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Murray, A. S.; British Museum <London> [Editor]
Greek and Etruscan terracotta sarcophagi in the British Museum — London, 1898

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https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18720#0008
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apirayr), as Herodotus says expressly, in which the Cimmerians appear suddenly on
horseback, sitting well back on their horses, striking down their enemies with huge
swords, and sweeping-across the field from one end to the other. It may be thought
that in costume and horsemanship these barbarians do not differ in a sufficiently
marked degree from the Persians on the frieze of the Nike temple at Athens to
warrant our identification of them as absolutely Cimmerians. But the differences,
such as the use of a huge sword to strike down with, the characteristically Scythian
head-gear, the accompaniment of dogs of war, and the wild rush of the movement,
show that we have here to do with a barbarous people and not with Persians.

A few years ago the sarcophagi of Clazomenas had suggested to the present
writer a possible explanation of the statement of Pliny that the Magnesian
picture of Bularchos had been purchased for its weight in gold by Candaules,
the King of Lydia. It seemed that a picture painted on a slab of terra-
cotta in the manner of the sarcophagi would under the circumstances have
realised a price worthy of a Lydian king.1 Since then M. Salomon Reinach2
has taken a bolder step with the view of directly connecting the picture
of Bularchos with particular scenes on the sarcophagi. Observing that there
were to be seen on the sarcophagi occasionally warriors accompanied by dogs,
he produced certain passages of ancient writers which showed that the Magnesians
had in fact employed dogs of war.3 It was a reasonable inference that the warriors
accompanied by dogs on the sarcophagi were Magnesians. But his argument
would have been more conclusive if he could have shown that the Magnesians, alone
in Asia Minor, had used dogs for this service. Pliny* ascribes the same practice
to the Colophonians, associating them in this respect with the Castabalenses of
Cappadocia. We know that the Celtic peoples made liberal use of dogs in war,6 and
the evidence of our new sarcophagus would go to show that this usage had been
more or less general in Asia Minor. Add to this the statement of Polysenus6 that
Alyattes had employed powerful dogs in his final defeat of the Cimmerians. Nor
is this surprising when we see the great Asiatic goddess Cybele employing a yoke
of lions to tear down her enemies, as in the frieze of Knidos (?) at Delphi. In
the reliefs on our large terra-cotta sarcophagus from Caere one of the warriors is
assisted by a lion (PI. IX.). We are told that in the name Candaules, the first
syllable is equal to cams, dog, and in a fragment of Hipponax Kwdyxa, an epithet
of Hermes, is explained as equivalent to KavSavXa in the Maeonian tongue.'

The object of M. Reinach was to prove that the picture of Bularchos had
represented a battle, prcslium (as Pliny says in one passage), and not a destruc-
tion, exitium (as he says in another). But whatever the truth of the matter

1 Handbook of Greek Archaeology, p. 358. It
is there suggested that the origin of painting on
terra-cotta panels was to be traced to Asia Minor,
and that the practice had thence passed to Corinth
and Etruria.

2 Etudes Grecques, 1895, p. 161. fol.

3 Aelian, deNat. Animal, vii. 38, and Hist. Var.
xiv. 46; Pollux, v. 5, 47.

4 viii. 143. It is true that this passage of Pliny

corresponds, as far as it goes, to that of Aelian
(Hist. Var. xiv. 46), quoted by M. Reinach, and it
is possible, no doubt, that Aelian may be the better
source of the two. This passage of Pliny was
pointed out to me by Mr. Hill, of the Coin Depart-
ment in the British Museum.

5 Strabo, iv. p. 200.

6 Strat. vii. 2, 1.

' Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Gr.* ii., p. 460.
 
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