Walters, Henry Beauchamp: Catalogue of the bronzes, Greek, Roman, and Etruscan in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities, British Museum (London, 1899)

lii

CATALOGUE OF BRONZES.

othcr examplcs (such as No. 695), the inscriptions are actually in Latin. One
noteworthy feature of the mirrors with Greek subjects is that the most incon-
gruous figures appear together, as, for instance, No. 622 with Ajax and
Amphiaraos, or No. 719, on which Ajax, Alcmena, Thetis, and a Seilenos are all
united in one scene. This is due either to confused ideas or to carelessness on
thc part of the artist, who has selected certain types from his stock and combined
them at haphazard.

The inscriptions which Etruscan mirrors generally bear form a very important
feature. This idea again was no doubt suggested by the vases. But, curiously
enough, the Etruscans, while adopting the Greek myths and legends wholesale,
have transformed the names of the deities and persons represented into their own
language and alphabet. So, for instance, Athene appears as Menerfa, Aphrodite
as Turan, Hermes as Tnrms, Dionysos as Phuphluns ; while t.he names of heroes
are only a degree less transformed : Achle for Achilles, Elchsentre for Alexandros
(Paris), Evticle and Phclnike for Eteocles and Polyneikes. On one mirror
(\'o. 695) a corrupt Latin form occurs in Melerpanta for Bellerophon; and
another (No. 3213) has interesting inscriptions in Latin.

The handles of these mirrors in many cases have been broken off or lost;
one example (No. 620) retains an original handle of bone, into which the mirror
is inserted by a spiked termination of bronze ; others, again, terminate in the
head of a stag, horse, or other animal, or even in the figure of a man (as No. 711)-
This latter type is derived from another class of mirrors, of which examples are
known both from Greece (as Plate IV.)* and Etruria (Nos. 54.7—5 53). The
mirror itself is devoid of all decoration except a bead-moulding round the edge,
and the artist has devoted his chief energies to the standing figure that supports
it. These figures form a continuous series from the early archaic period to the
limits of the frce and fine styles, the richest period being that of the transition
at the beginning of the fifth century. Almost every figure has an individuality
of its own, though there are certain main types, of which the most popular is the
Aphrodite attended by Erotes of Plate IV. Originally these mirror-supports appear
to have been derived from Egypt ; f it vvas probably through the Ionic Greeks of
Naucratis that the idea of a nude fcmale figure architecturally applied in this
manner was brought from Egypt, and this type, at first exclusively Ionic, was
also adopted in the Peloponnese. The original idea was simply that of a figure
supporting the mirror with its arms, but in its developed form the figure with its
base becomes an architectural support for the entablature-like member on which
the mirror rests. j

Of no less interest and artistic merit than the mirrors, though of much rarer
occurrence, are the cistae, found almost exclusively at Praeneste. While the

* See above, p. xti.

f A late and Uellenizing instance of an Egyptian mirror supported by a nude female figure
is No. S80.

J Monuments Grccs, 1891-1892, Nrs. 19, 20; Berliner Phil. Wochenschr. 1S94, p. 79 ; De Ridder,
Pronzes ile la Svc. Arch. d'Ath'encs, p. 36.