Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/262

Rh 250 PHEIDIAS. the Persian spoils. The statues were thirteen in number, namely, Athena, Apollo, Miltiades, Erechtheus, Cecrops, Pandion, Celeus, Antiochus, Aegeus, Acamas, Codrus, Theseus, Phyleus. (Pans. X. 30. § 1.) 3. The colossal bronze statue of Atliena Proma- chis, in the Acropolis, was also said to have been made out of the spoils of Marathon ; but it is im- portant to remember the sense in which this must probably be understood, as explained above. Bot- tiger supposes that it was placed in the temple of Athena Polias {Andeutungen, p. 84, Amali/iea, vol. ii. p. 314) ; but there can be no doubt that it stood in the open air, between the Propylaea and the Parthenon, as it is represented on the coin men- tioned below. It was between fifty and sixty feet high, with the pedestal ; and the point of the spear and the crest of the helmet were visible as far oif as Sunium to ships approaching Athens. (Strab. vi. p. 278 ; Pans. i. 28. § 2 ; comp. Plerod. v. 77.) It was still standing as late as A. D. 395, when it was seen by Alaric. (Zosimus, v. 6.) It repre- sented the goddess holding up both her spear and shield, in the attitude of a combatant. (Ibid.) The entire completion of the ornamental work upon this statue was long delayed, if we are to believe the statement, that the shield was engraved by Mys, after the design of Parrhasius. (See Mys, Par- RHASius : the matter is very doubtful, but, con- sidering the vast number of great works of art on which Pheidias and his fellow-artists were en- gaged, the delay in the completion of the statue is not altogether improbable.) This statue is ex- hibited in a rude representation of the Acropolis, on an old Athenian coin which is engraved in Mliller's Denkm'dler, vol. i. pi. xx. fig. 104. 4. Those faithful allies of the Athenians, the Plataeans, in dedicating the tithe of their share of the Persian spoils, availed themselves of the skill of Pheidias, who made for them a statue of Atliena Areia, of a size not much less than the statue in the Acropolis. The colossus at Plataeae was an acrolith, the body being of wood gilt, and the face, hands, and feet, of Pentelic marble. (Pans. ix. 4. § 1.) The language of Pausanias, here and elsewhere, and the nature of the case, make it nearly certain that this statue was made about the same time as that in the Acropolis. 5. Besides the Athena Proniachus, the Acropolis contained a bronze statue of Atlwna^ of such sur- passing beauty, that it was esteemed by many not only as the finest work of Pheidias, but as the standard ideal representation of the goddess. (See Paus. i. 28, § 2 ; Plin. //. N. xxxiv. 8. s. 19. § 1 ; and especially Lucian, Imag. 4, 6. vol. ii. pp. 462, 464, who remarks upon the outline of the face, the softness of the cheeks, and the symmetry of the nose.) It is possible that this was Pheidias's own model of the Athena of the Parthenon, executed in a more manageable material, and on a scale which permitted it to be better seen at one view, and therefore more beautiful. The statue Avas called Lemnia, from having been dedicated by the people of Lemnos. (Paus. I.e.) 6. Another statue of Atliena is mentioned by Pliny {I. e.) as having been dedicated at Rome, near the temple of Fortune, by Paulus Aemilius, but whether this also stood originally in the Acropolis is unknown. 7. Still more uncertainty attaches to tlie statue which Pliny calls CUduchus (the key-bearer), and PHEIDIAS. which he mentions in such a way as to imply, probably but not certainly, that it also was a statue of Athena. The key in the hand of this statue was probably the symbol of initiation into the mysteries. 8. We now come to the greatest of Pheidias's works at Athens, the ivory and gold statue of Atliena in the Parthenon., and the other sculptures which adorned that temple. It is true, indeed, that none of the ancient writers ascribe expressly to Pheidias the execution of any of these sculp- tures, except the statue of the goddess herself; but neither do they mention any other artists as having executed them : so that from their silence, combined with the statement of Plutarch, that all the great works of art of the time of Pericles were entrusted to the care of Pheidias, and, above all, from the marks which the sculptures themselves bear of having been designed by one mind, and that a master mind, it may be inferred with cer- tainty, that all the sculptures of the Parthenon are to be ascribed to Pheidias, as their designer and superintendent, though the actual execution of them must of necessity have been entrusted to artists working under his direction. These sculp- tures consisted of the colossal statue of the goddess herself ; and the ornaments of the sanctuary in which she was enshrined, namely, the sculptures in the two pediments, the high-reliefs in the metopes of the frieze, and the continuous bas-relief which surrounded the cella., forming a sort of frieze be- neath the ceiling of the peristyle. The great statue of the goddess was of that kind of work which the Greeks called chryseleplmttiney and which Pheidias is said to have invented. Up to his time colossal statues, when not of bronze, were acrolitlis, that is, only the face, hands, and feet, were of marble, the bodj'" being of wood, which was concealed by real drapery. An example of such a statue by Pheidias himself has been mentioned just above. Pheidias, then, substituted for marble the costlier and more beautiful material, ivory, in those parts of the statue which were un- clothed, and, instead of real drapery, he made the robes and other ornaments of solid gold. The me- chanical process by which the plates of ivory were laid on to the wooden core of the statue is de- scribed, together with the other details of the art of chryselephantine statuary, in the elaborate work of Quatremere de Quincy, Le Jupiter Olympien, and more briefly in an excellent chapter of the work entitled the Menageries., vol. ii. c 13. In the Athena of the Parthenon the object of Pheidias was to embody the ideal of the virgin-goddess^ aiTOed, but victorious, as in his Athena Promachus he had represented the warrior-goddess, in the very attitude of battle. The statue stood in the fore- most and larger chamber of the temple ( prodomus). It represented the goddess standing, clothed with a tunic reaching to the ankles, with her spear in her ; left hand and an image of Victory four cubits high in her right : she was girded with the aegis, and had a helmet on her head, and her shield rested on the ground by her side. The height of the statue was twenty-six cubits, or nearly forty feet, including the base. From the manner in which Plato speaks of the statue, it seems clear that the gold pre- dominated over the ivor-, the latter being used for the face, hands, and feet, and the former for the drapery and ornaments (Hipp. Afaj. i).290). There is no doubt that the robe was of gold, beaten out