DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9187#0275
LATER MONUMENTS OF ASIA MINOR
219
the women wailing, the attacking force adjusting the ladders
for scaling, or repulsing sorties of the besieged.
The siege and the capture of a hostile city was evidently
one of the most notable events of the life of the hero of the
monument. With some plausibility archaeologists have found
allusion to the same siege in the beautiful figures of women
which stood between the columns of the pteron, the temple-like
structure which crowned the monument. These figures repre-
sent young girls in the dress of Attic maidens flying in haste
and alarm from some danger which threatens them. At their
feet are various marine creatures : the dolphin, the sea-snake,
a crab, a water-bird, or a fish. This curious circumstance has
given rise to the commonly accepted view that they represent
Nereid nymphs hastily escaping over the surface of the sea
from some rude alarm, flying in disorder to their father Nereus,
as they do on more than one vase when Peleus has laid hands
on their sister Thetis. What more likely to cause a panic
among the shy and peaceful ladies of the sea than a marine
battle, or even the attack of an arm)- on a city of the sea-
coast ?
Urlichs has tried to show that all the historical indications
which may be derived from the frieze of the siege and from
the presence of the flying Nereids may be explained if we assign
the tomb to the king or satrap, Pericles of Xanthus, who, as
we learn from a fragment of Theopompus, laid siege to the
neighbouring city of Telmessus, and after a stubborn resistance
compelled it to capitulate. Before we can accept or reject
this theory we must briefly consider two questions. Is an
actual historic event depicted on the tomb, or is the representa-
tion merely of a mythical siege of the past ? And what is
the date of the monument ?
As to the first of these questions I have already sufficiently
indicated my view. The sculptural history of the siege is
too detailed and precise to be a rendering of a merely typical
219
the women wailing, the attacking force adjusting the ladders
for scaling, or repulsing sorties of the besieged.
The siege and the capture of a hostile city was evidently
one of the most notable events of the life of the hero of the
monument. With some plausibility archaeologists have found
allusion to the same siege in the beautiful figures of women
which stood between the columns of the pteron, the temple-like
structure which crowned the monument. These figures repre-
sent young girls in the dress of Attic maidens flying in haste
and alarm from some danger which threatens them. At their
feet are various marine creatures : the dolphin, the sea-snake,
a crab, a water-bird, or a fish. This curious circumstance has
given rise to the commonly accepted view that they represent
Nereid nymphs hastily escaping over the surface of the sea
from some rude alarm, flying in disorder to their father Nereus,
as they do on more than one vase when Peleus has laid hands
on their sister Thetis. What more likely to cause a panic
among the shy and peaceful ladies of the sea than a marine
battle, or even the attack of an arm)- on a city of the sea-
coast ?
Urlichs has tried to show that all the historical indications
which may be derived from the frieze of the siege and from
the presence of the flying Nereids may be explained if we assign
the tomb to the king or satrap, Pericles of Xanthus, who, as
we learn from a fragment of Theopompus, laid siege to the
neighbouring city of Telmessus, and after a stubborn resistance
compelled it to capitulate. Before we can accept or reject
this theory we must briefly consider two questions. Is an
actual historic event depicted on the tomb, or is the representa-
tion merely of a mythical siege of the past ? And what is
the date of the monument ?
As to the first of these questions I have already sufficiently
indicated my view. The sculptural history of the siege is
too detailed and precise to be a rendering of a merely typical