DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4266#0048
ATHENIAN SEPULCHRAL MARBLES.
15
with new and tasteful combinations \ The progress of ornamental foliage in Gothic architecture,
arrived at comparative excellence in the same manner, where no particular vegetable prototype seems
to have been contemplated, but as the style advanced to its perfection, Nature was progressively
more regarded.
In the subsequent cultivation of the art, after the principles of the three orders were fully
established, the Greeks and their colonies, throughout their architectural decoration, appear to have
been always attached to their own lighter style of ornament assimilating to that executed in the Peri-
clean age; while in the progress of change, the Romans, who perfected their arts by those of Greece,
adopted on the original model a richer luxuriance of leafy embellishment; and even in Roman
edifices, executed by Grecian b architects, we find a more gorgeous massiveness of execution, and
greater breadth of design, but deficient however in correctness and elegance of taste; the latter style
corresponds with the ponderous bearing of a people who had subdued the world by their arms, the
former with the captivating influence of a nation that had enlightened the universe by her litera-
ture, sciences, and arts.
Fjg. i.—This Tombstone is distinguished for great elegance of decoration, and inscribed to the
memory of Philocles, an Attic citizen of Deceleia, a fortress on the confines of Bceotia, at a defile of
Mount Parnes, and of great importance during the Peloponnesian war. The figures when perfect
were doubtless in the general valedictory action of joining hands. Among the foliage are introduced
allusions to the funeral vases or lecythi (\^«v^otc) deposited on the body or within the tomb, and used
as libatory or unctuary vessels at the interment.
Fig. 2.—This is a Sepulchral Marble remarkable as well for the great elegance ofthe intertwining
foliage, (on which we have previously expatiated,) as for the Phoenician characters it is inscribed
with, dedicating it to Numenius of Citium, a city in the island of Cyprus, where, while besieging
it with an Athenian army, Cimon died. Either from colonization or juxtaposition, the language of
Phoenicia seems to have prevailed at that island, and existing oriental inscriptions seen among the
■ In the British Museum, among the Elgin Marbles at present
marked Nos. 127-130, are portions of the Erechtheum, which
bear the ornament which is found to have been termed by the
Athenians 'anthemion', not a frieze, as stated in the Synopsis of
the Museum, but a border resulting from a continuation of the
decoration of the antse along the walls under the entablatures.
The variety above alluded to in the execution of this decoration
may there be observed on inspection of the calyces at the approxi-
mation of the spiral stems of that exquisitely executed ornament.
b Many Grecian architects, not omitting to name Apollodorus,
who designed the Forum and Column of Trajan, are recorded by
ancient authors to have been engaged on Roman buildings, the re-
mains of which generally shew, strictly speaking, very few traces
of Grecian architectural decoration. We will take this occasion
to animadvert on a history attached to the Portico of Metellus, or
Octavia, at Rome, which included Temples related to Pliny very
improbably to have been built at their own expense by Sauros and
Batrachos, Laconian architects, ruins of which still exist, and dis-
play a perfectly Roman taste of ornament, which would be particu-
larly evident by an Ionic capital, (if it were indeed of the age of
Metellus, and designed by those architects,) concluded by Winc-
kelmann to have belonged to one of those edifices, now to be seen
at the church of San Lorenzo fuori le Muraat Rome. Pliny, the
only authority we believe for their existence, (although there were
Greeks so called,) repeats the tradition, that those architects being
denied the expected honour of an inscription, adopted the expedient
of representing their names on the bases of the columns, by
the enigmatic symbols of a lizard and a frog, the meaning of
Sauros and Batrachos in Greek. That justly celebrated antiquary
Winckelmann, therefore believed, that the Ionic Capital alluded
to, which has these reptiles carved on the volutes, belonged to one
of those temples, which the ancient marble plan of Rome in the
Capitol indicates with Pliny to have been dedicated to Jupiter
and Juno. On the authority of Piranesi however the temple of
Juno was Composite; the temple of Jupiter also would appear
to have been of the same character, for within the very portico
of Octavia this artist discovered a base belonging to that Tem-
ple, with the face of the plinth enriched witli foliage interwoven
round a lizard and a frog, a fragment which (unconnected with the
tradition) would confirm the fact recorded by Pliny, as well as
the absence of real Grecian taste at that structure. The style of
the Ionic capital however, is, undoubtedly, of a much lower age
of art, and a rosette has been since found at Tivoli, which is now in
the Museum Clementinum, on the leaves of which a lizard, a frog,
and a bee are carved, which would give us to infer, (if this frag-
ment be also supposed to relate to Sauros and Batrachos,) that the
Tiburtine edifice, to which it belonged, had a third architect
with some enigmatic name allusive to the bee ; an idea which is
far from probable. These objects were doubtless more consistently
and reasonably introduced on those ornaments as a display of
ingenious imitation by the executive artists, to which the vulgar
in a later age may have attached a tale that ultimately received
currency from the scientific, but too credulous, Pliny. This
history, while it conveys the knowledge of the prevailing en-
couragement of Grecian architects at Rome, may also shew how
prone even a philosophic mind may be, if disposed to the search
after recondite symbols, to receive or appropriate an uncalled and
mysterious meaning, even when applied to the simplest produc-
tions of imitative art. Piranesi, Antichita di Roma, Tomo I.
Tav. 2. Tomo IV. Tav. 45—Winck. Hist, de l'Art, Vol. II. p.
590 and 522, PL XXIII. Edit. 1802.—Plin. Nat. Hist. 1. 36. c. 5.
—Paus. 6,21.—Athen. VII. 24—Mus. Clem. Vol. I. PI. A. VI.
c V. Aristophanis Eccl. v. 995, quoted by Mr. Walpole, in
the Tracts edited by him on the Levant, &e. V. I. p. 326.
15
with new and tasteful combinations \ The progress of ornamental foliage in Gothic architecture,
arrived at comparative excellence in the same manner, where no particular vegetable prototype seems
to have been contemplated, but as the style advanced to its perfection, Nature was progressively
more regarded.
In the subsequent cultivation of the art, after the principles of the three orders were fully
established, the Greeks and their colonies, throughout their architectural decoration, appear to have
been always attached to their own lighter style of ornament assimilating to that executed in the Peri-
clean age; while in the progress of change, the Romans, who perfected their arts by those of Greece,
adopted on the original model a richer luxuriance of leafy embellishment; and even in Roman
edifices, executed by Grecian b architects, we find a more gorgeous massiveness of execution, and
greater breadth of design, but deficient however in correctness and elegance of taste; the latter style
corresponds with the ponderous bearing of a people who had subdued the world by their arms, the
former with the captivating influence of a nation that had enlightened the universe by her litera-
ture, sciences, and arts.
Fjg. i.—This Tombstone is distinguished for great elegance of decoration, and inscribed to the
memory of Philocles, an Attic citizen of Deceleia, a fortress on the confines of Bceotia, at a defile of
Mount Parnes, and of great importance during the Peloponnesian war. The figures when perfect
were doubtless in the general valedictory action of joining hands. Among the foliage are introduced
allusions to the funeral vases or lecythi (\^«v^otc) deposited on the body or within the tomb, and used
as libatory or unctuary vessels at the interment.
Fig. 2.—This is a Sepulchral Marble remarkable as well for the great elegance ofthe intertwining
foliage, (on which we have previously expatiated,) as for the Phoenician characters it is inscribed
with, dedicating it to Numenius of Citium, a city in the island of Cyprus, where, while besieging
it with an Athenian army, Cimon died. Either from colonization or juxtaposition, the language of
Phoenicia seems to have prevailed at that island, and existing oriental inscriptions seen among the
■ In the British Museum, among the Elgin Marbles at present
marked Nos. 127-130, are portions of the Erechtheum, which
bear the ornament which is found to have been termed by the
Athenians 'anthemion', not a frieze, as stated in the Synopsis of
the Museum, but a border resulting from a continuation of the
decoration of the antse along the walls under the entablatures.
The variety above alluded to in the execution of this decoration
may there be observed on inspection of the calyces at the approxi-
mation of the spiral stems of that exquisitely executed ornament.
b Many Grecian architects, not omitting to name Apollodorus,
who designed the Forum and Column of Trajan, are recorded by
ancient authors to have been engaged on Roman buildings, the re-
mains of which generally shew, strictly speaking, very few traces
of Grecian architectural decoration. We will take this occasion
to animadvert on a history attached to the Portico of Metellus, or
Octavia, at Rome, which included Temples related to Pliny very
improbably to have been built at their own expense by Sauros and
Batrachos, Laconian architects, ruins of which still exist, and dis-
play a perfectly Roman taste of ornament, which would be particu-
larly evident by an Ionic capital, (if it were indeed of the age of
Metellus, and designed by those architects,) concluded by Winc-
kelmann to have belonged to one of those edifices, now to be seen
at the church of San Lorenzo fuori le Muraat Rome. Pliny, the
only authority we believe for their existence, (although there were
Greeks so called,) repeats the tradition, that those architects being
denied the expected honour of an inscription, adopted the expedient
of representing their names on the bases of the columns, by
the enigmatic symbols of a lizard and a frog, the meaning of
Sauros and Batrachos in Greek. That justly celebrated antiquary
Winckelmann, therefore believed, that the Ionic Capital alluded
to, which has these reptiles carved on the volutes, belonged to one
of those temples, which the ancient marble plan of Rome in the
Capitol indicates with Pliny to have been dedicated to Jupiter
and Juno. On the authority of Piranesi however the temple of
Juno was Composite; the temple of Jupiter also would appear
to have been of the same character, for within the very portico
of Octavia this artist discovered a base belonging to that Tem-
ple, with the face of the plinth enriched witli foliage interwoven
round a lizard and a frog, a fragment which (unconnected with the
tradition) would confirm the fact recorded by Pliny, as well as
the absence of real Grecian taste at that structure. The style of
the Ionic capital however, is, undoubtedly, of a much lower age
of art, and a rosette has been since found at Tivoli, which is now in
the Museum Clementinum, on the leaves of which a lizard, a frog,
and a bee are carved, which would give us to infer, (if this frag-
ment be also supposed to relate to Sauros and Batrachos,) that the
Tiburtine edifice, to which it belonged, had a third architect
with some enigmatic name allusive to the bee ; an idea which is
far from probable. These objects were doubtless more consistently
and reasonably introduced on those ornaments as a display of
ingenious imitation by the executive artists, to which the vulgar
in a later age may have attached a tale that ultimately received
currency from the scientific, but too credulous, Pliny. This
history, while it conveys the knowledge of the prevailing en-
couragement of Grecian architects at Rome, may also shew how
prone even a philosophic mind may be, if disposed to the search
after recondite symbols, to receive or appropriate an uncalled and
mysterious meaning, even when applied to the simplest produc-
tions of imitative art. Piranesi, Antichita di Roma, Tomo I.
Tav. 2. Tomo IV. Tav. 45—Winck. Hist, de l'Art, Vol. II. p.
590 and 522, PL XXIII. Edit. 1802.—Plin. Nat. Hist. 1. 36. c. 5.
—Paus. 6,21.—Athen. VII. 24—Mus. Clem. Vol. I. PI. A. VI.
c V. Aristophanis Eccl. v. 995, quoted by Mr. Walpole, in
the Tracts edited by him on the Levant, &e. V. I. p. 326.