DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14144#0451
STATUES OF NIOBIDS AT FLORENCE.
415
settled ; but we are inclined to trace in the motif and treatment
of this beautiful work the pathetic and excitable temperament of
Scopas. It is indeed attributed to Praxiteles in two epigrams,' but
they are light in the balance against the doubts of Pliny. It stood, he
says, in the Temple of Apollo,2 which was erected, about 716 A.U.C.
(B.C. 38), by Caius Sosius, who was Antony's legate in Syria and
Cilicia. Hence it has been plausibly conjectured that Sosius brought
it from Seleucia on the Calycadnus in Cilicia, and displayed it at his
triumph for his victory over Judaea in 35 B.C.
A large number of statues, which evidently represented the same
scene, were discovered in 1583 in a vigna near the Lateran at Rome,
and after passing through various hands were acquired by Leopold
Grand Duke of Tuscany in 1775, and have ever since been one of
the chief glories of the Uffizi Palace at Florence.
The scene is one which irresistibly carries our thoughts to what
has preceded and must follow it. It represents not so much an action
as a state of feeling. A moment before all was peace, prosperity,
and joy ; a moment after, and there will be peace again, but it will
be the eternal peace of death. The noiseless arrows of the unseen
deities are already flying from either side, and two of the children, a
son and a daughter, lie prostrate on the ground in the agonies of
death. Others, fatally wounded, are tottering to their fall ; and the
rest arc fleeing from the terror, like a frightened herd of deer. Yet
fear is not the only emotion manifested. There arc touching in-
cidents of self-forgctfulness in the desire to help and save: a brother
supporting the drooping form of a sister (177, c); the attendant slave
tyxedagOgUS) (177, g) busying himself less about his own safety than
that of his tender charge. Above them all towers the grand figure
similar iloiibl prevailed concerning a figure
of Janus Pater (i.e. Hermes Dikephalos) at
Koine, and another of Cupid holding a
thunderbolt ' Item (par ha'sitatio) Jam/.'
Pater in sun lemplo dicatus lb Augusto ex
'l'-gypto advectus utrius nianus sit. Simi-
liter in curia Octavia; quajrilur de Cuf iJhu
fulmm Utunte< id detnnm affirmatur Alcibia-
dem esse principcin in ea .elate ' (1'lin. N. II.
*xxvi. 2S).
1 Anthol. Gr. iv. 1S1. 29S (I'lanud. iv.
129):—
Ik im^ fit 6t<>\ Mwf«Jf klOor, Ik 5e At'foio
Conf. Auson. Efit. 28:—
Vivebam sum facta silex. qu.-e deince polita
Praxitvlis nianibus vivo iterum Niob.;.
1 Outside the I'orta Carmentalis, at the
foot of the Capit.iline Hill. Vide Urlichs,
415
settled ; but we are inclined to trace in the motif and treatment
of this beautiful work the pathetic and excitable temperament of
Scopas. It is indeed attributed to Praxiteles in two epigrams,' but
they are light in the balance against the doubts of Pliny. It stood, he
says, in the Temple of Apollo,2 which was erected, about 716 A.U.C.
(B.C. 38), by Caius Sosius, who was Antony's legate in Syria and
Cilicia. Hence it has been plausibly conjectured that Sosius brought
it from Seleucia on the Calycadnus in Cilicia, and displayed it at his
triumph for his victory over Judaea in 35 B.C.
A large number of statues, which evidently represented the same
scene, were discovered in 1583 in a vigna near the Lateran at Rome,
and after passing through various hands were acquired by Leopold
Grand Duke of Tuscany in 1775, and have ever since been one of
the chief glories of the Uffizi Palace at Florence.
The scene is one which irresistibly carries our thoughts to what
has preceded and must follow it. It represents not so much an action
as a state of feeling. A moment before all was peace, prosperity,
and joy ; a moment after, and there will be peace again, but it will
be the eternal peace of death. The noiseless arrows of the unseen
deities are already flying from either side, and two of the children, a
son and a daughter, lie prostrate on the ground in the agonies of
death. Others, fatally wounded, are tottering to their fall ; and the
rest arc fleeing from the terror, like a frightened herd of deer. Yet
fear is not the only emotion manifested. There arc touching in-
cidents of self-forgctfulness in the desire to help and save: a brother
supporting the drooping form of a sister (177, c); the attendant slave
tyxedagOgUS) (177, g) busying himself less about his own safety than
that of his tender charge. Above them all towers the grand figure
similar iloiibl prevailed concerning a figure
of Janus Pater (i.e. Hermes Dikephalos) at
Koine, and another of Cupid holding a
thunderbolt ' Item (par ha'sitatio) Jam/.'
Pater in sun lemplo dicatus lb Augusto ex
'l'-gypto advectus utrius nianus sit. Simi-
liter in curia Octavia; quajrilur de Cuf iJhu
fulmm Utunte< id detnnm affirmatur Alcibia-
dem esse principcin in ea .elate ' (1'lin. N. II.
*xxvi. 2S).
1 Anthol. Gr. iv. 1S1. 29S (I'lanud. iv.
129):—
Ik im^ fit 6t<>\ Mwf«Jf klOor, Ik 5e At'foio
Conf. Auson. Efit. 28:—
Vivebam sum facta silex. qu.-e deince polita
Praxitvlis nianibus vivo iterum Niob.;.
1 Outside the I'orta Carmentalis, at the
foot of the Capit.iline Hill. Vide Urlichs,