DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9187#0276
220
later monuments of asia minor
or ideal siege. The two emissaries of the besiegers must have
had prototypes, and recent prototypes, in real life ; and the
king before whom they stand is no mythical chief, but the ruler
for whom the tomb was made. This has been disputed by
Wolters, but the general consensus of archaeologists is against
him.
On the other point, the date of the monument, there has
been much wider divergence of opinion. At first, in England,
it was placed in the sixth century, as a monument of the con-
quest of Xanthus by Harpagus, the general of Cyrus. This,
however, is quite impossible. Soon the pendulum swung too
far in the other direction, and the sculpture was brought down
to the fourth century, and even connected with the school of
Scopas. The date fixed by Furtwangler ', the latter part
of the fifth century, is now generally accepted. In the forms of
the Nereids we may trace the artistic influence of the Victory
of Paeonius, set up about b. c. 424. And if some of the figures
of the friezes be carefully considered they will be found to
show traces of undeveloped art, even of archaism. The Nereid
monument belongs to the age of the Parthenon and the temple
of Athena Nike, not to the age of the Mausoleum.
If therefore we were compelled, as Urlichs supposed, to
assign the taking of Telmessus by Pericles to so late a date
as the 102nd Olympiad (b.c. 372), we should be obliged to
give up its assignment to that king. But there is no conclusive
reason for the date fixed by Urlichs. There is therefore no
improbability that our monument may be a memorial of Pericles
of Xanthus. In any case it has an important place among the
remains of antiquity, because it stands in the line of descent,
a line marked by many lacunae, which connects the mural
reliefs of Assyria, with their fulness of historic detail, and
the magnificent monuments of imperial Rome. The Nereid
1 Arch. Zeit. 1882, p. 359.
later monuments of asia minor
or ideal siege. The two emissaries of the besiegers must have
had prototypes, and recent prototypes, in real life ; and the
king before whom they stand is no mythical chief, but the ruler
for whom the tomb was made. This has been disputed by
Wolters, but the general consensus of archaeologists is against
him.
On the other point, the date of the monument, there has
been much wider divergence of opinion. At first, in England,
it was placed in the sixth century, as a monument of the con-
quest of Xanthus by Harpagus, the general of Cyrus. This,
however, is quite impossible. Soon the pendulum swung too
far in the other direction, and the sculpture was brought down
to the fourth century, and even connected with the school of
Scopas. The date fixed by Furtwangler ', the latter part
of the fifth century, is now generally accepted. In the forms of
the Nereids we may trace the artistic influence of the Victory
of Paeonius, set up about b. c. 424. And if some of the figures
of the friezes be carefully considered they will be found to
show traces of undeveloped art, even of archaism. The Nereid
monument belongs to the age of the Parthenon and the temple
of Athena Nike, not to the age of the Mausoleum.
If therefore we were compelled, as Urlichs supposed, to
assign the taking of Telmessus by Pericles to so late a date
as the 102nd Olympiad (b.c. 372), we should be obliged to
give up its assignment to that king. But there is no conclusive
reason for the date fixed by Urlichs. There is therefore no
improbability that our monument may be a memorial of Pericles
of Xanthus. In any case it has an important place among the
remains of antiquity, because it stands in the line of descent,
a line marked by many lacunae, which connects the mural
reliefs of Assyria, with their fulness of historic detail, and
the magnificent monuments of imperial Rome. The Nereid
1 Arch. Zeit. 1882, p. 359.