DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61301#0335
THE ALTAR OF EUMENES AT PERGAMOS. 2^
victory over the Gauls we have then to associate the
dying Gaul of the Capitol, the Ludovisi Gaul and his
wife, and the series of small, scattered, recumbent figures.
Works of peace we know he executed as well as monu-
ments of war, but none remain to us. We know that
with wise forethought he allied himself with Rome.
Throughout his reign and that of his successors we
feel the oncoming of that imperial power which
was by and by to overshadow the whole civilized
world. The kingdom he had consolidated and thus
wisely guarded he handed down to his son, Eumenes II.
It seems that the son as well as the father had to
withstand the shock of barbarian invasion, and with
a like triumphant success. The victories of Eumenes
issued, however, in permanent peace, and he returned
to adorn at leisure the Acropolis of his city with new
monuments of glory. He seems to have been the first
to make the city and its outlying districts really one,
uniting the citadel, the city which circled its base, and
a grove on the terraces of the neighbouring hills sacred
to the great healing god of Pergamos, Asclepios.
Strabo tells us that “ Eumenes IL, out of his delight in
magnificence and beauty, built buildings for the gods,
and established libraries and made of Pergamos a
splendid city.” He inaugurated afresh the old sacred
games and rites, and made the sacred Temenos of
Athene an inviolable asylum. These works completed,
victory over the Gauls we have then to associate the
dying Gaul of the Capitol, the Ludovisi Gaul and his
wife, and the series of small, scattered, recumbent figures.
Works of peace we know he executed as well as monu-
ments of war, but none remain to us. We know that
with wise forethought he allied himself with Rome.
Throughout his reign and that of his successors we
feel the oncoming of that imperial power which
was by and by to overshadow the whole civilized
world. The kingdom he had consolidated and thus
wisely guarded he handed down to his son, Eumenes II.
It seems that the son as well as the father had to
withstand the shock of barbarian invasion, and with
a like triumphant success. The victories of Eumenes
issued, however, in permanent peace, and he returned
to adorn at leisure the Acropolis of his city with new
monuments of glory. He seems to have been the first
to make the city and its outlying districts really one,
uniting the citadel, the city which circled its base, and
a grove on the terraces of the neighbouring hills sacred
to the great healing god of Pergamos, Asclepios.
Strabo tells us that “ Eumenes IL, out of his delight in
magnificence and beauty, built buildings for the gods,
and established libraries and made of Pergamos a
splendid city.” He inaugurated afresh the old sacred
games and rites, and made the sacred Temenos of
Athene an inviolable asylum. These works completed,