Huddilston, John H.: The attitude of the Greek tragedians toward art (London, 1898)

Tragedians toward Art 63

It seems clear from this that No. 1 stands for
the old image, a copy, as I think, of the Brauron
one, and the same which Euripides has in mind,
while No. 2 was the temple statue proper by
Praxiteles. No. 1 is distinguished by implica-
tion as a sitting statue. While, too, the material
is marble, we cannot be sure that the Brauron
image was of the same material. This, then, is
as near as we may come to the character of the
xoanon which plays the big role in the Iphigeneia
in Tauris. We come now to what appears to be
a very important fact. Euripides states through
the mouth of Athena that Iphigeneia shall have
laid upon her tomb at Brauron irenXw ev-rrrjvovs
vcpds1 which have belonged to women dying in
childbirth. Now, curiously enough, the inscrip-
tions referred to above are mere inventories of
articles dedicated to Artemis by Athenian women;
not only dresses of all sorts, but jewellery, girdles,
&c. These were actually put on the statues,
nepl r<2 e<5ei and ntpl tS> dyaXfiaTi, as the inscrip-
tions read. The poet has probably inserted
these words concerning this in order to give
a long established custom a distinguished and
praiseworthy origin. The words of the fourth
century b. c. inscription read in very fact like

1 v. 1465.