DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14144#0555
A ICON'S IRON STATUE OF HERACLES. 519
a very large number of inscriptions on the Acropolis of Lindus, most
of which date from a period anterior to the Roman rule in Rhodes.
Many of these contain the names of artists and their works, the
extraordinary number of which gives us a high idea of the activity of
the Rhodian school. We can only mention a few of them, but a
complete list may be seen in the report of Ross,1 and in Brunn's
admirable ' Geschichte der Kiinstler.'-' Among the best known are
Aristouidas and his son Mnasitimus, of whom we have an interest-
ing notice in Pliny, in which he says that ' to express the madness of
Athamas as he sits there in penitence for having slain his son
Learchus, the artist Ari.sTONIDAS mingled bronze and iron, the rusty
colour of which represented the blush of shame upon his checks!3
Whether the object of the artist could be attained by such a process
seems very doubtful, but the attempt shows us how far the exag-
gerated love of a theatrical representation of pathetic feeling had led
the artist away from the true and eternal principles of plastic art.
The same realistic tendencies are shown by the sculptor
Alcon of Rhodes,4 mentioned also as a chaser of metal (crclator)/'
who made a statue of Heracles of iron (' laborum Dei palicntia in-
ductus') as a suitable material to express the endur ance of the in-
vincible hero. Alcon is referred to in some verses of Damoxenus,
who mentions the poet Ada;us ; the artist must therefore have been
contemporary with the Poets of the New Comedy under the first
successors of Alexander.
HERMOCLES of Rhodes, who lived after Ol. 120 (is.C. 300), made a
remarkable statue in bronze of Bombakos, which was set up in the
Temple of Here at Hieropolis. Bombakos is the hero of a romantic
story in which he displays a self-sacrificing loyalty to his sovereign
Sclcucus Nicator, which seemed to deserve the immortality of bronze.
He was represented with effeminate features, but in the dress of a
man.0
Pijiliscus of Rhodes.7 In the Portico of Octavia in Rome were
1 N. Rhcin. Mus, N.F. iv. (1846), p. 161. 5 Athena;us, xi. 461, A.
s i. 459. ' Lucian, dc ilea Syria, c. xix. 26.
* A'. //. xxxv. 146. ' Bmnn, K.-G. i. 468. Overbade (Get,
' Ibid, xxxiv. 141. For date rid. Brunn, d. Vhstih, ii. 204) places him in the next
A'.-C. i. 466. period among Greek artists in Rome.
a very large number of inscriptions on the Acropolis of Lindus, most
of which date from a period anterior to the Roman rule in Rhodes.
Many of these contain the names of artists and their works, the
extraordinary number of which gives us a high idea of the activity of
the Rhodian school. We can only mention a few of them, but a
complete list may be seen in the report of Ross,1 and in Brunn's
admirable ' Geschichte der Kiinstler.'-' Among the best known are
Aristouidas and his son Mnasitimus, of whom we have an interest-
ing notice in Pliny, in which he says that ' to express the madness of
Athamas as he sits there in penitence for having slain his son
Learchus, the artist Ari.sTONIDAS mingled bronze and iron, the rusty
colour of which represented the blush of shame upon his checks!3
Whether the object of the artist could be attained by such a process
seems very doubtful, but the attempt shows us how far the exag-
gerated love of a theatrical representation of pathetic feeling had led
the artist away from the true and eternal principles of plastic art.
The same realistic tendencies are shown by the sculptor
Alcon of Rhodes,4 mentioned also as a chaser of metal (crclator)/'
who made a statue of Heracles of iron (' laborum Dei palicntia in-
ductus') as a suitable material to express the endur ance of the in-
vincible hero. Alcon is referred to in some verses of Damoxenus,
who mentions the poet Ada;us ; the artist must therefore have been
contemporary with the Poets of the New Comedy under the first
successors of Alexander.
HERMOCLES of Rhodes, who lived after Ol. 120 (is.C. 300), made a
remarkable statue in bronze of Bombakos, which was set up in the
Temple of Here at Hieropolis. Bombakos is the hero of a romantic
story in which he displays a self-sacrificing loyalty to his sovereign
Sclcucus Nicator, which seemed to deserve the immortality of bronze.
He was represented with effeminate features, but in the dress of a
man.0
Pijiliscus of Rhodes.7 In the Portico of Octavia in Rome were
1 N. Rhcin. Mus, N.F. iv. (1846), p. 161. 5 Athena;us, xi. 461, A.
s i. 459. ' Lucian, dc ilea Syria, c. xix. 26.
* A'. //. xxxv. 146. ' Bmnn, K.-G. i. 468. Overbade (Get,
' Ibid, xxxiv. 141. For date rid. Brunn, d. Vhstih, ii. 204) places him in the next
A'.-C. i. 466. period among Greek artists in Rome.