DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.15099#0194
150
different portions in different monuments, the insertions and
omissions not being apparently in accordance with any system,
but as the feelings or caprice of the artists, or the deceased's
family, might suggest. M. Le Bas seems to consider that the
reclining personage is iEsculapius, sometimes accompanied by
his son Telesphorus, called at Pergamus Euamerion, and at Epi-
daurus Acesius,5 or by his grandson Alexanor, reclining upon the
same couch. The female he of course considers to be Hygeia,
and he assigns to her the office of interceding for the sacrificers
and suppliants, who appear upon the monument, or at whose
charges it may have been erected. This interpretation of the
figures seems to involve the necessity of considering the sculp-
tures as propitiatory of these divinities towards persons still
living, but labouring under disease or sickness of an alarming
nature ; whereas we are of opinion that they never have that cha-
racter, but are universally funereal, and only propitiatory with a
view to influence the fate of the deceased in Elysium, or wherever
he may be supposed to have passed after death. Though the
serpent may be a common symbol of iEsculapius and Hygeia, it
does not therefore follow that its appearance in these scenes
should indicate the presence of these divinities; for it seldom ap-
pears feeding, never encircling a wand or club, as is usual in such
cases, and upon many of these monuments it is not at all in-
troduced. It has many mystic meanings connected with restoration
of health, a future state, or immortality, which would justify its
appearance in scenes connected with death, without any necessary
application to those divinities. The personages represented are
without any symbols so specific as to enable us to give them
names with entire satisfaction, and we are disposed to think that
several writers have embarrassed themselves and their explanations
from a desire to identify these figures with some of the well known
divinities or deified heroes. We are inclined to consider them
5 Pausanias, b. ii. c. 11.
different portions in different monuments, the insertions and
omissions not being apparently in accordance with any system,
but as the feelings or caprice of the artists, or the deceased's
family, might suggest. M. Le Bas seems to consider that the
reclining personage is iEsculapius, sometimes accompanied by
his son Telesphorus, called at Pergamus Euamerion, and at Epi-
daurus Acesius,5 or by his grandson Alexanor, reclining upon the
same couch. The female he of course considers to be Hygeia,
and he assigns to her the office of interceding for the sacrificers
and suppliants, who appear upon the monument, or at whose
charges it may have been erected. This interpretation of the
figures seems to involve the necessity of considering the sculp-
tures as propitiatory of these divinities towards persons still
living, but labouring under disease or sickness of an alarming
nature ; whereas we are of opinion that they never have that cha-
racter, but are universally funereal, and only propitiatory with a
view to influence the fate of the deceased in Elysium, or wherever
he may be supposed to have passed after death. Though the
serpent may be a common symbol of iEsculapius and Hygeia, it
does not therefore follow that its appearance in these scenes
should indicate the presence of these divinities; for it seldom ap-
pears feeding, never encircling a wand or club, as is usual in such
cases, and upon many of these monuments it is not at all in-
troduced. It has many mystic meanings connected with restoration
of health, a future state, or immortality, which would justify its
appearance in scenes connected with death, without any necessary
application to those divinities. The personages represented are
without any symbols so specific as to enable us to give them
names with entire satisfaction, and we are disposed to think that
several writers have embarrassed themselves and their explanations
from a desire to identify these figures with some of the well known
divinities or deified heroes. We are inclined to consider them
5 Pausanias, b. ii. c. 11.