Falkener, Edward: Daedalus or the causes and principles of the excellence of Greek sculpture (London, 1860)

DECLINE OF AKT.

181

unhappy Greek, as one barbarous conqueror after
another, followed by .Praetors each more exacting
than his predecessor, ravaged the Grecian cities
and their colonies, leaving no town in Greece or
Asia, Sicily, Magna Graecia, Rhodes, or the other
islands of the Mediterranean unpillaged, till scarcely
a statue remained for the miserable people to
address in supplication ! Imagine deputies from
these cities having to appear at Rome, and there
seeing the sacred statue which had been adored for
ages, now forming part of some vast museum, or
serving as an ornament to the villa of a Mummius
or a Verres ! With what spirit or enthusiasm could
the poor artist work, who saw such a probable
termination to his labours ? But whatever spirit
remained after such a calamity, art was utterly
extinguished at the conquest of the country by
the Christians. Libanius informs us that the
monks, carrying axes and torches, overspread the
country, burning the temples and breaking the
statues, and leaving nothing behind them but
smoking ruins.1

" Thus the monks finished what the Goths began."

Pope.

Security and patronage being gone, the Greek
artists fled to Egypt, Syria, Italy, and other coun-

1 This will scarcely be believed by some, and yet we find that
so late as the fifteenth century ancient art was still exposed to