DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14144#0666
630
PASITELES AND HIS SCHOOL.
Zenodorus
renowned for the fabrication of Colossi of enormous magnitude. One
of these, ordered by the State of the Arverni in Gaul, took ten years
to make, and cost 40,000,000 sesterces, or 335,000/.' Zenodorus was
subsequently summoned to Rome by Nero to make a colossal statue
of the tyrant himself, which is said to have been 110 or 120 2 feet high,
five or fifteen feet higher than the Colossus of Rhodes. It was set up
before the Golden House of Nero,where the Temple of Venus and Roma
was subsequently built; but after Nero's death it was consecrated to
the Sun-god by Vespasian. In Hadrian's reign the architect Decrianus
removed it with great difficulty {ingenti moliiniiic) in an upright
posture by the help of twenty-four elephants.'1 The head of this
statue was taken away by Commodus, who substituted his own.'
This statue is of especial importance in the history of plastic art,
because Pliny tells us that it indicated the 'loss of the art of casting
bronze.' ' We admired,' he says,' in the artist's studio not only the ex-
cellent likeness in the clay model, but even the framework of very small
sticks which formed the first foundation of the work.' But he adds,
' this statue proved that the art of casting bronze was lost, although
Nero was prepared to bestow gold and silver'(to colour it), ' and
Zenodorus was inferior to none of the ancients in moulding and
chasing metals.'5 It is rather difficult to understand what part of the
art he refers to as lost, for bronze was not only cast on the occasion of
which he speaks, but long after his time. He refers, perhaps, to some
of the more delicate processes and the finer technique, which, like good
cooking, arc not to be learned from books, or ensured by mere
attention to weight and measure.'1 His skill in the toreutic art was
shown in facsimiles which he made of two goblets chased by the
hand of Calamis (the ca^lator, not the sculptor), which were so like
1 According to the reading of Urlichs, drian wished to have a similar statue as an
Chrest. /'/in. p. 314. Others read 400,000 offering to the moon,
sesterces, 3,450/., which seems too small a ' Heiodian. i. 15. 9.
sum. « Sueton, .Vera, 31. * I'lin. A'. //. xxxiv. 46.
* O. Midler, Arch, d. Kunst. 197, sec.
PASITELES AND HIS SCHOOL.
Zenodorus
renowned for the fabrication of Colossi of enormous magnitude. One
of these, ordered by the State of the Arverni in Gaul, took ten years
to make, and cost 40,000,000 sesterces, or 335,000/.' Zenodorus was
subsequently summoned to Rome by Nero to make a colossal statue
of the tyrant himself, which is said to have been 110 or 120 2 feet high,
five or fifteen feet higher than the Colossus of Rhodes. It was set up
before the Golden House of Nero,where the Temple of Venus and Roma
was subsequently built; but after Nero's death it was consecrated to
the Sun-god by Vespasian. In Hadrian's reign the architect Decrianus
removed it with great difficulty {ingenti moliiniiic) in an upright
posture by the help of twenty-four elephants.'1 The head of this
statue was taken away by Commodus, who substituted his own.'
This statue is of especial importance in the history of plastic art,
because Pliny tells us that it indicated the 'loss of the art of casting
bronze.' ' We admired,' he says,' in the artist's studio not only the ex-
cellent likeness in the clay model, but even the framework of very small
sticks which formed the first foundation of the work.' But he adds,
' this statue proved that the art of casting bronze was lost, although
Nero was prepared to bestow gold and silver'(to colour it), ' and
Zenodorus was inferior to none of the ancients in moulding and
chasing metals.'5 It is rather difficult to understand what part of the
art he refers to as lost, for bronze was not only cast on the occasion of
which he speaks, but long after his time. He refers, perhaps, to some
of the more delicate processes and the finer technique, which, like good
cooking, arc not to be learned from books, or ensured by mere
attention to weight and measure.'1 His skill in the toreutic art was
shown in facsimiles which he made of two goblets chased by the
hand of Calamis (the ca^lator, not the sculptor), which were so like
1 According to the reading of Urlichs, drian wished to have a similar statue as an
Chrest. /'/in. p. 314. Others read 400,000 offering to the moon,
sesterces, 3,450/., which seems too small a ' Heiodian. i. 15. 9.
sum. « Sueton, .Vera, 31. * I'lin. A'. //. xxxiv. 46.
* O. Midler, Arch, d. Kunst. 197, sec.