Mitchell, Lucy M.: A history of ancient sculpture (New York, 1883)

STATE OF ATHENS. 545

and of the hunt, as well as with fantastic animals. On its summit stood Sirens
of costly workmanship, out of which sounded the funeral dirge. Amid sacri-
fices, mourning processions, and songs of lament, this gorgeous pyre was given
to the flames. Offerings now followed, in honor of the hero Hephaistion, Alex-
ander himself consecrating the first gifts. Ten thousand bullocks were slain as
sacrifices to the now heroed friend, and the whole army was invited to a grand
repast; still other festivities following on the ensuing days. In similar gor-
geous pageants, in which statuary, likewise, played a most important part, did
the rulers after Alexander vie with one another; and from the detailed descrip-
tions of these pageants, as well as from the general tenor of the poets of the
day, it may be gathered, that sculpture came now more than ever to be so
applied as to form a part of a showy and imposing whole.

Moreover, at this time was developed a high enjoyment of nature in land-
scape and in gardening; and sculpture found a new field, as ministering to this
taste, enhancing often the beauty of a charming valley or mountain side, its
forms conceived in wonderful harmony with the surroundings, and not to be
divorced from them. This age was, in addition, one in which, as a Zeuxis, a
Parrhasios, an Apelles, and others had brought painting to highest perfection,
the potent influence of their great pictures could not fail to be felt by sculp-
ture. This influence is clearly traceable in the pictorial treatment of detail,
the new and often strange groupings, as well as in the striving after illusion
and vivid reality, although sculpture still held on to the grand framework of
form it had received from times gone by.

But of the intenser life, the new creations, and the varied renderings of older
themes, which characterized this age, we shall learn most by going to the monu-
ments themselves. They shall teach us, that this Hellenistic age was not a
weakened child of the old, but its worthy heir; and that Pliny must have been
strangely misinformed when he wrote, that, with Olymp. 121 (296 B.C.), art
ceased, but gained new life by Olymp. 156 (156 B.C.).'°75 By the recognition,
moreover, of tlje strength and vigor of an age which could produce the Nike
of Samothrake, the Great Altar of Pergamon, and the Venus of Melos, as well
as the so-called Dying Gladiator, and numerous portraits of highest excellence,
we shall better realize the course of Greek genius, which through the centuries
left none of its rare powers undeveloped.

Among the art-centres of this age, Athens, the old home of ideal thought
and sculpture, naturally first attracts our attention. Although politically hum-
bled, never again to regain her former glory, she had not lost altogether her
old fire, nor sunken to a state of utter servility, as a one-sided history would
have us believe. The conclusive testimony of inscriptions shows that she
resisted to her utmost, even to the last.10?6 The extravagant story, that on the
flight of Demetrios of Phaleron, the Macedonian regent, his three hundred and