DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4264#0083
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is chapter «b;v„l0<:
best of Wj%*j
lt Athe^' nj^^
the above,"11 ,
Or THE THEATRE OF. BACCHUS. 8;3
Bacchus iu Athens, and brought from thence to the house of Signor Nicolo Logotheti, our consul
at that place, where we lodged during the greatest part of our stay at Athens: at the extremities are
a lyre a and a vase, (Fig. 12 and 13,) copied from marble fragments, nearly three feet square, inserted
in a wall near the theatre.
The tail piece (see Plate XVII. Fig. 14.) represents Minerva in the action of casting away her
flutes; the satyr Marsyas appears to observe the transaction. This story is told by Apollodorus, lib. 1.
c. 4 ; but more particularly by Hyginus, fib. 165, nearly as follows :
Minerva, they say, invented flutes, and having performed on them at a banquet of the Gods,
was ridiculed by Juno and Venus for the puffed cheeks and unsightly countenance that accompa-
nied her performance. The Goddess, suspecting they might have cause for their mirth, retired to
a fountain in the wood on mount Ida, and, while she played on her flutes, viewed her image in
the water, and there saw she had actually deserved their mockery. On this she angrily cast her
flutes away, imprecating severe vengeance on whoever should find them. Marsyas unluckily
picked them up, and applying himself to practise on them, was so much delighted with then-
sound, and so vain of his own performance on them, that he dared challenge Apollo himself to a
sul. The marble in question was obtained by Lord Elgin, and
is now at the British Museum. It is five feet eight inches
and a half in length, and two feet seven inches in height.
From the mode in which the returned ends of the block are
wrought, it is evident that it constituted a portion of an early-
Athenian edifice, and by the symmetry of the composition we may
presume that it was originally a central architectural decoration.
It is probable that it belonged to some part of the old Temple
of Bacchus, in Limnis, which was certainly situated to the
south of the Acropolis, not far from the place where it was
found. The character of the execution of this piece of sculpture,
is in the early Attic style, somewhat less hard and dry than the
works of the iEginetan school. The surface of the marble is so
corroded, that some of the details are nearly obliterated, and
Stuart has in consequence taken freedoms with the mode of re-
presenting the costume of the heads of the principal figures,
which the marble does- not justify. On careful inspection,
we discovered the place of an inscription in three or four
lines, over the heads of the figures, which has been most
sedulously obliterated with a tool, probably in some inferior
age, when the marble was rudely converted into the hollow
trough of a fountain. Visconti says, the subject of the relief
is Bacchus, to whom Methe (Me8d), the Goddess of Ebriety,
is pouring out wine, which she appears to have taken from
a cratera on the ground behind her, while two Sileni or bearded
Fauns commence a dance with correspondent movements on
the opposite extremities of the marble, and each of the figures is
holding a thyrsus. From Pausanias we learn, that Methe was
represented at a Temple of Silenus at Elis, offering wine from a
goblet to that preceptor of Bacchus, Ms'8» S\ ohos h Ixwapcni airy
ilSutri, and he also speaks of a very remarkable picture by Pau-
sias at Epidaurus, representing Methe drinking from a crystal
or glass cup, fV| iaAi'i'jj,-1 cp.aA^c vrlvovcra) in which he thought
worthy of remark the female countenance seen through the trans-
parent vessel. Bacchus, in this relief, is bearded, and he is
clothed in a tunic surmounted by a peplus ; he was, according to
Pausanias, represented also clothed and bearded in a temple at
iEo-ina, and a celebrated ancient statue of the bearded Bacchus,
bearino- on the mantle the spurious inscription Cap&MonraVioc,
has a similar character of head and dress, to the Bacchus of this
marble.
1 This is "enerallv translated ' glass cup', ' vitrea phiala'. Pausias lived 350
B. c. and it may be doubted whether so perfect a specimen of artificial crystal
were manufactured so early as that age. [ed.]
2 The chief point in the incidental allusion of Visconti to the first introduction
of the arch is a passage from Plutarch, who mentions that Cleomenes, at the
sieo-e of Argos, having cut through the aqueducts, ascended into the city, (s«*a^«s
Ss re; Inri rv 'Ao-tr.'Sa ■fyxi.Sius, bKn, x.a.\ avn^fy rsTs him,) an event which
must have tahen place about 225 u. c , and consequently about a century after
the death of Alexander. The authority of Plutarch however, so much posterior
to that period, as well as to the profuse adoption of arches, and arched aqueducts,
The reported discovery of this relief at the Theatre of Herodes,
called by Stuart as above the Theatre of Bacchus, led Visconti
to support that erroneous designation, and induced him to bring
forward remarks on the early history of the arch, tending to prove
the probability of the introduction of that principle of construc-
tion in Grecian architecture, at the age of Alexander the Great *
a period sufficiently early to have accounted for its marked ap-
pearance at an edifice, to which he had incorrectly ascribed a
contemporaneous existence. Mem. of Lord Elgin's Pursuits in
Greece, p. 20. Visconti, Mem. sur des Sculp. d'Athenes, p. 96.
and Mus. Clem. V. II. PI. XLI. Paus. L. VI. C. XXIV. and
L. II. C. XXVII. [ed.]
This representation of a lyre, or cithara, is drawn by Stuart
with the usual number of seven strings. The antique lyre in the
British Museum, discovered in the presence of the Earl of Elgin,
in a tomb at Athens, apparently had a greater number. The horns
of this instrument, formed of wood, were about eight inches apart,
and are fifteen inches long ; and fragments of the testudo or tor-
toise-shell, like corroded bone, are preserved with them. The de-
sideratum, as to the mode of tuning the lyre, is not here yet
ascertained, on account of the decay of the wood of which a great
part of this unique antiquity consists; although a roller five inches
wide, and one inch eight tenths in diameter, on which the strings
were probably wound, formed a constituent part of it. The tone
of this instrument possibly did not surpass that of the modern
Italian mandoline. Two small tibiie or flutes accompanied this
lyre, the larger, one foot two inches long, and the smaller, a foot
long. These are said to be made from the species of cedar (VJ^os)
called juniperus oxycedrus, and each is six tenths of an inch in
diameter, and has five holes above and one beneath. They were
played on through a detached mouth-piece at the ends, one of
which only remains. The sound produced by these resembled
that of the smallest fife. When refined music was a novelty, and
controlled by the taste of a people so innately perfect as that of
the ancient Athenians, even by the humblest of comparative
means, they would elicit the most impressive effects; the his-
toric records of which, are, from analogy verified by works of art,
fortunately preserved through a medium not so evanescent as
sound. [kd.]
is by no means conclusive on a technical subject, particularly when dependent on
the adoption of what to him may have then been a general or indefinite term. Plut.
in Cleom. § 21. Since writing the above, we find, on referring to Lord Aber-
deen's elegant and learned Essay on Grecian Architecture, that the aqueducts by
which Cleomenes entered Argos, termed by Plutarch ■^•aXi'Saj, were perforations
of the Phorona:an Hill, near Argos, called Aspis, from its resemblance to a shield;
and that the remains of these excavations are still visible: a fact which confirms
the futility of any appeal on this subject to'the passage in question. See " Inquiry
into the Principles of G recian Architecture, by George, Earl of Aberdeen, K. T."
p. 206. [ed.]
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truv
ius has
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Ven ^h thess
2utsta^tiler;;
; we could (
sed> which i
;corated^coS
llshedbySerli„aBl|
=ticeoftheageheEi;
iave given to iU^
'conveytousM!:
3ms to have beenag
e spectators could*
allow it to have repie
I an insufferable abac
era, or Electa iss«, -
1st of a magnificencei
these occasions, n*
e, they would have!
heterogeneous objecti:
during the time of.
vhich, having relatfc
to the requisite ides
ntation, which the in
e destroyed,
t sorts of scenes, t
ie subject of the*
eat improver of k»
, a painted scene, fc
eCtive was afterward
0 representsa^
the ruins of the*
hi,, many'
tertiumsatyncu»- .
..lib-V-cap-a. ^
Vnaxago»s de
258. . . 0Ugbtfc^'.
is chapter «b;v„l0<:
best of Wj%*j
lt Athe^' nj^^
the above,"11 ,
Or THE THEATRE OF. BACCHUS. 8;3
Bacchus iu Athens, and brought from thence to the house of Signor Nicolo Logotheti, our consul
at that place, where we lodged during the greatest part of our stay at Athens: at the extremities are
a lyre a and a vase, (Fig. 12 and 13,) copied from marble fragments, nearly three feet square, inserted
in a wall near the theatre.
The tail piece (see Plate XVII. Fig. 14.) represents Minerva in the action of casting away her
flutes; the satyr Marsyas appears to observe the transaction. This story is told by Apollodorus, lib. 1.
c. 4 ; but more particularly by Hyginus, fib. 165, nearly as follows :
Minerva, they say, invented flutes, and having performed on them at a banquet of the Gods,
was ridiculed by Juno and Venus for the puffed cheeks and unsightly countenance that accompa-
nied her performance. The Goddess, suspecting they might have cause for their mirth, retired to
a fountain in the wood on mount Ida, and, while she played on her flutes, viewed her image in
the water, and there saw she had actually deserved their mockery. On this she angrily cast her
flutes away, imprecating severe vengeance on whoever should find them. Marsyas unluckily
picked them up, and applying himself to practise on them, was so much delighted with then-
sound, and so vain of his own performance on them, that he dared challenge Apollo himself to a
sul. The marble in question was obtained by Lord Elgin, and
is now at the British Museum. It is five feet eight inches
and a half in length, and two feet seven inches in height.
From the mode in which the returned ends of the block are
wrought, it is evident that it constituted a portion of an early-
Athenian edifice, and by the symmetry of the composition we may
presume that it was originally a central architectural decoration.
It is probable that it belonged to some part of the old Temple
of Bacchus, in Limnis, which was certainly situated to the
south of the Acropolis, not far from the place where it was
found. The character of the execution of this piece of sculpture,
is in the early Attic style, somewhat less hard and dry than the
works of the iEginetan school. The surface of the marble is so
corroded, that some of the details are nearly obliterated, and
Stuart has in consequence taken freedoms with the mode of re-
presenting the costume of the heads of the principal figures,
which the marble does- not justify. On careful inspection,
we discovered the place of an inscription in three or four
lines, over the heads of the figures, which has been most
sedulously obliterated with a tool, probably in some inferior
age, when the marble was rudely converted into the hollow
trough of a fountain. Visconti says, the subject of the relief
is Bacchus, to whom Methe (Me8d), the Goddess of Ebriety,
is pouring out wine, which she appears to have taken from
a cratera on the ground behind her, while two Sileni or bearded
Fauns commence a dance with correspondent movements on
the opposite extremities of the marble, and each of the figures is
holding a thyrsus. From Pausanias we learn, that Methe was
represented at a Temple of Silenus at Elis, offering wine from a
goblet to that preceptor of Bacchus, Ms'8» S\ ohos h Ixwapcni airy
ilSutri, and he also speaks of a very remarkable picture by Pau-
sias at Epidaurus, representing Methe drinking from a crystal
or glass cup, fV| iaAi'i'jj,-1 cp.aA^c vrlvovcra) in which he thought
worthy of remark the female countenance seen through the trans-
parent vessel. Bacchus, in this relief, is bearded, and he is
clothed in a tunic surmounted by a peplus ; he was, according to
Pausanias, represented also clothed and bearded in a temple at
iEo-ina, and a celebrated ancient statue of the bearded Bacchus,
bearino- on the mantle the spurious inscription Cap&MonraVioc,
has a similar character of head and dress, to the Bacchus of this
marble.
1 This is "enerallv translated ' glass cup', ' vitrea phiala'. Pausias lived 350
B. c. and it may be doubted whether so perfect a specimen of artificial crystal
were manufactured so early as that age. [ed.]
2 The chief point in the incidental allusion of Visconti to the first introduction
of the arch is a passage from Plutarch, who mentions that Cleomenes, at the
sieo-e of Argos, having cut through the aqueducts, ascended into the city, (s«*a^«s
Ss re; Inri rv 'Ao-tr.'Sa ■fyxi.Sius, bKn, x.a.\ avn^fy rsTs him,) an event which
must have tahen place about 225 u. c , and consequently about a century after
the death of Alexander. The authority of Plutarch however, so much posterior
to that period, as well as to the profuse adoption of arches, and arched aqueducts,
The reported discovery of this relief at the Theatre of Herodes,
called by Stuart as above the Theatre of Bacchus, led Visconti
to support that erroneous designation, and induced him to bring
forward remarks on the early history of the arch, tending to prove
the probability of the introduction of that principle of construc-
tion in Grecian architecture, at the age of Alexander the Great *
a period sufficiently early to have accounted for its marked ap-
pearance at an edifice, to which he had incorrectly ascribed a
contemporaneous existence. Mem. of Lord Elgin's Pursuits in
Greece, p. 20. Visconti, Mem. sur des Sculp. d'Athenes, p. 96.
and Mus. Clem. V. II. PI. XLI. Paus. L. VI. C. XXIV. and
L. II. C. XXVII. [ed.]
This representation of a lyre, or cithara, is drawn by Stuart
with the usual number of seven strings. The antique lyre in the
British Museum, discovered in the presence of the Earl of Elgin,
in a tomb at Athens, apparently had a greater number. The horns
of this instrument, formed of wood, were about eight inches apart,
and are fifteen inches long ; and fragments of the testudo or tor-
toise-shell, like corroded bone, are preserved with them. The de-
sideratum, as to the mode of tuning the lyre, is not here yet
ascertained, on account of the decay of the wood of which a great
part of this unique antiquity consists; although a roller five inches
wide, and one inch eight tenths in diameter, on which the strings
were probably wound, formed a constituent part of it. The tone
of this instrument possibly did not surpass that of the modern
Italian mandoline. Two small tibiie or flutes accompanied this
lyre, the larger, one foot two inches long, and the smaller, a foot
long. These are said to be made from the species of cedar (VJ^os)
called juniperus oxycedrus, and each is six tenths of an inch in
diameter, and has five holes above and one beneath. They were
played on through a detached mouth-piece at the ends, one of
which only remains. The sound produced by these resembled
that of the smallest fife. When refined music was a novelty, and
controlled by the taste of a people so innately perfect as that of
the ancient Athenians, even by the humblest of comparative
means, they would elicit the most impressive effects; the his-
toric records of which, are, from analogy verified by works of art,
fortunately preserved through a medium not so evanescent as
sound. [kd.]
is by no means conclusive on a technical subject, particularly when dependent on
the adoption of what to him may have then been a general or indefinite term. Plut.
in Cleom. § 21. Since writing the above, we find, on referring to Lord Aber-
deen's elegant and learned Essay on Grecian Architecture, that the aqueducts by
which Cleomenes entered Argos, termed by Plutarch ■^•aXi'Saj, were perforations
of the Phorona:an Hill, near Argos, called Aspis, from its resemblance to a shield;
and that the remains of these excavations are still visible: a fact which confirms
the futility of any appeal on this subject to'the passage in question. See " Inquiry
into the Principles of G recian Architecture, by George, Earl of Aberdeen, K. T."
p. 206. [ed.]
.rent"
citW
3 molt"
anticaP