DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4098#0390
PANDROSEION. 353
former was a man of talent, and an observing traveller, yet his work
is full of those errors and omissions peculiar to books of travels
written at that period.
Speaking of the Caryatides, he says " au midi du temple de
Minerve, se voyent quelques masures anciennes, et quelques statues
de femmes, enclavees dans un mur, qui etoient peut-etre les trois
Graces, que Socrate y avoit taille." In the time of Spon there were
five of these architectural statues, if not six, which was the original
number; and though they are extremely beautiful, and admirably
sculptured, yet they have not the smallest characteristic of the
Graces ; but figuratively represent the weight of slavery, and the
severe forms of Caryan females,1 rather than the light freedom and
easy elegance of the daughters of Venus. Indeed the female figure
cannot -well be placed in a more ungraceful attitude, than that in
which it is seen under the pressure of a ponderous mass of entabla-
ture ! The drapery of the Caiwatides towards the base, seems to
have been made with a certain degree of straightness and formality,
in order to approach to the appearance of fluted columns. This
peculiarity is too marked to be accidental. The figures all look to-
wards the south ; half their numbers are represented with their right
knee straight, and the left bent; and the other half are in the con-
trary position : although this is not the most natural position for
columnar statues which support so great a weight, yet it is the most
elegant.
Only four of them are at present remaining, as one was taken
down during the plunder of the Acropolis in 1801, when an
ill-built pilaster, of small expense, was substituted in its place, in
order to support the entablature, which will fall as soon as the
prop decays! Future travellers will easily trace on the modern
pilaster the letters EAHNOS EnoIEI, which probably records the
maker's name.
The Earl of Guildford, influenced by a laudable attachment to
1 The origin of this story is in Vitruvius, b. I.e. 1.
VOL. I. 2z
former was a man of talent, and an observing traveller, yet his work
is full of those errors and omissions peculiar to books of travels
written at that period.
Speaking of the Caryatides, he says " au midi du temple de
Minerve, se voyent quelques masures anciennes, et quelques statues
de femmes, enclavees dans un mur, qui etoient peut-etre les trois
Graces, que Socrate y avoit taille." In the time of Spon there were
five of these architectural statues, if not six, which was the original
number; and though they are extremely beautiful, and admirably
sculptured, yet they have not the smallest characteristic of the
Graces ; but figuratively represent the weight of slavery, and the
severe forms of Caryan females,1 rather than the light freedom and
easy elegance of the daughters of Venus. Indeed the female figure
cannot -well be placed in a more ungraceful attitude, than that in
which it is seen under the pressure of a ponderous mass of entabla-
ture ! The drapery of the Caiwatides towards the base, seems to
have been made with a certain degree of straightness and formality,
in order to approach to the appearance of fluted columns. This
peculiarity is too marked to be accidental. The figures all look to-
wards the south ; half their numbers are represented with their right
knee straight, and the left bent; and the other half are in the con-
trary position : although this is not the most natural position for
columnar statues which support so great a weight, yet it is the most
elegant.
Only four of them are at present remaining, as one was taken
down during the plunder of the Acropolis in 1801, when an
ill-built pilaster, of small expense, was substituted in its place, in
order to support the entablature, which will fall as soon as the
prop decays! Future travellers will easily trace on the modern
pilaster the letters EAHNOS EnoIEI, which probably records the
maker's name.
The Earl of Guildford, influenced by a laudable attachment to
1 The origin of this story is in Vitruvius, b. I.e. 1.
VOL. I. 2z