DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.15099#0213
167
PLATE XXXVII.
Fig. 1. Height 1 f. 6 in. Width 1 f. 1£ in. Old No. 101. New No. 380.
Upon this fragment are represented two persons within a
distyle temple, approaching an altar; one of them, apparently
a young man, entirely unclothed, with an ewer in one hand,
stands in a very diffident and deferential position, with the head
rather cast downwards, and the right knee slightly bent. Behind
him is an elderly person, clothed in the pallium in the usual
manner which leaves the right arm and shoulder uncovered.
This person is attired exactly in the same manner as the magis-
trates or sacred officers who superintend, upon the frieze of the
Parthenon, the Panathenaic procession. The public personages
are generally indicated by the colour, texture, and composition
of their garments more than by their form or the manner in which
they are worn; and, as the marble does not afford us any infor-
mation upon these points, and we are unacquainted with those
slight indications which to the practised and experienced eye of
contemporaries would convey certainty, we can conjecture only
from the general appearance and nature of the scene that he is
some official minister of the temple where this sacred ceremony is
supposed to take place. The person who is about to offer the
sacrifice or the libation is the young man, but, what may be
the nature of the ceremony about to be performed we, have no
means of forming even a conjecture, for there is not enough of
the sculpture remaining to enable us to guess to whom or in
whose presence the offering is to be made. The naked leg and
arm lead to the conclusion that the personage who stood on the
other side of the altar was a male ; his dimensions prove him to
PLATE XXXVII.
Fig. 1. Height 1 f. 6 in. Width 1 f. 1£ in. Old No. 101. New No. 380.
Upon this fragment are represented two persons within a
distyle temple, approaching an altar; one of them, apparently
a young man, entirely unclothed, with an ewer in one hand,
stands in a very diffident and deferential position, with the head
rather cast downwards, and the right knee slightly bent. Behind
him is an elderly person, clothed in the pallium in the usual
manner which leaves the right arm and shoulder uncovered.
This person is attired exactly in the same manner as the magis-
trates or sacred officers who superintend, upon the frieze of the
Parthenon, the Panathenaic procession. The public personages
are generally indicated by the colour, texture, and composition
of their garments more than by their form or the manner in which
they are worn; and, as the marble does not afford us any infor-
mation upon these points, and we are unacquainted with those
slight indications which to the practised and experienced eye of
contemporaries would convey certainty, we can conjecture only
from the general appearance and nature of the scene that he is
some official minister of the temple where this sacred ceremony is
supposed to take place. The person who is about to offer the
sacrifice or the libation is the young man, but, what may be
the nature of the ceremony about to be performed we, have no
means of forming even a conjecture, for there is not enough of
the sculpture remaining to enable us to guess to whom or in
whose presence the offering is to be made. The naked leg and
arm lead to the conclusion that the personage who stood on the
other side of the altar was a male ; his dimensions prove him to