DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5253#0542
RELIEFS ON PUBLIC DECREES. 507
The reliefs at the head of public decrees of this time, found in Athens,
are especially interesting, as their dates can be positively fixed. They show
the gradual progress from simpler to more elaborate forms ; while those of the
later years of the century grow careless in execution, and with its close entirely
disappear. One of these reliefs, a vignette at the head of a treaty made with
Corkyra in 375 B.C., shows us a seated male figure of dignified mien, convers-
ing with a standing female draped like Kephisodotos' Eirene, but holding her
veil with one hand. Athena, helmeted, stands by, attentively listening to the
diplomatic conversation going on between the man, who doubtless represents
the powerful demos of Athens, and the veiled woman representing the weaker
state, —the island of Corkyra, as the inscription indicates. In another of these
vignettes, dated 362 B.C., Athena stands with bended head while the treaty is
being closed with Macedonia ; the whole style of the relief being less severe,
and Athena's pose full of serious contemplation, as becoming to the goddess
of the discomfited Athenian stated
From all the shattered monuments found in Athens, — from the playful
reliefs of the choragic monument of Lysicrates to the sad tombstones and the
votive reliefs of the pious,—we see how truly ideal the bent of art in Attica,
during the century of a Praxiteles and a Scopas. And the more we study
these monuments, even though we are robbed of the famous masterpieces of
their time, the higher grows our sense of the beautifully poetic and truly
human character of the age that gave them birth.
The reliefs at the head of public decrees of this time, found in Athens,
are especially interesting, as their dates can be positively fixed. They show
the gradual progress from simpler to more elaborate forms ; while those of the
later years of the century grow careless in execution, and with its close entirely
disappear. One of these reliefs, a vignette at the head of a treaty made with
Corkyra in 375 B.C., shows us a seated male figure of dignified mien, convers-
ing with a standing female draped like Kephisodotos' Eirene, but holding her
veil with one hand. Athena, helmeted, stands by, attentively listening to the
diplomatic conversation going on between the man, who doubtless represents
the powerful demos of Athens, and the veiled woman representing the weaker
state, —the island of Corkyra, as the inscription indicates. In another of these
vignettes, dated 362 B.C., Athena stands with bended head while the treaty is
being closed with Macedonia ; the whole style of the relief being less severe,
and Athena's pose full of serious contemplation, as becoming to the goddess
of the discomfited Athenian stated
From all the shattered monuments found in Athens, — from the playful
reliefs of the choragic monument of Lysicrates to the sad tombstones and the
votive reliefs of the pious,—we see how truly ideal the bent of art in Attica,
during the century of a Praxiteles and a Scopas. And the more we study
these monuments, even though we are robbed of the famous masterpieces of
their time, the higher grows our sense of the beautifully poetic and truly
human character of the age that gave them birth.