Chapter IV (3)

But the Greco-Amazonian battle-frieze was not the only frieze of the famous mausoleum. The external walls of the ‘cella’ had two other friezes, of which Mr. NEWTON succeeded in recovering several fragments, some of them of much interest. And the mausoleum was profusely adorned with sculptures in the round as well as with the richly carved figures in relief, both high and low, which encircled (in all probability) the very basement, as well as the peristyle and the cella portions of this marvellous structure. Lions in watchful attitudes (‘lions guardant,’ in heraldic phrase) stood here and there, and the fragments of these which have been recovered testify to their variety of scale, as well as to their number. The names of five famous sculptors of the later Athenian school—SCOPAS, LEOCHARES, BRYAXIS, TIMOTHEUS, PYTHIOS—who were employed upon the decoration of the tomb itself, or upon the chariot-group, have been recorded, and it would seem that each of four of these had one side of the tomb specially assigned to him. ‘The material of the sculpture was Parian marble, and the whole structure was richly ornamented with colour. [Sidenote: Newton, in _Guide_, as above, p. 74; and _Travels and Discoveries in the Levant_, vol. ii, pp. 108–137; and passim.] The tomb of MAUSOLUS was of the class called by the Greeks _heröon_, and so greatly excelled all other sepulchral monuments in size, beauty of design, and richness of decoration, that it was reckoned one of the “Seven Wonders of the World.”’

While LAYARD was unearthing Nineveh; FELLOWS bringing into the light of day the long-lost cities of Lycia; and Charles NEWTON restoring, before men’s eyes, this funereal marvel of the ancient world, which had long been known (in effect) only by dim memories and traditions; [Sidenote: THE EXPLORATIONS OF NATHAN DAVIS AT CARTHAGE AND UTICA.] Dr. Nathan DAVIS, in his turn, was exhuming Carthage and Utica. All these distinguished men were labouring, in common, for the enrichment of our National Museum, within a period of some twenty years. Three of them may be said to have been busied (in one way or other) with their self-denying tasks contemporaneously.[42] If we take into the account the variety, as well as the intrinsic worth, of the additions thus made to human knowledge; above all, if we duly estimate the value of those links of connection between things human and things divine, which are the most essential characteristic of some of the best of these acquisitions, it may well be said that the annals of no museum in the world can boast of such an enrichment as this, by the efforts of the travellers and the archæologists of one generation. And all of these explorers are—in one sense or other—Britons.

On one incidental point, I have to express a hope that the reader will pardon what he may be momentarily inclined to think an over-iteration of remark. If I have really adverted somewhat too frequently to the connection which many of these rich archæological acquisitions, of 1842–1861, present between the annals of man and the Book of GOD, I have this to plead, in extenuation: Certain writers pass over that connection so hurriedly as almost to lose sight of it. And we live in an age in which some of our own countrymen—some of those among us to whom the Creator has been most bounteous in the bestowal of the glorious gifts of mind and genius—have even spoken of our best of all literary possessions as ‘Jew-Records,’ and ‘Hebrew old-clothes.’ Those particular expressions, indeed, were employed long before the arrival of the Assyrian Marbles. But I think I have seen them quoted since.

[Sidenote: THE SPOILS OF CARTHAGE AND UTICA.]

Among the spoils of Carthage and of Utica which we owe to Dr. Nathan DAVIS, are many rich mosaic pavements, of the second and third centuries of our era, and a multitude of Phœnician and Carthaginian inscriptions, extending in date over several centuries. And it must be added that many of the antiquities, and more especially of the mosaics, excavated under Dr. DAVIS’S instructions at Utica, were found to possess greater beauty, and a more varied interest, than most of those which were disinterred by him from amidst the ruins of Carthage. Many of these, like some of the choice treasures of Nineveh, are, in a sense, still buried—for want of room at the British Museum adequately to display them. The reader may yet, but too fitly, conceive of some of them as piteously crying out (in 1870, as in 1860)—

‘Here have ye piled us together, and left us in cruel confusion,
Each one pressing his fellow, and each one shading his brother;
None in a fitting abode, in the life-giving play of the sunshine;
Here in disorder we lie, like desolate bones in a charnel.’

[Sidenote: OTHER CONSPICUOUS AUGMENTORS OF THE GALLERIES OF
ANTIQUITIES.]

Many other liberal benefactors to the several Archæological Departments of the Museum deserve record in this chapter. But the record must needs be a mere catalogue, not a narrative; and even the catalogue will be an abridged one.

Foremost among the discoverers of valuable remains of Greek antiquity, subsequent to most of those which have now been detailed, are to be mentioned Mr. George DENNIS, who explored Sicily in 1862 and subsequent years; and Captain T. A. B. SPRATT, who travelled over Lycia and the adjacent countries, following in the footsteps of Sir Charles FELLOWS, [Sidenote: Spratt and Forbes’ _Travels in Lycia, Mityas, and the Cibyrates_ (2 vols; 1847), passim.] and who enjoyed the advantage of the company and co-operation of two able and estimable fellow-travellers, Edward FORBES and Edward Thomas DANIELL, both of whom, like their honoured precursor in Lycian exploration, have been many years lost to us.

The antiquities collected in Sicily by DENNIS, at the national cost, were chiefly from the tombs. They included very many beautiful Greek vases, a collection of archaic terracottas, and other minor antiquities.[43] Some of the marbles discovered by SPRATT are of the Macedonian period, and probably productions of the school of Pergamus.

At Camerus and elsewhere, in the island of Rhodes, important excavations were carried on by Messrs. BILIOTTI and SALZMANN. These also were effected at the public charge. [Sidenote: _Reports of British Museum_; 1864, and subsequent years.] In the course of them nearly three hundred tombs were opened, and many choicely painted fictile vases of the best period of Greek ceramography were found. Those researches at Rhodes were the work of the years 1862, 1863, and 1864. In 1865, the excavations at Halicarnassus were resumed by order of the Trustees, and under the direction of the same explorers, and with valuable results. In 1864, an important purchase of Greek and Roman statues, and of the sculptures from the Farnese Collection at Rome, was made. In the following year came an extensive series of antiquities from the famous Collection of the late Count POURTALÈS. Of the precious objects obtained by the researches of Mr. Consul WOOD, at Ephesus, in the same and subsequent years, a brief notice will be found in Chapter VI.