DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61301#0252
2l8
STUDIES IN GREEK ART.
throne. The god was mild in aspect, awful indeed, but
not terrible. Pheidias said he drew his inspiration from
Homer, of all poets most Panhellenic. He had con-
ceived his Zeus at the moment when he bowed his head
in answer to the prayer of Thetis : “ Cronion spake and
nodded his dark brow, and ambrosial locks waved from
the king’s immortal head, and he made great Olympus
quake” (Iliad i. 528). But to this conception of Homer
Pheidias brought also the added thoughts and aspirations
of five centuries of national life.
Strange legends gathered round the statue ; the Roman
emperor Caligula desired to carry it away to Rome, and,
in his Roman fashion, substitute his own head for that of
the god. But when the workmen laid their sacrilegious
hands upon the statue, peals of horrid laughter broke from
the image and they fled panic stricken; a thunderbolt fell
and consumed the ship which waited to bear away the god.
The language of criticism in speaking of this statue is
scarcely more sober. Lucian says, those who enter the
temple think no longer that they behold ivory from the
Indies nor gold gotten in Thrace, but the very son of
Cronos and Rhea, translated to earth by Pheidias. Quinti-
lian, in words whose special significance we see when we re-
member the conception of Athene Parthenos, thus writes:
“ Pheidias was held to be a better artist for statues of the
gods than of men. In his work in ivory he is far beyond
a rival, even if he had done nothing except the Minerva
STUDIES IN GREEK ART.
throne. The god was mild in aspect, awful indeed, but
not terrible. Pheidias said he drew his inspiration from
Homer, of all poets most Panhellenic. He had con-
ceived his Zeus at the moment when he bowed his head
in answer to the prayer of Thetis : “ Cronion spake and
nodded his dark brow, and ambrosial locks waved from
the king’s immortal head, and he made great Olympus
quake” (Iliad i. 528). But to this conception of Homer
Pheidias brought also the added thoughts and aspirations
of five centuries of national life.
Strange legends gathered round the statue ; the Roman
emperor Caligula desired to carry it away to Rome, and,
in his Roman fashion, substitute his own head for that of
the god. But when the workmen laid their sacrilegious
hands upon the statue, peals of horrid laughter broke from
the image and they fled panic stricken; a thunderbolt fell
and consumed the ship which waited to bear away the god.
The language of criticism in speaking of this statue is
scarcely more sober. Lucian says, those who enter the
temple think no longer that they behold ivory from the
Indies nor gold gotten in Thrace, but the very son of
Cronos and Rhea, translated to earth by Pheidias. Quinti-
lian, in words whose special significance we see when we re-
member the conception of Athene Parthenos, thus writes:
“ Pheidias was held to be a better artist for statues of the
gods than of men. In his work in ivory he is far beyond
a rival, even if he had done nothing except the Minerva