DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5253#0720
682
SCULPTURE UNDER ROMAN DOMINION.
but his crossed hands, his bended head, with its shaggy locks, furrowed brow,
and sinister eyes, tell too clearly the story of his captivity. The top of the
head is somewhat flattened, so that it is probable that this figure was intended
to support some architectural member ; and the back, left wholly in the rough,
indicates its application against a wall. How interesting the technique of this
statue, which, in its intense and lifelike
realism, is a very Tiepolo in ancient art !
The black points of measurement (pnutelli)
left in its surface betray a method of copy-
ing used also by modern sculptors. Simi-
lar points were used in the late time in
Greece, as appears from the copy of the
Athena Parthenos discovered in 1881, and
from a sphinx now in the Theseion Mu-
seum at Athens.
While reliefs from Trajan's structures
are in the Lateran, comprising intensely
realistic wrestlers and a procession of lie-
tors, no sculptures from the time of this
emperor are better preserved than those
on the triumphal column, 106 feet high,
surmounting the tomb where his ashes
were laid away in an urn of gold, and
erected by the senate and people in 113
A. D. Trajan's -Column is composed of
twenty-nine blocks of Parian marble, of
which eight form the hollow pedestal, be-
low which was the grave proper. Seven-
teen round blocks hollowed out so as to
form a winding stairway within, leading to
the top, make up the shaft, which is deco-
rated externally with twenty-three spirals
of relief, growing wider at the top to suit
the perspective. The column was crowned
originally with Trajan's portrait-statue in
armor, doubtless somewhat after the man-
ner of the statue of Augustus, and, according to coins, holding in one hand a
goddess of Victory, standing on a globe.I2tS3 Columns surmounted by a statue
had existed in older times, as at Melos, Delos, Olympia, as votive offerings, but
nowhere on so extensive a scale as here. On the pedestal of Trajan's Column
are represented trophies of war ; calling to mind the numerous trophy sculp-
tures of the stoa of Attalos II., at Pergamos, so well represented in the Berlin
Fig. 285. Barbarian Prisonc
Rome.
Lateran Musani.
SCULPTURE UNDER ROMAN DOMINION.
but his crossed hands, his bended head, with its shaggy locks, furrowed brow,
and sinister eyes, tell too clearly the story of his captivity. The top of the
head is somewhat flattened, so that it is probable that this figure was intended
to support some architectural member ; and the back, left wholly in the rough,
indicates its application against a wall. How interesting the technique of this
statue, which, in its intense and lifelike
realism, is a very Tiepolo in ancient art !
The black points of measurement (pnutelli)
left in its surface betray a method of copy-
ing used also by modern sculptors. Simi-
lar points were used in the late time in
Greece, as appears from the copy of the
Athena Parthenos discovered in 1881, and
from a sphinx now in the Theseion Mu-
seum at Athens.
While reliefs from Trajan's structures
are in the Lateran, comprising intensely
realistic wrestlers and a procession of lie-
tors, no sculptures from the time of this
emperor are better preserved than those
on the triumphal column, 106 feet high,
surmounting the tomb where his ashes
were laid away in an urn of gold, and
erected by the senate and people in 113
A. D. Trajan's -Column is composed of
twenty-nine blocks of Parian marble, of
which eight form the hollow pedestal, be-
low which was the grave proper. Seven-
teen round blocks hollowed out so as to
form a winding stairway within, leading to
the top, make up the shaft, which is deco-
rated externally with twenty-three spirals
of relief, growing wider at the top to suit
the perspective. The column was crowned
originally with Trajan's portrait-statue in
armor, doubtless somewhat after the man-
ner of the statue of Augustus, and, according to coins, holding in one hand a
goddess of Victory, standing on a globe.I2tS3 Columns surmounted by a statue
had existed in older times, as at Melos, Delos, Olympia, as votive offerings, but
nowhere on so extensive a scale as here. On the pedestal of Trajan's Column
are represented trophies of war ; calling to mind the numerous trophy sculp-
tures of the stoa of Attalos II., at Pergamos, so well represented in the Berlin
Fig. 285. Barbarian Prisonc
Rome.
Lateran Musani.