Evans, Arthur: An illustrative selection of Greek and Greco-Roman gems: to which is added a Minoan and proto-Hellenic series ; acquired, through over 60 years of travel and research in Crete, Mainland Greece, the East Adriatic Coastlands, Sicily, and Magna Graecia (Oxford, 1938)

Colonies founded by the Corcyraeans and by Diony-
sius of Syracuse. Numerous specimens in the present
selection have been the result of these Adriatic con-
tacts—including Artemis as the huntress on a jacinth
from Curzola (Corcyra Nigra) and the exquisite in-
taglio of Apollo on a pale yellow sard (No. 60: PI. Ill),
showing the Praxiteleian tradition, from Epitaurum,
the mother city of Ragusa (Dubrovnik).

Amongst results of Sicilian travel are the archaic
cornelian scarab found with black-figure vases in a
tomb on the site of Gela, probably the finest known
of its class (No. 41: PI. I), an official seal-stone (No.
57) with a Corinthian countermark of Timoleon's
time, showing the swimming bull of that city, and a
still more important official signet, a sard ring-stone
depicting Herakles and the lion, identical in style
with that on the 100-litra pieces of the great engraver
Euainetos (No. 56: PI. II).

From Southern Italy, Rome, Etruria, and elsewhere
are some intaglios of a fine Italo-Greek class. 'A
famous gem, greatly admired by Winkelmann', is the
aquamarine (No. 68) presenting Taras, as it may be,
on a dolphin, where the pale translucent green of the
stone may well suggest the Ionian waters over which
he rides. It was also possihle to put together an
illustrative series of scarabs, amongst which that de-
picting Hypnos and Thanatos carrying off the body of
Memnon (No. 96: PI. VI) is certainly the finest of its
class. This subject, which recurs on bronze mirrors,
is of great interest from the suggestive influence of
the Etruscan version on a series of Renascence com-
positions depicting the Entombment, by Mantegna,
Raphael, and others.1

1 Cf. Vcnturi, Raffaello, p. 140.
[iv]