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

DECLINE OF AET.

183

cated the hidden beauty, the outward form itself
became neglected.

" Cessavit deinde ars."

The causes of Greek excellence having been
unfolded, it is only necessary to say that the
absence of these causes in the Roman element
tended to its decadence.1 We have seen how the
arts were honoured by the Greeks : in Rome, the
exercise of them would have been considered a
disgrace to one of noble birth; and Petronius
expressly ascribes the decay of art among the
Romans to the fact of their being no longer in
honestis manibus, but cultivated only by slaves and
freedmen. So, if we compare ancient art with that

siamo iti di male in peggio. Certo mi rendo, che per insino noi
la terremo in sul nostro terreno, sempre arriveremo male. (Io,
Grhiberti,) son uno di quelli consiglierei essa si ponesse giu, e
tutta si lacerasse e spezzassesi, e mandassesi a seppellire in sul
terreno de' Piorentini. (Their burying it in their enemies'
ground is very amusing.) — Frammenti Inediti di Lorenzo
Ghiberti, in the Saccolta Artistica, tomo ii. p. 13, 14.

Even in modern times the works of ancient art may sometimes
be destroyed. I knew a traveller in Samos who found a most
beautiful gem, representing Nymphs adorning a hernial statue
with garlands. So exquisitely was it arranged that it was not
till the third day that he discovered that it was what the Italians
call " una cosa tenera,"—and it immediately flew into a dozen
pieces.

1 For the absence of all these excellences in the Greek cha-
racter, see the portraiture of Roman times depicted by Bromley,
Philosophy and Grit. Hist, of the Fine Arts, vol. ii. p. G7-74.