Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/469

Rh POLYCLEITUS. Of his works in marble, the only ones which are mentioned are his statue of Zeus Milichius at Argos (Paus. ii. 20. § 1), and those of Apollo, Leto, and Artemis, in the temple of Artemis Or- thia, on the summit of Mt. Lycone in Argolis. (Paus. ii. 24. § 3.) But that which he probably designed to be the greatest of all hisworks was his ivory and gold statue of Hera in her temple between Argos and Mycenae. This work was executed by the artist in his old age (see above), and wns doubtless intended by him to rival Pheidias's chryselephantine statues of Athena and of Zeus, which, in the judgment of Strabo (viii. p. 372), it equalled in beauty, though it was surpassed by them in costliness and size. According to the description of Pausanias (ii. 1 7. § 4), the goddess was seated on a throne, her head crowned with a garland, on which were worked the Graces and the Hours, the one hand holding the symbolical pomegranate, and the other a sceptre, surmounted by a cuckoo, a bird sacred to Hera, on account of her having been once changed into that form by Zeus. From an epi- gram by Parmenion (Brunck, A7iaL vol. ii. p. 202, No. 5 ) it would seem that the figure of the god- dess was robed from the waist downwards. Maxi- mus Tyrius, who compares the statue with the Athena of Pheidias, describes the Hera of Poly- cleitus as the. white-armed goddess of Homer, having ivory arms, beautiful eyes, a splendid robe, a queenlike figure, seated on a golden throne. [Dis- sert, xiv. 6, vol. i. p. 260, Reiske.) In this de- scription we clearly see the Homeric ideal of Hera, the white-armed, large-eyed {evKuiei/os, ^owins), which Polycleitus took for the model of his Hera, jiist as Pheidias followed the Homeric ideal of Zeus in his statue at Olympia. The character ex- pressed by the epithet fiowiris must have been that of the whole countenance, an expression of open and imposing majesty ; and accordingly, in a most laudatory epigram on the statue, Martial says (x. «9): — Judice convictas non dubitante deas." This statue remained always the ideal model of Hera, as Pheidias's of the Olympian Zeus. Thus H erodes Atticus, when he set up at Caesareia the statues of Augustus and Rome, had them made on the model of these two statues respectively. (Joseph. A7it. Jud. xv. 13.) Praxiteles, however, ventured to make some minor alterations in Poly- cleitus's type of Hera. [Praxiteles,] There is an excellent essay on this statue, with an explana- tion of the allegorical signification of its parts, by Bottiger. (Andeutungen, pp. 122 — 128 ; comp. Miiller, Arch'dol. d. Kunst, § 352.) It is impossible to determine which of all the existing figures and busts of Hera or Juno, and of Roman empresses in the character of Juno, may be considered as copies of the Hera of Polycleitus ; but in all probability we have the type on a coin of Argos, which is engraved in Miiller's Denkmdler (vol. i. pi. 30. fig. 132; comp. Bottiger, l.c, p. 127). In the department of toreutic, the fame of Poly- cleitus no doubt rested chiefly on the golden orna- ments of his statue of Hera ; but he also made small bronzes (sigilla), and drinking-vessels (phialae) (Martial, viii. 51 ; Juvenal, viii. 102). Moschion POLYCLEITUS. 457 mentions a celebrated lamp, which he made for the king of Persia (ap. Ath. v. p. 206, e). As an architect Polycleitus obtained great cele- brity by the theatre, and the circular building (tholus), which he built in the sacred enclosure ot Aesculapius at Epidaurus : the former Pausanias thought the best worth seeing of all the theatres, whether of the Greeks or the Romans. (Paus ii. 27. §§2,5.) 2. Of the younger Polycleitus of Argos very little is known, doubtless because his fame was eclipsed by that of his more celebrated namesake, and, in part, contemporary. The chief testimony respecting him is a passage of Pausanias, who says that the statue of Agenor of Thebes, an Olympic victor in the boys' wrestling, was made by " Poly- cleitus of Argos, not the one who made the statue o/Hera, but the pupil of Naucydes" (Paus. vi. 6. § 1 . s. 2). Now Naucydes flourished between b. c. 420 and 400 ; so that Polycleitus must be placed about B. c. 400. With this agrees the statement of Pausanias, that Polycleitus made the bronze tripod and statue of Aphrodite, at Amyclae, which the Lacedaemonians dedicated out of the spoils of the victory of Aegospotami (Paus. iii. 18. § 5. s. 8) ; for the age of the elder Polycleitus cannot be brought down so low as this. Mention has been made above of the statue of Zeus Philius, at Mega- lopolis, among the works of the elder Polycleitus. Some, however, refer it to the younger, and take it as a proof that he was still alive after the building of Megalopolis, in b. c. 370 ; but this argument is in no way decisive, for it is natural to suppose that many of the statues which adorned Megalopolis were carried thither by the first settlers. To this artist also we should probably refer the passage of Pausanias (ii. 22. § 8), in which mention is made of a bronze statue of Hecate by him at Argos, and from which we learn too that Polycleitus was the brother of his instructor Naucydes. [Naucydes.] He also was probably the maker of the mutilated statue of Alcibiades, mentioned by Dio Chrysostom (Orat. 37, vol. ii. p. 122, Reiske). It would seem from the passage of Pausanias first quoted (vi. 6. § 1), that the younger Polycleitus was famous for his statues of Olympic victors ; and, therefore, it is exceedingly probable that some, if not all, of the statues of this class, mentioned above under the name of the elder Polycleitus, ought to be referred to him. Whatever else was once known of him is now hopelessly merged in the statements respecting the elder artist. Thiersch makes still a third (according to him, a fourth) statuary or sculptor of this name, Poly- cleitus of Thasos, on the authority of an epigram of Geminus (Anth. Flan. iii. 30 ; Brunck, Anal. vol. ii. p. 279) :— Xelp jue UoKvKXeirov Qacrlov KOLfifV, el/A 8' eKuvos SoAjUftjyeus, fipovTois us AtJs dvTfyL6.vt]v, K.T.K, where Grotius proposed to read IloAiryj/wTou for TlovKeiTov, an emendation which is almost cer- tjiinly correct, notwithstanding Heyne's objection, that the phrase x*^P Koifxey is more appropriate to a sculpture than a painting. There is no other men- tion of aThasian Polycleitus ; but it is well known that Polygnotus was a Thasian. The error is just one of a class often met with, and of which we have a precisely parallel example in another epi- gram, which ascribes to Polycleitus a painting of Polyxena {Afitk. J'lan. iv, 150 ; Brunck, Anal.
 * ' Ore nitet tanto, quanto superasset in Ida