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

liv

CATALOGUE OF BRONZES.

passage from Philostratus, which refers to them the practice of enamelling on
bronze, and this is further attested by Pliny (H. N. xxxiv. 162), who says :
“Album [plumbum] incoquitur aereis operibus Galliarum invento ita ut vix
discerni possit ab argento, eaque incoctilia appellant. Deinde et argentum
incoquere simili modo coepere equorum maxume ornamentis iumentorumque ac
iugorum Alesia oppido ; reliqua gloria Biturigum fuit.” Many specimens of
bronze vases, fibulae, and other objects have been found with rich but somewhat
crude enamelled decoration. The chief characteristics of this art are a tendency
to geometrical decoration, and a preference for symmetry rather than living
forms ; a fondness for bright colours and for open relief work ; and finally a
tendency to conventionalise human and animal forms into decorative motives.
The latter characteristics are manifested in the series of zoomorphic fibulae,
largely found in Belgium, but not confined to any part of Central Europe ;
they also find illustration in the civilisation known as that of La Tene (a settle-
ment on Lake Neuchatel).

It is a well-known fact that many genuine Greek works (or close copies of
the same) have been found on Gallic soil, such as the Vaison Diadumenos, in
the British Museum, the Venus of Arles, and the warrior of Autun, to say
nothingof the bronze Hermes (Pl. xxiv.), and other small works of true Hellenic
character. Their presence in Gaul was of course due to accidental transportation,
and they have nothing in common with the art of the country. On the other
hand, many types which were spread by the Romans all over the ancient world
became, as it were, common property, only modified by local conditions and
taste. Such are the bronzes with which we have here to deal. Either they are
Hellenic types, as Nos. 786, 792-795, shewing by certain alterations or barbarisms
that local influence has been at work, or else the conceptions are native, such as
the Dispater, No. 788, or the Ares (Pl. XXIII.), but certain small details (e.g. the
helmet of Ares) indicate that the native artist has gone to some Greek original
for assistance in the production of his work, or has reproduced some reminisccnce
of what he has seen.

It may be that the influence of Greece upon Gaul dates from an even
earlier period than the Roman conquest. As early as the sixth century B.C. the
Phocaeans had established a Greek colony at Massilia, which was then, as it now
is, the outlet for the commerce of the Rhone valley. Greek merchants in search
of copper and tin must have penetrated as far as Spain and even Britain ; while
even Central Europe has yielded objects of archaic Greek work, such as the gold
treasure of Vettersfelde, to say nothing of the helmet of Berru which is
ornamented with a Mycenaean pattern. Again, the incursions of the Gauls into
Greece in 279 B.c. and the sack of Delphi must have brought before their eyes
Greek art of the fincst period, specimens of which they may actually have carried
away with them.

For the most part, however, artistic influence reached Gaul in another way.
About the first century of the empire Graeco-Egyptian art was dominating
Italy, as is evidenced by the column of Trajan and the general style of the