Smith, Arthur H. [Editor]; British Museum <London> / Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities [Editor]: Catalogue of sculpture in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities (Band 3) (London, 1904)

APOTHEOSIS OF HOMER.

253

The face of Chronos bears some resemblance to that
of Ptolemy EL Philadelphus (284-247 B.C.), and it is not
impossible that we have a king and a queen of the
Hellenistic period represented here as allegorical
personages.—From Bovillae. Purchased 1819.

Parian marble. Height, 3 feet lOJ inches; width, 2 feet 7J inches.
Restorations : Zeus—knees ; Mnemosyne—part of breast and
face ; Calliope. (?)—left arm, part of draper}-, hair, and neck ;
Euterpe,—head; Erato—head, fingers of right hand; Melpo-
mene (?)-—-head ; Clio—face ; poet—head, part of right hand,
left foot; Thalia (?)—head; Apollo—head, part of right hand;
Polyhymnia—part of drapery ; Urania—head, right hand and
part of globe ; Terpsichore—head ; lowest tier, group on right,
foremost figure (Sophia?)—head, part of drapery and left hand;
second figure from front (Pistis?)—left hand with scroll;
Comedy—part of drapery ; Poesy—parts of hair and drapery ;
Mythos—phialfe and left hand; Homer—right wrist, and right
foot; also the top corners and a part of the base of the relief.
The restored portion of the frog, at the right end of the scroll
(see fig. 30), has been removed from the marble. The above
restorations were finished before 1658, the date of Galestruzzi's
drawing (see below).
The relief was discovered about the middle of the 17th century,
together with ancient foundations, and numerous sculptures,
at the Osteria delle Frattochie, which is on the Appian Way,
about eleven miles from Rome, and near the ancient Bovillae.
(Canina, Annali del? Inst., 1853, p. 176 ; Mon. dell' Inst., V.,
pi. 60; cf. Kircher, Latium (1671), p. 81, " Paucis praeter-
lapsis annis," and Severolo, ibid., " ante bina circiter lustra.") It
was found on property of the Colonna family, and was preserved
in the Colonna Palace at Rome till 1805, when it was brought to
London. First published by Kircher (Joe. cit.~) with pi. facing
p. 82 by Galestruzzi, dated 1658. See also Bellori, Admiranda
Horn. Vestigia (2nd ed., 1693), pi. 81, and in Fea, Miscellanea, I.,
p. 265; Cuper, Apotheosis Homeri (Amsterdam, 1683), reprinted
in Polenus, Suppl., II., p. 1; Gronovius, Tliesaurus, II., p. 21;
Montfaucou, L' Ant. Expliquee, V., pt. i., p. 165; pi. 130;
Addison, L'emarhs on Italy (ed. 1705), p. 343 ; Schott, Explica-
tion nouvelle de VApothe'ose d'Homere, etc. (Amsterdam, 1714),
repeated in Polenus, Suppl., II., p. 298 ; Winckelmann, Hist, de
VArt, Bk. VI., chap. 2; Visconti, Mus. Pio-Clem., I., pi. B;
Millin, Gal. Myth., pi. 148; Goethe, " Ferneres uber Kunst,"