Smith, William: A smaller dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities (London, 1871)

STATUARIA ARS. 352

Lysippus of Sicyon carried out the principles
of the Argive school of Polycletus. Their
principal object was to represent the highest
possible degree of physical beauty and of ath-
letic and heroic power. The chief character-
istic of Lysippus and his school is a close
imitation of nature, which even contrived to
represent bodily defects in some interesting
manner, as in his statues of Alexander.

IV. Fourth Period, from 336 to 146 b. c.—
During the first fifty years of this period
the schools of Praxiteles and Lysippus con-
tinued to flourish, especially in works of
bronze ; but after this time bronze statues
were seldom made, until the art was carried
on with new vigour at Athens about the
end of the period. The school of Lysippus
gave rise to that of llhodes, where his dis-
ciple Chares formed the most celebrated
among the hundred colossal statues of the
6un. It was seventy cubits high, and partly
of metal. It stood near the harbour, and was
thrown down by an earthquake about 225
b.c. Antiquarians assign to this part of the
fourth period several very beautiful works
still extant, as the magnificent group of Lao-
coon and his sons, which was discovered in
1506 near the baths of Titus, and is at present
at Home. This is, next to the Niobe, the most
beautiful group among the extant works of
ancient art; it was according to Pliny the
work of three Rhodian artists : Agesander,
Polydorus, and Athenodorus. The celebrated
Farncsian bull is likewise the work of two
Khodian artists, Apollonius and Tauriscus.
In the various kingdoms which arose out of
the conquests of Alexander the arts were
more or less cultivated. Not only were the
great master-works of former times copied to
adorn the new capitals, but new schools of
artists sprang up in several of them. At
Pergamus the celebrated groups were com-
posed which represented the victories of Atta-
lus and Eumenes over the Gauls. It is
believed by some that the so-called dying
gladiator at Rome is a statue of a Gaul, which
originally belonged to one of these groups.
The Borghese gladiator in the Louvre is sup-
posed to be the work of an Lphesian Agasias,
and to have originally formed apart of such a
battle-scene. About the close of this period,
and for more than a century afterwards, the
Romans, in the conquest of the countries
where the arts had flourished, made it a
regular practice to carry away the works of
art. The triumphs over Philip, Antiochus,
the Aetolians, the Gauls in Asia, Perseus,
Pseudo-Philip, and above all the taking of
Corinth, and subsequently the victories over
Mithridates and Cleopatra, filled the Roman
temples and porticoes with the greatest

STATUARIA ARS.

variety of works of art. The sacrilegious
plunder of temples and the carrying away of
the sacred statues from the public sanctuaries
became afterwards a common practice. The
manner in which Verres acted in Sicily is but
one of many instances of the extent to which
these robberies were carried on. The em-
perors, especially Augustus, Caligula, and
Nero, followed these examples, and the im-
mense number of statues which, notwith-
standing all this, remained at Rhodes, Delphi,
Athens, and Olympia, is truly astonishing.'—
We can only briefly advert to the history of
statuary among the Etruscans and Romans
down to the year 146 b.c. The Etruscans
were on the whole an industrious and enter-
prising people. With the works of Grecian
art they must have become acquainted at an
early time through their intercourse with the
Greeks of southern Italy, whose influence
upon the art of the Etruscans is evident in
numerous cases. The whole range of the
fine arts was cultivated by the Etruscans at
an early period. Statuary in clay (which
here supplied the place of wood, foava, used
in Greece) and in bronze appears to have
acquired a high degree of perfection. In 267
b. c. no fewer than 2000 bronze statues are
said to have existed at Volsinii, and numerous
works of Etruscan art are still extant, which
show great vigour and life, though they do
not possess a very high degree of beauty.
Some of their statues are worked in a Greek
style ; others are of a character peculiar to
themselves, and entirely different from works
of Grecian art, being stiff and ugly : others
again are exaggerated and forced in their
movements and attitudes, and resemble the
figures which we meet with in the repre-
sentations of Asiatic nations. The Romans
previously to the time of the first Tarquin
are said to have had no images of the gods ;
and for a long time afterwards their statues
of gods in clay or wood were made by Etrus-
can artists. During the early part of the
republic the works executed at Rome were
altogether of a useful and practical, and not
of an ornamental character ; and statuary was
in consequence little cultivated. But in the
course of time the senate and the people, as
well as foreign states which desired to show
their gratitude to some Roman, began to
erect bronze statues to distinguished persons
in the Forum and other places.

V. Fifth Period, from b. c. 146 to the fall
of the Western Empire.—During this period
Rome was the capital of nearly the whole of
the ancient world, not through its intellectual
superiority, but by its military and political
power. But it nevertheless became the centre
of art and literature, as the artists resorted