Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/257

Rh PHEIDIAS. the spoils of Marathon. Nor is it by any means improbable that this united sacred treasure may have been distinguished as the spoils of Marathon, in commemoration of that one of the great victories over the Persians which had been achieved by the Athenians alone. There is, indeed, a passage in Demosthenes {Farapresh. § 272, ed. Bekk., p. 428) in which this is all but directly stated, for he says that the statue was made out of the wealth given by tlie Greeks to ilie Atlve.nians^ and dedicated by the city as an dpiareTov of ilie war against the barba- rians. This can only refer to the division of the spoil at the close of the second Persian War, while his statement that the Athenians dedicated the statue as an dpiarelov, clearly implies that the Athenians were accustomed, through national pride, to speak of these spoils as if they had been gained in that battle, the glory of which was peculiarly their own, namely Marathon. This observation would apply also to the Plataeans' share of the spoil ; and it seems to furnish a satisfactory reason for our hearing so much of the votive offerings de- dicated by the Athenians out of the spoils of Ma- rathon, and so little of any similar application of the undoubtedly greater wealth which fell to their share after the repulse of Xerxes. But in this case, as in the former, we must of necessity suppose a considerable delay. The first objects which en- grossed the attention of the Athenians were the restoration of their dwellings and fortifications, the firm establishment of their political power, and the transference to themselves of the supremacy over the allied Greeks. In short, the administrations of Aristeides and Themistocles, and the early part of Cnnon's, were fully engaged with sterner neces- sities than even the restoration of the sacred edifices and statues; At length even the appearance of danger from Persia entirely ceased ; the Spartans were fully occupied at home ; the Athenians had converted their nominal supremacy into the real empire of the Aegean ; and the common treasury was transferred from Delos to Athens (b. c. 465) ; at home Cimon was in the height of his power and popularity, and Pericles was just coming forward into public life ; while the most essential defences of the city were already com- pleted. The period had undoubtedly come for the restoration of the sacred edifices and for the commencement of that brilliant era of art, which is inseparably connected with the name of Pheidias, and which found a still more complete opportunity for its development when, after the conclusion of the wars which occupied so much of the attention of Cimon and of Pericles during the following twenty years, the thirty years' truce was concluded with the Lacedaemonians, and the power of Pericles was finally established by the ostracism of Thucy- dides (b. c. 445, 444) ; while the treasury of Athens was continually augmented by the contri- butions levied from the revolted allies. There is, indeed, no dispute as to the fact that the period from B. c. 444 to the breaking out of the Pelopon- nesian War, b. c. 431, was that during which^he most important works of art were executed, under the administration of Pericles and under the super- intendence of Pheidias. The question really in dispute regards only the commencement of the period. An important event of Cimon's administration affords a strong confirmation to the general con- clusion suggested by the above view of the history PHEIDIAS. 245 of the period : we refer to the transference of the bones of Theseus to Athens, in the year b. c. 468, an event which must be taken as marking the date of the commencement of the temple of Theseus, one of the great works of art of the period under dis- cussion. In this case there was a special reason for the period chosen to undertake the work j though the commencement of the general restora- tion of the sacred monuments would probably be postponed till the completion of the defences of the cit}', which may be fixed at u. c. 457 — 456, when the long walls Avere completed. Hence, as- suming (what must be granted to Thiersch) that Pheidias ought to be placed as early as the circum- stances of the case permit, it would seem probable that he flourished from about the end of the 79th Olympiad to the end of the 86th, b. c. 460—432. This supposition agrees exactly with all that we know of the history of art at that period. It is quite clear that the transition from the archaic style of the earlier artists to the ideal style of Pheidias did not take place earlier than the close of the first quarter of the fifth century b. c. There are chronological difficulties in this part of the argument, but there is enough of what is certain. Perhaps the most important testimony is that of Cicero (Brut. 18), who speaks of the statues of Canachus as " rigidiora quam ut imitentur veriia- tem^'' and those of Calamis as "■ dura quidem, sed tamen molliora quam Canachi, in contrast with the almost perfect works of Myron, and the per- fect ones of Polycleitus. Quintilian (xii. 10) re- peats the criticism with a slight variation, " Du- riora et Tuscanicis proxima Gallon atque Egesias, jam minus rigida Calamis, molliora adhuc supra diciis Myron fedty Here we have the names of Cana- chus, Callon, and Hegesias, representing the tho- roughly archaic school, and of Calamis as still archaic, though less decidedly so, and then there is at once a transition to Myron and Polycleitus, the younger contemporaries of Pheidias. If we inquire more particularly into the dates of these artists, we find that Canachus and Callon flourished probably between b. c. 520 and 480. Hegesias, or Hegias, is made by Pausanias a contemporary of Onatas, and of Ageladas (of whom we shall presently have to speak), and is expressly mentioned by Lucian, in connection with two other artists, Critios and Nesiotes, as ttJs traXaiois ipyaalas, while Pliny, in his loose way, makes him, and Alcamenes, and Critios and Nesiotes, all rivals of Pheidias in 01. 84, B.C. 444 [Hegias]. Of the artists, whose names are thus added to those first mentioned, we know that Critios and Nesiotes executed works about B. c. 477 [Critios] ; and Onatas, who was contemporary with Polygnotus, was reckoned as a Daedalian artist, and cleariy belonged to the archaic school, wrought, with Calamis, in B. c. 467, and probably flourished as late as B. c. 460. Ca- lamis, though contemporarj"^ with Onatas, seems to have been younger, and his name (as the above citations show) marks the introduction of a less rigid style of art [Calamis*]. Thus we have a of Apollo Alexicacos by Calamis, at Athens, fur- nishes a sufficient ground for bringing down his date to the great plague at Athens, in B. c. 430, 429. Pausanias merely assigns this as a traditional reason for the surname of the god, whereas we know it to have been an epithet verv anciently R 3
 * It is, however, far from certain that the statue