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

DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14144#0478

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PRAXITELES.

work, we arc told that Nicomedes, King of Bithynia, offered to buy it
of the Cnidians by paying their whole national debt, which was very
large; but the Cnidians preferred 'to suffer anything' rather than
give up their treasure ; ' and with good reason', adds Pliny,1 ' for by
that statue Praxiteles made Cnidos famous.'

In this great work the art of the period and of Praxiteles, its fore-
most representative, appears to have culminated. It expresses, in a
degree which no other statue can be said to do, the spirit of the New
Attic School, and it could not have been created cither in the pre-
ceding or following period of Hellenic art.

Praxiteles has been called par excellence the sculptor of women,
and it required the great social changes produced by the Pelopon-
ncsian War to make him so. One of the most important of these
changes was in the position and character of the Athenian women.
The picture presented to us by the poets of the married state in the
heroic age includes some of the noblest female forms which we can
conceive in the heathen world, occupying a position of dignity and
honour. The aristocratic bearing of many female statues proves the
reality of this high position of women at an early period, and these
have their parallels in the Calypsos and Circes of poetry. A great
change for the worse, therefore, and one for which it is difficult to
account, must have taken place between the heroic and historic ages.
Solon had to forbid his countrymen to sell their daughters or sisters
into slavery ; and at a later period, when art was making its greatest
efforts, the women of Athens lived in a state of complete subordination,
and in almost Oriental seclusion. ' The best woman,' says Thucydides,
' is she of whom least is said ;' and ' The greatest ornament to a woman
is,' in the words of Sophocles, ' silence.' Xenophon represents Socrates
asking Nicomachus about his domestic affairs, and wc learn that his
wife was fifteen years old when she married. Her husband explains
her duties to her, which are, ' to keep indoors ; to send the outdoor
labourers to their work ; to superintend the indoor servants ; to dis-
tribute what is brought into the house ; to look after the corn and
wool.' Demosthenes (' pro Ncara') says: ' By our wives wc become

xxxvi. 21. 'What would Mr. Gladstone say to a similar offer?
 
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