DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61301#0185
THE METOPES OF SELIN US.
155
There is a second practical advantage in our selection
of these sculptures from Selinus. We are able to fix
their date approximately. The city was founded not
later than 628 B.C., it fell in B.C. 409. The earliest of its
sculptures cannot be earlier than about 628 B.C., the
latest not later than 409 B.C. Any one who knows how
difficult it usually is to secure any safe footing for dates
in the history of Greek art, will understand how eagerly
the archaeologist catches at this historical evidence. We
are able to narrow the field within still closer limits.
We know that the first, the all-important work of a
Greek colonist would be to build a temple. Not more
than a few years would ever pass before his god had a
fitting dwelling-place. The sculptures therefore of the
earliest temple—allowing a generation for its building-
must have been executed between 650 B.C. and 600 B.C.
Here we have a definite standpoint, and therefore a fixed
criterion for judging other undated sculptures. Such
standpoints are specially rare, and therefore specially
valuable in the early, archaic period of Greek art where
historical records are few and inscriptions infrequent.
So much by way of preface; we must now turn to the
examination of the actual sculptures. Of the seven (21)
temples built by the Selinuntians we have architectural
remains of all and sculptured remains of three ; of these
we shall select two, the earliest and the latest. We
begin with the earliest. It was built on the hill to the
155
There is a second practical advantage in our selection
of these sculptures from Selinus. We are able to fix
their date approximately. The city was founded not
later than 628 B.C., it fell in B.C. 409. The earliest of its
sculptures cannot be earlier than about 628 B.C., the
latest not later than 409 B.C. Any one who knows how
difficult it usually is to secure any safe footing for dates
in the history of Greek art, will understand how eagerly
the archaeologist catches at this historical evidence. We
are able to narrow the field within still closer limits.
We know that the first, the all-important work of a
Greek colonist would be to build a temple. Not more
than a few years would ever pass before his god had a
fitting dwelling-place. The sculptures therefore of the
earliest temple—allowing a generation for its building-
must have been executed between 650 B.C. and 600 B.C.
Here we have a definite standpoint, and therefore a fixed
criterion for judging other undated sculptures. Such
standpoints are specially rare, and therefore specially
valuable in the early, archaic period of Greek art where
historical records are few and inscriptions infrequent.
So much by way of preface; we must now turn to the
examination of the actual sculptures. Of the seven (21)
temples built by the Selinuntians we have architectural
remains of all and sculptured remains of three ; of these
we shall select two, the earliest and the latest. We
begin with the earliest. It was built on the hill to the