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Perry, Walter Copland
Greek and Roman sculpture: a popular introduction to the history of Greek and Roman sculpture — London, 1882

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https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14144#0099

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THE RELIEFS OF ASSOS.

63

female figures gesticulating with their arms, supposed to be Nereids
terrified by Heracles' attack on the fish-tailed demon. Some of the
scenes, and especially the contest of the beasts, remind us strongly of
Assyrian reliefs, and the scenes depicted on the earliest Greek vases,1
the decorations of w hich are decidedly oriental in character. There
is some difficulty in assigning a date to these reliefs, as we have only
internal evidence to guide us. The style is in the highest degree archaic,
and if Heracles is really pourtrayed on one of the slabs (fig. 19), the
fact that he is without his lion's skin, which became his constant
attribute at the end of the 7th century B.C., would afford very strong
evidence of the high antiquity of the work.'- On the other hand, we

Fig. 19.

heracles, TRITON and NEREIDS.

must observe that the Centaurs have four horse's legs, whereas in the
earliest types of these monsters, the forelegs were human.3 Heracles
has a quiver on his back, and the Triton holds something in his left
hand, perhaps a horn.

It is difficult to trace any connexion between the different scenes ;
a fact which is also characteristic of the childishness of primitive art, and
strengthens our conviction of the high antiquity of the work before us.
The principle of isocephalism referred to above is strictly preserved
in the mythical scenes at the expense of extraordinary violations of the
natural and relative proportions/ The small female figures, or Nereids,

1 Gerhard, Auserlcsene Vascnbildcr, Taf. ■ Friederichs, Bausteine, p. 9. Gerhard,

cxi. cxv. Bronsted, '32 Vasen,' Ann. d. Auserlcsene Vascnbildcr, ii. Taf. iii. p. 95.

Jnsl. vol. xiii. Jahrg. 1S41. Conf. Prokesch, ■ Vide supra, p. 102.

Wiener Jahrbiicher, 1832, ii. p. 59 dcr ' Conf. Michaelis, Annali d. hist. tav.

Anzeigcn, for an account of another fragment d'Agg. B.
of this relief.
 
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