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

i go PHEIDIAS UNDER PERICLES.

reference to this statue that Himerius 1 dilates on the versatile power of
Pheidias. ' He does not always,' says this writer, ' represent Athene
in arms, but sometimes decks the virgin Goddess by diffusing a blush
over her cheek, so that her beauty is concealed by it instead of by her
helmet.' Very little value is to be attached to the testimony of a
bombastic rhetorician, and it is contrary to all we know of Pheidias
to suppose that he would resort to an artifice to colour the bronze (as
was done in the case of Silanion's Jocasta), or that he would represent
the ' martial maid ' as a charming, blushing woman, when even his
Aphrodite was of the sterner sort. Two epigrams2 are still extant to
the same effect as the passages from Lucian and Himerius, and are
supposed by some to refer to the Lemnian Athene. The former, by
Hcrmodorus, runs thus: ' When you look, O guest-friend, at the
Cnidian Cytherea, you will say, it was she who ruled over mortals and
immortals ; but when you see Pallas, bold with her spear, among the
Cccropida:, you will exclaim, "after all, Paris was a cow-herd.'" Other
statues of Athene by Pheidias are mentioned, one of which was
dedicated in the Temple of Fdrtuna at Rome by Paulus yEmilius,
after his victory over Perseus in 168 B.C. Another is mentioned8
as having been made by Pheidias in a competition with Alcamenes,
with which a well-known and interesting story is connected. When
the two statues, which were to be placed on lofty pillars (ettl Kiovav
ii-^rrfkoiv), were ready, they were submitted to the judgment of the
Athenian public. The Demos, seeing the two on the ground, gave
a decided preference to the work of Alcamenes over that of Pheidias,
which, 'with its open lips and distended nostrils and other peculiarities
adapted to the height of the pillars,'1 made so very ugly an appear-
ance, that Pheidias ran a risk of being stoned. But when they were
placed on their lofty pedestals the nobility of Pheidias' art was
shown forth, and his name was in every mouth, while Alcamenes
became a laughing stock.'

1 Orat. 21. 4. Mt/s. p. 521.

5 Anthol. Gnvc. i. 193. Planud. iv. 170 3 Tzets, Chili 353.
and iv. 168, 24S. (I'lanud. iv. 169). Conf. * «al ra\\a ifppi aiid\oyov Si|/ous to tup

Insc. found in l'aphos. Ros=, N. Rheht. ki6iwv.