relation to the monumental public buildings. That we are acquainted with no Greek house is a proof that these were of the same subordinate importance as was the family in the Hellenic state. The house was nothing more than the scene of the family labors, and turned modestly inward, confined and simple chambers being grouped around a central court. The life of the Greeks was, for the most part, spent away from home, upon the market-places and in the gymnasia and stoas; it was only at meal-times and for repose that he sought the retirement of his house. This was completely separated from the outer world, the dwelling-chambers having no windows upon the street and the façade being unimportant. The rooms, with the exception, perhaps, of the dining-hall, were but little developed, being generally lighted through the door alone. Their windowless walls presented no opportunity for architectural treatment, this being restricted to the court, a space of considerable size, surrounded by a colonnade. For centuries there was nothing to lead to any increase of this simple dwelling, or to the development of a palace architecture; in the ages of the heroes and tyrants the constructive ability was insufficient, and later republican equality was inimical to all individual ostentation. It was not until royal power had, in the Macedonian epoch, taken the place of democracy that private architecture made a decided advance,--less, however, in monumental importance than in luxury and display. The chambers were multiplied by a repetition of the courts, the rooms still remaining small; while a refined extravagance, borrowing its decoration from the sister arts, took the place of architectural invention. Notwithstanding the Greek terms applied to various forms of rooms by Vitruvius, they appear to have been comparatively restricted in size. The so-called Corinthian hall, covered with a barrel-vault, is specifically a Roman creation; the Egyptian hall, with a clerestory over the central aisle, may have been built in remembrance of Alexandrian models, while that of Kyzicos is illustrative of methods customary in Asia Minor, and especially in Pergamon. The three chief cities of the Diadochi must have presented imposing monuments of private and palatial architecture: Alexandria, the Egyptian residence of the Ptolemies, had been founded by Alexander himself, and in great part designed by his architect, Deinocrates; Antioch, upon the Orontes in Syria, was built by Seleucos Nicator, with the aid of the architect Xenaios, and rapid increase soon quadrupled its original extent; Pergamon had been restored and enlarged by Eumenes. The wonderful works of that time show architecture to have lost all earnestness and truthfulness through the extravagant demands created by the luxurious courts of the Ptolemies, Seleucidæ, and Attalidæ; their sham theatrical pomp was surpassed only by the Oriental costliness and splendor of the materials. The monuments were expressive of the weakness and superficiality into which the Eastern Hellenic world had fallen, and for which the forms of Greek art were employed only as a transparent varnish. Alexander the Great had himself led the way to this profusion of monumental and private buildings. It was he, for instance, who had caused Deinocrates to erect a pyramidal pyre for the burning of the body of his favorite Hephaisteion, which was a marvel of tastelessness and extravagance: the square substructure of brick masonry, with sides one stadion long, each ornamented with two hundred and forty golden prows of vessels and nine hundred and sixty statues, bore a second terrace decorated with golden wreathed torches; the third and fourth stages were reveted with reliefs of gold representing hunting scenes and the battles of the centaurs; the fifth with golden lions and bulls, upon which followed Macedonian arms and trophies taken from the barbarians. The whole was terminated by golden figures of sirens, the hollow bodies of which accommodated the singers of the funeral chant. A similar piece of display was the magnificent wagon for the funeral procession of Alexander. Other works were the gigantic tent for the Dionysian procession of Ptolemy II., Philadelphos, with its supports formed like palms and thyrses, with its cupola-shaped roof, secret grottoes, etc.; and the Thalamegos, or colossal Nile bark, a floating palace built by Ptolemy IV., Philopator, with its Temple of Aphrodite and many halls, one of which had chryselephantine Corinthian columns, and was decorated by a frieze of reliefs executed in ivory and affixed to a golden ground. A dining-saloon was built in the Egyptian manner, as a hypostyle, and the hall of Dionysos was provided with an apse formed like a grotto. At the same time, wonders of technical and mechanical skill divided attention with these works of barbarous luxury. As early as the time of Hiero II. of Syracuse, Archimedes and Archias built a monstrous ship, intended for the transportation of grain, which is said to have comprised an entire city, with a gymnasion, a public park, towers, reception-rooms, dining-halls, etc. It had three decks, and was propelled by twenty rows of oarsmen. Even this was surpassed by Ptolemy IV., who built a vessel with forty rows of oars. In short, gigantic dimensions and tasteless magnificence, favored by the insane competition among the followers of Alexander, extinguished true art, the more rapidly as works of these later ages were not executed with the solidity which preserved Roman architecture from similar decline, even though it accepted many unsound artistic influences from these Hellenic and barbarian despots.

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The sculpture deserves even more unlimited admiration than the architecture of Greece. Hellenic building shows monumental ideals such as the creative power of no other people has attained; yet the problems which presented themselves for solution were of a limited nature. In sculpture, on the other hand, a height was reached which the artists of all later times have scarcely been able to comprehend, far less to equal. For centuries cultivated nations have drawn from this inexhaustible fountain, in unconditional admiration,--learning from Greek statues, and acknowledging their matchless perfection. Although it may justly be concluded that a direct reconstruction of the architectural remains, as a whole, were it possible, is not to be recommended, still no one can hesitate to regard the best examples of Hellenic sculpture as a model worthy of direct emulation, the controlling influence of which upon the present age is only to be desired. And though the Gothic cathedral may appear to some a higher artistic conception than the Doric peripteros, no one would give preference to the sculptures of the ancient Orientals, of the Mediæval Christians, or even of the great masters of the Renaissance, over the marble treasures gathered in any of the larger collections of antiques.

As, among all the works of antiquity, it is to Hellenic sculpture that the undisputed palm of precedence is given, it is befitting that particular attention should be devoted to it--that it should be treated as the central point, the focus, of the history of ancient art. This is made possible by the accounts of classic authors handed down concerning it, and by the multitudinous remains preserved and accessible in the museums of all great cities; it is rendered easy by the circumstance that the attention and industry of the archæological explorer and of the student of art have been directed to no other field of antique life with equal zeal and with equally important results. The history of the development of Hellenic sculpture thus lies, in its main features, more clearly before us than does that of any other ancient art. Although different views still exist in regard to many particulars, the arguments advanced in their support only serve for greater general enlightenment. The lively discussion which the question of the beginnings of Greek sculpture has called forth may be considered as terminated, since the Egyptian origin, advocated by Thiersch, Ross, Feurbach, Julius Braun, Stahr, and others, has been refuted, or at least reduced to the secondary and later influence assumed by Friedrichs. Indeed, the oldest Grecian sculptures, when compared with those of Egypt, display a complete contrast, and prove that such a connection, if it existed at all, was by no means intimate. Egyptian art worked upon purely mechanical principles, according to a typical network of lines. Sculpture was drawn into the province of architecture, and slavishly subordinated to it; carved figures became little else than architectural members through uniformity, symmetrical regularity, and multiplicity of repetition. Piers masked by the form of Osiris were thus substituted for columns, and long rows of sphinxes or colossal statues were set, like the obelisks, to decorate the avenues leading to the temples. The fixed standard after which the heads of such figures were patterned--more like the capitals of columns than imitations of life--and the members, without action, and constructed according to an established height or breadth, like the shafts of pillars, and similarly regulated in proportions by their diameter--took away all independence as works of sculpture, and caused the statues rather to appear as parts of an architectural composition. The ordinary Egyptian stone-cutter knew of only two positions, well established by custom; he renounced fundamentally the countless different appearances of life, and, with this, all representation of action and of individuality. Primitive Greek sculpture, on the contrary, arose from a sound naturalism, which directed the eye of the artist to real and peculiar appearances from the outset, often neglecting the proportions of the whole in the desire characteristically to express important details. The first Hellenic figures are wanting in that which was so prominent in the Egyptian: a correct, or at least a schooled, outline and modelling; while the pleasing imitation of life in detail, utterly foreign to Egyptian sculptures, is most forcibly presented. This naturalistic tendency prevented Hellenic sculpture from degenerating into an Egyptian formalism; the Greek artist did not blindly attach himself to a hieratic model, but studied organic life, thus keeping his works free from that ossified conventionalism common to all Eastern civilization. The very first carvings of Greece had a power of development which was wanting in all the other nations of that period.

To these differences of artistic principle must be added differences in characteristic forms, dependent partly upon race and partly upon the different conceptions of the two nations--differences so marked as to enable us to distinguish their works without hesitation. The Egyptian head differs decidedly from the Greek head in the high position of the ear, the long, narrow, and somewhat obliquely placed eyes, the wide flat nose, and the thick lips. (_Fig._ 28.) The Egyptian figure is slim, the primitive Greek almost stunted; in the former the shoulders are high and broad, in the latter sloping and narrow; there the hips are small, here large. The garments of Egyptian works are either elastic, without natural folds, clinging so closely to the body as often to be recognizable only at the borders, or are heavily pressed together in broad and angular masses. The scanty clothing introduced into ancient Hellenic sculptures shows throughout a close observation of nature; and the drapery is pleasing even in unsuccessful imitations, because it betrays the loving care of the artist. In the oldest productions of Greece we perceive a slumbering genius and capacity for development which were wholly lacking in the trained handiwork of Egyptian art,--as the faulty free-hand drawing of an intelligent boy, who tries to show what he has seen, awakens greater interest and hope than do the labored copies and tracings of an illiterate mechanic.

When compared with these weighty reasons against the dependence of primitive Grecian sculpture upon that of Egypt, the arguments adduced in favor of the supposition seem insufficient. Chief among these is the opinion of several ancient writers who vaguely imply that the oldest sculpture of the Greeks was related to that of the Egyptians, and derived from it as a later production. But it is well known that Pausanias and Diodoros were not exacting as to proofs of their opinions in regard to the history of art. In this instance, they were deluded by the same outward resemblance which has been so deceptive in modern times,--a similarity dependent upon that stiffness of archaic statues common to every primitive art, and to the attenuation and union of the extremities, which resulted from the economy of material and labor natural to both countries. But though, in the beginning of Greek sculpture, certain difficulties of execution were avoided in the same manner as in Egypt, and the material of the carved figures, whether wood or stone, was meted out as scantily as possible, it does not follow that they were directly dependent upon the Egyptian works which were influenced by like considerations.

It is otherwise with the relations between Western Asiatic art and the early sculpture of Greece. The preceding section has made it evident that the most prominent characteristics of the Ionic style were developed from this root, and the influence of Asiatic motives was as marked in regard to the sculpture as to the architecture of Hellas. The fully perfected flower, however, but little betrays an Oriental derivation in either province. The art of Asia Minor and of Syria had taken an essentially different starting-point from that of Egypt--one more nearly allied to the Greek point of view. Instead of formulating the human figure by a fixed canon after the manner of the Egyptians, it looked to nature itself, with a decided realistic tendency. But in its later development, as already shown, Mesopotamian art went as much too far beyond reality as that of Egypt had remained behind it; and the self-sufficiency of the Eastern despotisms resulted in that utter standstill which checked the life of art in Assyria, Persia, and Phœnicia. The acquired forms, as upon the Nile, stiffened into conventional types, with the difference that those of Egypt took more the character of a written chronicle, those of Mesopotamia and its dependencies more that of ornament. Hellenic genius could only remain upon such a low level during its immaturity; there are, therefore, almost no traces of direct Asiatic influence evident in the sculptures of Greece after the most primitive period, although in this it is unmistakable. We may call this period of development the heroic age, and understand by it the epoch from the earliest times to the first Olympiad, 776 B.C. Even the native legends concerning the beginning of Greek art point towards the East. The mythical founders of monumental buildings, the Cyclops, to whom were ascribed the oldest stone sculptures, like those upon the Lions’ Gate of Mykenæ, came from Lycia. The Dactylæ appear in groups upon the mountains of Phrygia and Crete often bearing names characteristic of their significance as cunning artisans--Kelmis, Damnameneus, and Acmon (hammer, tongs, and anvil); while the Telchinæ--Chryson, Argyron, and Chalkon (workers in gold, silver, and copper)--inhabited Rhodes. The personification of various metal-workers in these mythical guilds is unequivocal, and the attributed locality of their dwellings has a corresponding meaning, pointing to the coasts of Western Asia, where the process of overlaying wooden carvings with beaten metal was predominant, as in Phœnicia and the intermediate island of Cyprus. This empaistic work, of plates shaped upon a model by hammer and punch, presupposes the carving of the model itself, without which the creation of the sphyrelaton was obviously impossible. The gold overlaying of Solomon’s Temple was formed upon reliefs carved in cedar-wood, and was, perhaps, beaten over them: before the discovery of bronze-casting, we may conclude this also to have been the case with works of statuary in the round. The art of sculpture in wood seems to have been native among the early Greeks; carved idols, xoana, soon appearing as substitutes for those stones and trunks of trees (Paus. vii. 22), which, provided at times with the attributes of trident, caduceus, lance, or sceptre, were at first worshipped as divine symbols. These were frequently so old that no account could be given of their origin, and they were consequently said to have fallen from the skies. It is difficult adequately to conceive the rudeness of these most ancient xoana. The arms were not at all separated from the body, and were indicated only in as far as was necessary to attach to them characteristic attributes, like the garment and spindle in one hand, and the lance in the other, of the Trojan Athene described by Homer. The sacred figure was frequently quite covered with real doll-like clothing, as is the Virgin or the _Bambino_ in many modern places of pilgrimage provided by the Roman Catholic Church. The difficulty of representing the hair of these puppets appears, from the later treatment of the heads in marble, as seen in the Apollo of Tenea, to have been evaded by the use of a woolly covering like a wig. The want of definition in the faces is evident from the statement that some xoana had closed eyes. This is not to be explained by the pious legends of antiquity that the image had refused to look upon some deed of sacrilege,--such, for instance, as the rape of Cassandra,--but by the fact that the eye was indicated only by a horizontal painted line. It was from such rude figures that Daidalos advanced. It was not only said that he was the inventor of various instruments for wood-working, such as the axe, saw, auger, and plummet; but certain improvements in the shaping of the statues were also ascribed to him, such as the opening--that is to say, the formation--of the eye, and the separating of feet, as if in the act of stepping. The progress cannot, in fact, have been great. The traditional account that the images had to be bound after the freeing of their legs, to prevent their running away, must not lead us to imagine an ideal perfection, or, indeed, any striking resemblance to life. The classical authorities who knew the works attributed to Daidalos say, indeed, that they were “wonderful to look upon,” and that “the master would have made himself ridiculous by such works in our day.” The personality of Daidalos is hardly better assured than that of the mythical workers in metal, the Dactylæ and Telchinæ; the name itself, signifying the cunning workman, is nothing else than a personification of artistic skill, a collective term for all primitive skill and activity in wood-carving. As this had developed from handiwork, the legend calls the father of Daidalos, Palamaon, the contriver, or Eupalamos, the skilful artisan. The travels which Daidalos is said to have made from Athens to Crete, Sicily, Thebes, Pisa, Egypt, etc., merely result from the appearance of so-called Daidalian works in those places. In the time of Homer, the ninth century B.C., these images were already regarded as of great age; so that the period of the beginning of Greek sculpture must be at least as remote as the tenth century B.C. The one statue directly mentioned in the Iliad, the sitting Athene at Troy, upon whose knees the Trojan women laid a garment, appeared to the author of the Homeric epics to be a work in the manner of Daidalos. If another passage (Iliad, i. 14) may be understood as referring to an image of Apollo, this must, like the Athene, have been at least partially covered with real clothing. Such figures were also overlaid with metal; it is not to be doubted that the gold and silver dogs, and the youthful torch-bearers of gold, in the Palace of Alkinoos were carved models of wood covered with beaten plate. The empaistic process, native to Phœncian countries, was early imitated in heroic Greece. Though the island of the Phæacians was idealized by the fancy of the poet, he yet cannot be supposed to have invented new technical processes in an account which was to be generally intelligible. It seems, however, that sculptural art had no great range during the heroic ages; perhaps the works overlaid with beaten metal, which were known to Homer, may have been the results of an accidental and superficial knowledge gained by intercourse with the Oriental peoples inhabiting the coasts of Western Asia.

The manufacture of furniture and smaller decorative objects was probably more important. Homer was acquainted with the use of the lathe; while relief-carving in wood, and inlaying of metal, ivory, and amber, were early practised. The latter process can also be referred to Phœnician influence, in consideration both of the materials employed and of historical analogy. Even kings busied themselves with such handiwork, as the building of his nuptial couch by Odysseus proves; and royal ladies, such as Penelope, Andromache, and Helen, embroidered and wove elaborate textures. Professional workmen are also mentioned: Icmalios was the maker of Penelope’s seat; and some productions of this nature, like the chest of Kypselos, were as late as the beginning of the historical ages of Greece. Sculptured utensils of metal, vessels, tripods, and weapons, are particularly and distinctly described in the Homeric epics. The jars and vases described as “embossed with flowers” may be imagined as decorated with wreaths, like those found in Assyria and on Cyprus, and as similar to the early Italian bronzes. Cups with knobs (Iliad, xi. 633) were discovered in the excavations at Nineveh; conventionalized animals, serpents and birds (Iliad, xi. 17 and 634; Odyssey, xi. 610, and xix. 227), are to be found upon many primitive vases, and may be supposed to have existed as handles to vessels as well as upon clasps, sword-belts, and armor. References to the Asiatic derivation of the bronze-works known in prehistoric Greece are given by Homer, who mentions craters from Sidon and a Cyprian coat of mail. The shields were especially rich, being formed by several thin plates of metal secured one over the other; every disk was of greater circumference than that above it, only a narrow concentric rim of each thus remaining visible. The inner circle alone upon the comparatively simple shield of Agamemnon (Iliad, xi. 32) was ornamented with sculpture, in this case a Gorgoneion, the outer edges being provided with ten knobs of tin; upon the handle was a three-headed dragon. The shield of Achilles (Iliad, xviii. 468) was wonderfully elaborate, and, as the work of Hephaistos, probably exceeded by far the ordinary ornamentation of heroic arms; but it does not, on this account, give less reliable information concerning the general form and nature of prehistoric armor. Five layers of metal were superimposed,--two of bronze, two of tin, perhaps alternating, that in the centre being of gold; four rings were thus formed around the inner circle, each covered with rich sculptural decoration. Symbols of earth, sea, and sky, with the sun, moon, and stars, were within the golden disk. Upon one side of the first concentric band was shown a city in time of peace, with a wedding procession and a court of justice; upon the other a besieged city, with a sally of the defenders and a general engagement. Upon the second ring were the four seasons, indicated by ploughing, harvesting, the vintage, and by a herd of peacefully grazing cattle attacked by lions. A harvest dance of youths and maidens, before whom was a singer with a harp, decorated the third ring; while the fourth and outermost, probably narrower than the others, was ornamented by waves representing the sea, which, according to the conception of the ancients, surrounded the circular land of the earth. The figures were cut from thin sheets of different metals, and were riveted to the ground; it is uncertain whether these were first beaten to a relief, or were left flat, giving the effect of a silhouette. The metals were naturally chosen of colors different from that of the band to which they were affixed, and the treatment, in principle, thus somewhat approached the art of painting. The ground and the vineyards, in the pictures of the seasons, were of gold, yet “the grapes shone blackish;” the poles appear to have been of silver, the trenches of iron, and the hedges of tin, while upon the dancers “hung golden daggers upon silver straps.” Such empaistic work must have been more closely related to surfaces of inlaid metal upon wooden forms than to the statuesque Phœnician sphyrelaton. Homer’s account of the shield of Achilles should be considered not from a technical, but from an artistic, point of view. The vivid description is, of course, due altogether to poetical license; but we may well believe that subjects like the harvest dances, festive processions, warlike scenes, symbols of the seasons, etc., may have been attempted upon utensils and weapons, though in a more simple and decorative manner, their object not being an artistic setting-forth of details, but an intelligible indication of the whole. With what limited means this is possible is proved by Egyptian coilanaglyphics, Assyrian reliefs, and the paintings upon Greek vases of the most primitive style. (_Fig._ 187.) The artist of the heroic age cut his figures from thin sheets of metal, just as children snip paper, and set them together upon the background, filling up the intervening spaces as best he might with ornaments and names. Direct Oriental models were hardly needed for this; but it is probable that, as in the sphyrelaton, the influence of Asia Minor was felt: the conventional character of the types painted upon the oldest Greek vases bears distinct evidence of a Phœnician impulse. There was little that was artistic in the details of such early decorations, but all the more in the conception as a whole: the manner of expression was weak, but the thought was admirable. Figures appear upon Assyrian sculptures, so similar to those described by the poet that by their help one might almost reconstruct the Homeric shield; in Mesopotamia, however, the representations lacked unity in the fundamental conception, they were not well grouped in the given space, and appear, as Brunn says, like a chronicle written in figures when compared with such a poem as the artistic compositions, made up, perhaps, of the same elements, described by Homer. The pseudo-Hesiodic shield of Heracles resembled that of Achilles, the chief difference in outward form being that the three inner of the five circular layers were bordered upon the outer edges by narrow rings of steel. The middle plate was decorated with the head of Phoibos, encircled by twelve serpents like a Gorgon. The next band displayed a warlike scene and one of peace: the combat of the Lapithæ and Centaurs in one half, and Apollo among the Muses in the other. The third had a like contrast between a besieged and a peaceful city, similar in composition to those upon the shield of Achilles; while the fourth was also a representation of the seasons, chiefly distinguished from those of Homer by the substitution of a hare-hunt as the symbol of winter. The reliefs upon the four narrow steel rings must have differed in action from the larger groups; in the latter the radial lines of the upright figures prevailed, in the former a contrary movement was predominant. On the innermost steel ring boars and lions moved concentrically around the shield; upon the next following was an arm of the sea, over which flew Perseus, pursued by the Gorgons. The third was a chariot-race at full speed; and upon the outer rim were conventionalized waves, with fishes and swans, forming an ornamental band similar to the border of the Homeric shield.

Our knowledge of the sculptural activity of Greece in the heroic ages has, up to the most recent times, been derived almost entirely from the poets, whose idealized descriptions are supported, in regard to form, only by the analogy of Assyrian reliefs and the paintings upon archaic vases. Works of a primitive period have, indeed, not been entirely wanting; but it being impossible to date them, they lend no aid to an historical consideration. The derivation and age of only two are assured, and the characteristic forms of one of these--the Niobe upon Mt. Sipylos, near Magnesia, mentioned in the Iliad, xxiv. 613--are entirely obliterated. It is so rudely executed, or so weather-beaten, that even in antiquity it appeared to Pausanias, even when seen from the immediate vicinity, as but a shapeless rock, in which the human figure was scarcely to be recognized, while, at a distance, it resembled a woman bowed down with grief and weeping. The account has been verified in recent times by the discovery of a rock-cut relief of three times the size of life, so disintegrated that satisfactory drawings of its human forms could not be made. This renders the other pre-Homeric monument, the most ancient known sculpture of Greece and of Europe, all the more important--namely, the relief over the gate of Mykenæ, called by the poet that of the Lions--the chief portal of the fortress of the Atridæ, the witness of the departure of Agamemnon for the Trojan war, and of the downfall of his house on his return. (_Figs._ 188 and 126.) The structure has been already described from an architectural point of view. The relief upon the slab which closes the triangle above the lintel represents two lions standing upright upon either side of a column; their heads, turned outward, were separate pieces, fastened with dowels to the background, and have disappeared. The designation of these animals need not be deemed erroneous because they have no manes. Pausanias speaks of them as lions (though this in itself may not be of great weight), and in the Phœnician examples of beaten metal-work, as in the archaic paintings upon Greek vases, the indication of hair is always wanting. The Asiatic influence which, in architectural respects, had made itself felt upon the Tholos of Atreus, must be acknowledged here also; thus alone is it possible to account for a peculiar modelling of the forms, entirely foreign to sculpture in stone. The resemblance of these lions to the animal figures of Assyria is readily recognizable; it is the same resemblance as that which the art industry of the Syrian coasts showed to that of Mesopotamia. The Phœnician tradespeople, themselves skilled in many novel technical processes, formed the medium between the cultured countries upon the Tigris and the Ægean Sea. The Lycian Cyclops had also borrowed from these neighbors, and to them was traditionally attributed this wonderful stone carving at Mykenæ, a work which, from all appearance, was an isolated attempt. Such sculptures could not become national and native so long as the requirements of the heroic Greeks were satisfied with the mere decoration of useful objects. The impulse towards monumental art seems first to have been awakened with the introduction of the columnar temple. Schliemann’s excavations upon the Acropolis of Mykenæ in 1876 have brought to light some few works of sculpture which deserve to be considered. Prominent among them are the memorial stones, two of which are shown in Fig. 189. They are remarkable for a naïve primitiveness of conception and the desire to display the subject chosen as distinctly as possible. A vigorous action and a certain observation of nature are not lacking, though the forms are incorrect, both in general effect and in detail. The similarity of these works to Asiatic sculptures is marked; but no trace of Egyptian influence is to be recognized in the attenuated figures. The same derivation is evident in the spiral ornaments, which closely resemble those upon the façade of the Tholos of Atreus, and upon Phœnician and Cyprian remains. All the reliefs imply models of beaten metal, and lend further support to the hypothesis which connects the heroic age of Greece with the civilization of Western Asia, through the medium of Phœnician traders.

The golden masks found in the graves are not less interesting, whether the assignment of these to the Homeric worthies--Agamemnon, Eurymedon, etc.--be accepted or not. (_Fig._ 190.) It is at least certain that they are memorials of the heroic age, and the great quantities of gold found in the sepulchres make it probable that they appertained to a royal race, and were buried at a time when the prosperity of Mykenæ was great and its power extensive. The masks, like the grave-stones, are formed with the helpless realism peculiar to the art of Western Asia, and entirely foreign to that of Egypt. It is easy to believe that they were imported directly from Phœnicia. This must certainly have been the case with the beautifully executed ornaments of gold--disks, diadems, stars, etc.--the beaten workmanship of which is of a perfection only possible to trained and practised manufacturers. The spirals and other linear designs are executed with exceeding accuracy, by peculiar instruments. Their motives are taken from the animal and vegetable world, from cuttle-fishes, butterflies, and various forms of leaves and flowers. It is certain that the perforated cylinders, cut, like gems, in intaglio, with scenes of war and hunting, were introduced directly from Asia; they are strikingly similar to the rolling seals of carnelian and agate found in Mesopotamia. A small model of a temple is peculiarly Phœnician, like that repeated upon Paphian coins.

During the first two historical centuries, after the commencement of reckoning time by Olympiads, the direction of activity in art appears to have changed but little. Sculpture, represented by guilds, or families, of handicraftsmen in Athens, Argos, and Sikyon, remained little else than decoration, though, at least in the selection of subjects, it opened for itself new fields. In the heroic ages the scenes were limited to the most immediate realities; but, after the Homeric epics had become the property of the nation, the picturesque treasures of many legends became available. Arctinos of Miletos, in the middle of the eighth century, and, somewhat later, Lesches of Lesbos, continuing the Iliad, sang of the downfall of Troy. Stasimos of Cyprus chose preceding events as his theme; while the myths of the Seven against Thebes, of the Titanomachia, and of the exploits of Heracles and Theseus found similar epic illustration. These poems not only provided the subjects for sculpture, but described them with plastic vividness. This is shown by the two chief works of this period,--the Chest of Kypselos and the Throne of Apollo at Amyclæ. The first was an oblong shrine of cedar-wood, which Kypselos, tyrant of Corinth, consecrated in the Heraion of Olympia, in memory of his preservation as a child, when, hidden in a fruit-box, he had escaped from the persecution of the Bacchiadæ. This chest, either upon three sides--the fourth standing against the wall--or upon the long front side alone, was ornamented with carvings, in five bands, one over the other, probably of unequal height. The reliefs, partly inlaid with ivory and gold, must have been of a workmanship similar to that customary in the heroic ages. The uncommonly rich and varied representations, almost exclusively mythological and heroic, were taken from the before-mentioned cyclic poems (Pausanias, v. 17 to 19). The figures appear to have somewhat resembled in style those upon the Vase of Clitias and Ergotimos in Florence (_Fig._ 191), which, on account of its banded arrangement and the similarity of its mythical subject, deserves, rather than the cover of Dodwell’s vase given above (_Fig._ 187), to be compared to the Chest of Kypselos. The Throne of Apollo at Amyclæ, near Sparta, has been connected with the name of one of the oldest artists known, Bathycles of Magnesia, who lived half a century later than the maker of the Chest of Kypselos. This throne also has been minutely described by Pausanias (iii. 18 to 19). In regard to its sculptured decoration, his account of its construction is unintelligible; it is only clear that the framework was colossal, and that the ancient doll-like image stood within it, without any seat. Not less than forty-one scenes, besides the larger compositions upon the pedestal of the statue, covered the outer and inner sides of the throne with carvings in low-relief, similar in style to those of the Chest of Kypselos. Upon the legs in full, or at least in three-quarter, relief were figures of the Graces, the Hours, Tritons, etc.; upon the back were portraits of the master and of his Magnesian assistants, besides sphinxes, panthers, and lions.

These works were still chiefly of a decorative character. Monumental sculpture had not yet freed itself from the trammels of inadequately developed technical processes. So long as the artisan had no choice other than the sphyrelaton and the xoanon, a material foundation was wanting for the development of an independently artistic sculpture. Even when isolated works of a higher order were attempted, as in the colossal Zeus, of beaten gold-plate over a wooden form, dedicated in Olympia by Kypselos or his son Periander, they can be considered, like the other sphyrelata of this and of the heroic age, only as figures of great material value but of little artistic importance. Want of skill in execution favored that clinging to old honored types of devotional figures inherent in the nature of all religions. These influences stood in such close, interchangeable relations that it is impossible to say whether, in the province of sculptured images, the slowness of progress should be placed more to the account of religious prejudices and the difficulties thrown in the way of all change by hieratic institutions, or of the technical limitations of doll-like xoana and sphyrelata.

New mechanical acquirements were needed for the furtherance of the art. Three great discoveries, or, to speak more correctly, the extended application of known processes, date from the beginning of the sixth century B.C.: the casting of bronze, the sculpture of marble, and chryselephantine work (the inlaying of gold and ivory upon a wooden kernel). Each of these had its gradual development, at least the first and the last being furthered by auxiliary inventions. It was indispensable for the casting of bronze that modelling in clay should have attained a certain perfection. The name of the Sikyonian potter Boutades is connected with the introduction of this branch of art; it appears to have been in the middle of the seventh century B.C. that he ornamented the acroteria and antefixes of the temple roof, first with low-relief (prostypon) and then with high-relief (ectypon). He also left a portrait panel in terra-cotta, shown in the Nymphaion of Corinth until the destruction of that city as the first work of its kind. In connection with it was told the pleasing anecdote that the daughter of Boutades, in taking leave of her lover, sketched his shadow upon the wall with charcoal, the father afterwards filling out the outline with clay and burning the relief thus produced. Neither of these accounts are of great direct value, but that a potter could achieve a lasting reputation as an artist may perhaps show that modelling in clay had already made essential progress, and thus prepared the way for brass-founding, which requires an original and mould of this more plastic material. The discovery of soldering was also not without significance; it formed, in metal work, a connecting link between the riveting of the sphyrelaton and casting, even indispensable to larger statues of the latter process, which, at least in the beginning, were executed in pieces. Soldering seems first to have been employed upon iron. Glaucos of Chios attained great results by this means, and attracted general attention to it in the seventh century B.C. His iron crater-stand, dedicated at Delphi by Alyattes, was an elaborate work, ornamented upon the legs and clasps with sculptured animals and plants.

The way was thus prepared for monumental bronze-founding, which was not, indeed, discovered by the Samians Rhoicos and Theodoros, the sons of Phileas and Telecles, to whom it was attributed by antiquity,--for, as has been seen, it was practised by the Phœnicians,--but was by them first introduced into Greek art. The dates assigned to their epoch vary from the beginning of the seventh to the middle of the sixth century B.C.; but it is the more reasonable to place them, with Brunn, at the close of this period, without supposing that there were two masters by the name of Theodoros, a father and a son. The innovation probably began with the solid casting of smaller works, but whether Rhoicos and Theodoros were limited to this is at least doubtful. Economy of material and the lessening of weight in figures of great dimensions must soon have led to hollow casting upon a fire-proof kernel; it is possible that it was this very progress that made the two artists celebrated as discoverers. The development of their technical improvements seems at first to have impaired the artistic aspects of the works; Pausanias says of a female statue by Rhoicos, probably in the Temple of Artemis at Ephesos, that it was even more archaic and rude than a figure of Athene in Amphissa which was there held to be Trojan. That the two Samians also practised in beaten metal work is clear from the colossal silver mixing-vessel, containing six hundred amphoras (about 200,000 litres), executed by Theodoros and dedicated at Delphi by Crœsus, from a golden vine with grapes of mounted jewels, and a golden plane-tree in the possession of the Persian kings; the latter works remind us of examples of similar workmanship in the Assyrian palaces, the existence of which has been proved by the fragments of palms in gold-plate, lately found by Place upon a portal in the palace of Sargon, at Corsabad. If Theodoros worked thus extensively in the precious metals, it is not surprising that he produced such small toreutic objects as those indicated by the legend of the ring of Polycrates, ascribed to him, and the fabulous portrait statue of a man, with a quadriga in his hand which a fly might have covered with its wings.

A still more brilliant future was open to the second innovation, that of sculpture in marble. Chios was the birthplace of Hellenic marble statuary, as Samos had been of bronze-casting. Coarse stone had been employed from the earliest times, in isolated instances like the relief over the Gate of the Lions at Mykenæ, for figures and for small images; and the introduction of marble statuary was older than bronze-founding, for Melas, ancestor of a long race of sculptors in Chios, lived about the middle of the seventh century B.C. Of Melas himself and his son Mickiades little except the names are known; an artist of the third generation, Achermos, could venture to represent a winged Victory, yet even he was surpassed by his sons Boupalos and Athenis. It is evident, from several notices, that marble sculpture flourished greatly under these latter, who, living about 540 B.C., had become very particular in the choice of material--using only the fine-grained and translucent Parian lychnites. No one venturing to dispute their precedence, they could place upon their sculptures, exhibited in Delos, the self-conscious inscription: “Chios is celebrated, not alone for its vineyards, but for the works of the sons of Achermos.” Numerous works by them are mentioned by ancient visitors, being collected in later times by princely _dilettanti_. Augustus employed such sculptures upon the exterior of many of his buildings, notably in the gable of the Palatine temple of Apollo; he had an especial and, as it appears, a not ill-founded liking for them, and these works could not have been a disfigurement, even to the universal magnificence of imperial Rome. An explanation of this marked advance at so early a date is given by this very fancy of Augustus: the works thus architecturally utilized could not have been devotional images of the deities; they must have been decorative sculptures. The former class, from reasons already touched upon, were hindered in artistic progress; the latter being beyond the jurisdiction of hieratic institutions, developed untrammelled. It was only in ornamental figures that the assiduous and talented sculptors of early times found free scope, and it was fortunate that the demand for these architectural and decorative works must naturally have been greater than for the more rare devotional images, which were piously transferred from the older sanctuaries to the new buildings which took their place. The gable groups of Ægina show how unequally art advanced in these different and distinct fields.