DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.786#0215
198 VOLTEREA.—The Museum. [chap. xw.
one end of the sarcophagus, under the conduct of an evil
genius with a hammer, yet not Charun, since he has not
brute's ears, nor is he of truculent or hideous aspect, like
the genuine Charun, who is to he seen with all his
unmistakeable attributes at the opposite end of the
monument.3
The other sarcophagus, on which reclines a female, has
reliefs of unusual beauty, whose Greek character marks them
as of no very early date. There are two distinct groups ;
in one, a mother with her little ones around her, is taking
an embrace of her husband—in the other, she is seated
mournfully on a stool, fondling her child, which leans upon
her lap. The one scene portrays her in the height of
domestic felicity; the other in the lonely condition of a
widow, yet with some consolation left in the pledges of her
love. Or if the first represent the farewell embrace, though
there is no concomitant to determine it as such, in the
second is clearly set forth the greatness of her loss, and
the bitterness of her bereavement.
It is such scenes as these, and others before described,
which give so great a charm to this collection. The
Etruscans seem to have excelled in the palpable expression
of natural feelings. How unmeaning the hieroglyphics on
Egyptian sarcophagi, save to the initiated! How deficient
the sepulchral monuments of Greece and Rome in such
universal appeals to the sympathies !—even their epitaphs,
from the constant recurrence of the same conventional terms,
may often be suspected of insincerity.4 But the touches
of nature on these Etruscan urns, so simply but eloquently
expressed, must appeal to the sympathies of all—they are
3 Inghirami (I. tav. 32) giyes one of tiones, propter quas vadimonium deseri
these end scenes. possit. At quum intraveris, dii dece-
4 Hear a Roman's description of que ! quam nihil in medio invenies !"
Greek inscriptions. " Inscriptions apud Plin. N. H. prrefat.
Greecos mira felicitas: . . inscrip-
one end of the sarcophagus, under the conduct of an evil
genius with a hammer, yet not Charun, since he has not
brute's ears, nor is he of truculent or hideous aspect, like
the genuine Charun, who is to he seen with all his
unmistakeable attributes at the opposite end of the
monument.3
The other sarcophagus, on which reclines a female, has
reliefs of unusual beauty, whose Greek character marks them
as of no very early date. There are two distinct groups ;
in one, a mother with her little ones around her, is taking
an embrace of her husband—in the other, she is seated
mournfully on a stool, fondling her child, which leans upon
her lap. The one scene portrays her in the height of
domestic felicity; the other in the lonely condition of a
widow, yet with some consolation left in the pledges of her
love. Or if the first represent the farewell embrace, though
there is no concomitant to determine it as such, in the
second is clearly set forth the greatness of her loss, and
the bitterness of her bereavement.
It is such scenes as these, and others before described,
which give so great a charm to this collection. The
Etruscans seem to have excelled in the palpable expression
of natural feelings. How unmeaning the hieroglyphics on
Egyptian sarcophagi, save to the initiated! How deficient
the sepulchral monuments of Greece and Rome in such
universal appeals to the sympathies !—even their epitaphs,
from the constant recurrence of the same conventional terms,
may often be suspected of insincerity.4 But the touches
of nature on these Etruscan urns, so simply but eloquently
expressed, must appeal to the sympathies of all—they are
3 Inghirami (I. tav. 32) giyes one of tiones, propter quas vadimonium deseri
these end scenes. possit. At quum intraveris, dii dece-
4 Hear a Roman's description of que ! quam nihil in medio invenies !"
Greek inscriptions. " Inscriptions apud Plin. N. H. prrefat.
Greecos mira felicitas: . . inscrip-