Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 2.djvu/232

 202 A History ov Art in Ciiai.d.ka and Assyria. gems. As to this Babylonian statue, the one doubt we have relates to the value put upon it by the Chaldseans. Had the statue and its surroundings really been of massive gold, would the Persians have spared it when the other was overthrown and broken up ? It is possible that in spite of the historian's assertion the work he describes was only gilded bronze. And as for the image twelve cubits high, we may express the same doubts. Ctesias seems to have received better information as to how these figures were made than Herodotus, and, through Diodorus, he tells us that they consisted of metal plates beaten into shape with the hammer. 1 Whether Ctesias or his informants did or did not exaggerate their true dimensions (Diodorus speaks of a Bel forty feet high), or whether these figures were of gold or gilded brass, is of comparatively slight importance ; we are interested chiefly in the information he gives as to the method of fabrication. Ever since the discovery of the Balawat gates proved to what a height the student art of Assyria carried the manipula- tion of metal by the repoussé process, we have had no difficulty *in believing that the sculptors of Babylon in the time of Nebu- chadnezzar could build up images of colossal size and fine decorative effect by means of plaques united with rivets. If we may believe the rest of Diodorus's description, the Chaldaean artists combined the glory of gold and silver with the purity of ivory and the bright and varied colours of precious stones. And all this we see good reason to admit when we have examined at the British Museum those ivories in which lapis lazuli and other substances of the same kind even now fill up the hollows of the design, while the field still glitters here and there with some last fragments of the gold with which it was once incrusted. The skilful workmen who discovered the secret of this kind of mosaic, may very well have learnt to combine these beautiful materials so well that the statues upon which they were used would even have rivalled the chryselephantine masterpieces of Phidias ; in richness and harmony of tones, at least, if not in nobility and purity of form. 1 'E7r' (iKpos Trjç dvafiâatwç rpt'a Karé(TKeva<T€v o.yâXfxara ^pvaa crcpvprjXaTa, Atoç, "Upas, 'PeV,-. Diodorus, ii. ix. 5-8.