DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5253#0730
692
SCULPTURE UNDER ROMAN DOMINION.
to Mars, and Aphrodite to Rhea, who sometimes has the portrait-features of the
deceased. Many are the scenes from Bacchic myth. The god is cared for in
his childhood, he finds the sleeping Ariadne, or celebrates his Indian triumph,
riding on a chariot drawn by elephants, preceded and followed by merry satyrs
and maenads. Sometimes Selene finds the sleeping Endymion, or leaves him.
Again, Core is carried off by Pluton. So the tragic story of Meleager or of
Phaethon are frequently repeated, or we see Apollo and the Muses, while Mar-
syas is hung to the tree to be flayed. The fate of Niobe's family is frequently
represented, as well as the stories of Alkestis and Hippolyte, Medea and Andro-
meda ; scenes, no doubt, referring to the fleeting nature of life, and sometimes
to re-union after death. Theban and Trojan myth also appear; from the latter,
the Judgment of Paris, and Odysseus with the Sirens and the Kyclops, being
very frequent. Favorite subjects are the labors of Heracles ; and, for children's
r;^
£
Mi
Fig. 293. Relief on Sarcophagus. From the Villa Pamfili. Capitol, Rome.
sarcophagi, the merry play of winged Loves, who appear as workmen, as athletes,
as gathering the grape and the olive, or, in the guise of gods, as wearing the
attributes of Dionysos, Ares, Heracles, etc. Sometimes the story of Eros and
Psyche is pictured in full detail, and very often cupids or nereids hold the
medallion with the portrait of the deceased. For the artistic representation of
these varied scenes, the sculptors seem to have followed traditional types, —
sometimes those taken from old pictures, sometimes ideals furnished by cele-
brated statues and reliefs. They copied parts of friezes, pediments, and the
like, grouping them to suit the occasion, and frequently repeated the same sub-
ject with slight variations. Thus, one of the most perfectly executed existing
sarcophagi, that now in Vienna, and originally from Ephesos, represents an
Amazon struggle, which is almost an exact copy of several figures on the frieze
of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassos. The influence of the frieze of Pergamon
is traceable also in many sarcophagi, the Heracles strangling a lion, and the
forms of the giants being taken.
But the great importance of this world of minor art is, that it is the mirror
for us of greater creations gone before, so that, through it, much of the past of
sculpture, otherwise lost, may be traced. This appears in a most feebly exe-
SCULPTURE UNDER ROMAN DOMINION.
to Mars, and Aphrodite to Rhea, who sometimes has the portrait-features of the
deceased. Many are the scenes from Bacchic myth. The god is cared for in
his childhood, he finds the sleeping Ariadne, or celebrates his Indian triumph,
riding on a chariot drawn by elephants, preceded and followed by merry satyrs
and maenads. Sometimes Selene finds the sleeping Endymion, or leaves him.
Again, Core is carried off by Pluton. So the tragic story of Meleager or of
Phaethon are frequently repeated, or we see Apollo and the Muses, while Mar-
syas is hung to the tree to be flayed. The fate of Niobe's family is frequently
represented, as well as the stories of Alkestis and Hippolyte, Medea and Andro-
meda ; scenes, no doubt, referring to the fleeting nature of life, and sometimes
to re-union after death. Theban and Trojan myth also appear; from the latter,
the Judgment of Paris, and Odysseus with the Sirens and the Kyclops, being
very frequent. Favorite subjects are the labors of Heracles ; and, for children's
r;^
£
Mi
Fig. 293. Relief on Sarcophagus. From the Villa Pamfili. Capitol, Rome.
sarcophagi, the merry play of winged Loves, who appear as workmen, as athletes,
as gathering the grape and the olive, or, in the guise of gods, as wearing the
attributes of Dionysos, Ares, Heracles, etc. Sometimes the story of Eros and
Psyche is pictured in full detail, and very often cupids or nereids hold the
medallion with the portrait of the deceased. For the artistic representation of
these varied scenes, the sculptors seem to have followed traditional types, —
sometimes those taken from old pictures, sometimes ideals furnished by cele-
brated statues and reliefs. They copied parts of friezes, pediments, and the
like, grouping them to suit the occasion, and frequently repeated the same sub-
ject with slight variations. Thus, one of the most perfectly executed existing
sarcophagi, that now in Vienna, and originally from Ephesos, represents an
Amazon struggle, which is almost an exact copy of several figures on the frieze
of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassos. The influence of the frieze of Pergamon
is traceable also in many sarcophagi, the Heracles strangling a lion, and the
forms of the giants being taken.
But the great importance of this world of minor art is, that it is the mirror
for us of greater creations gone before, so that, through it, much of the past of
sculpture, otherwise lost, may be traced. This appears in a most feebly exe-