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

THE APHRODITE OF ALCAMENES.

CHAPTER XIX.
CONTEMPORARIES AND PUPILS OF PHEIDIAS.

Alcamenes,

Ol. 83-94 (448-404 B.C.).1

IT is in one respect a misfortune to a great man to be the con-
temporary of an infinitely greater, for in the full blaze of day the
brightest stars are lost to sight. Yet even the genius of Pheidias
could not have produced its lasting effect on the art of Greece and
the world, had he not been surrounded and seconded by other artists
of no ordinary merit. Among the pupils of Pheidias Pausanias
assigns the first place to Alcamenes,2 who, though born in Lemnos,
was an Attic citizen by his descent from the Attic Kleruchi in that
island. He is therefore sometimes called an Athenian 3 and some-
times a Lemnian.4 Pliny, too, speaks of him as being distinguished
among the first artists of the period ; and both writers6 refer with high
praise to a statue by Alcamenes of Aplirodite iv xij-n-ois6 (in the
gardens), outside the walls of Athens, to which Pheidias himself is
said to have given the last touch. Lucian 7 also refers to it as the
' finest of this artist's works,' and notices especially ' the beauty of the
cheeks, the hands, the finely tapered fingers, and the delicate rhythm

1 lirunn says, ' lieginning of career, 01.
84.'

'' I'ausan. v. 108.
» Plin. A'. //. xxxvi. 16.
4 Suidas s. v. Alcamenes. O. Muller,
Areh. ti. Kunst, Sec. 112.
1 i. 19. 2.

1 Some writers think that we have a copy
of the Aphrodite of Alcamenes in a tine

statue in the Torlonia Museum in the
Lungara at Rome.

: Imag. 6: to u>(,\a St Kal Saa t^s
u^fws avrwica, Trap' * h\Kafxivovs Kal to
TH2 EN KHnOI2 kriiptaBat Kal irpoireVi
X*tpwv &Kpa Kal Kapfrwv rb ({/puOfiov
icai ionnlAuic rb tiiayuyov 4s harTov
awoAijyoi' iropa t^s b ktjjtois Kal ravra.