DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.15099#0108
83
PLATE XVI.
[Height 2 f. 9£ in. Length 5 f. 10 in. Old Nos. A 64. A 65. New Nos. 145, 146.]
This plate represents one subject; a contest in which five
persons have been engaged, of whom one is successfully contend-
ing with three others. This subject has been variously inter-
preted. Col. Leake supposes it to represent Hercules combating
with the giants, and, as it certainly appears to be a scene de-
rived from the fable of the Gigantomachia, he has been induced
to believe that the whole of this frieze has been devoted to a re-
presentation of that subject, so great a favourite with Grecian
and especially Athenian artists, but the figure, which in this in-
terpretation would represent Hercules, does not appear to have
the extremely muscular and knotty character peculiar to that
demigod. Muller, who supposes the whole frieze to represent
the destruction of the Pallantidae, probably imagined the principal
figure to be Theseus, but we do not know enough of the cir-
cumstances of this fabulous history to feel justified in assign-
ing with confidence this scene to that event, and we fancy we per-
ceive in the figure somewhat more of majesty, perhaps of divinity,
than would be attributed even to Theseus.
Stuart sees in this figure the apparition of Theseus at the
battle of Marathon; but it is scarcely necessary to remark upon
so untenable a conjecture.
The later discoveries of fictile vases have thrown considerable
light upon Grecian mythology, and upon the mode in which the
Greeks themselves were accustomed to represent the exploits
by which their divinities and heroes were distinguished. Taking
these then as our guides, we are rather disposed to find in this
scene a representation of that part of the Gigantomachia in which
PLATE XVI.
[Height 2 f. 9£ in. Length 5 f. 10 in. Old Nos. A 64. A 65. New Nos. 145, 146.]
This plate represents one subject; a contest in which five
persons have been engaged, of whom one is successfully contend-
ing with three others. This subject has been variously inter-
preted. Col. Leake supposes it to represent Hercules combating
with the giants, and, as it certainly appears to be a scene de-
rived from the fable of the Gigantomachia, he has been induced
to believe that the whole of this frieze has been devoted to a re-
presentation of that subject, so great a favourite with Grecian
and especially Athenian artists, but the figure, which in this in-
terpretation would represent Hercules, does not appear to have
the extremely muscular and knotty character peculiar to that
demigod. Muller, who supposes the whole frieze to represent
the destruction of the Pallantidae, probably imagined the principal
figure to be Theseus, but we do not know enough of the cir-
cumstances of this fabulous history to feel justified in assign-
ing with confidence this scene to that event, and we fancy we per-
ceive in the figure somewhat more of majesty, perhaps of divinity,
than would be attributed even to Theseus.
Stuart sees in this figure the apparition of Theseus at the
battle of Marathon; but it is scarcely necessary to remark upon
so untenable a conjecture.
The later discoveries of fictile vases have thrown considerable
light upon Grecian mythology, and upon the mode in which the
Greeks themselves were accustomed to represent the exploits
by which their divinities and heroes were distinguished. Taking
these then as our guides, we are rather disposed to find in this
scene a representation of that part of the Gigantomachia in which