Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/767

Rh SCOPAS. ferred to (Paus. viii. 45. §§ 3, 4. s. 4 — 7). Tliis temple was the largest and most magnificent in the Peloponnesus, and is remarkable for the arrange- ment of its columns, which were of the Ionic order on the outside of the temple, and in the inside of the Doric and Corinthian orders, the latter above the former. From the way in which Pausanias speaks of the sculptures in the pediments, it appears evident that the sculptural decorations of the temple, aa well as the building itself, were executed under the direction of Scopas ; the sculptures were pro- bably by his own hand, since Pausanias mentions no other artist as having wrought upon them. The subject represented in the pediment of the front portico was the chase of the Calydonian boar, and, from the description of Pausanias, this must have been a most animated composition. In the centre was the wild beast himself, pursued on the one side by Atalante, Meleager, Theseus, Telamon, Peleus, Pollux, lolalis, Prothous, and Cometes ; on the other side, Ancaeus was seen mortally wounded, having dropped his axe, and supported in the arms of Epochus, while standing by him were Castor, Amphiaraiis, Hippotlious, and Peirithous. The subject of the hinder pediment was the battle of Telephus with Achilles, in the plain of Caicus, the details of which Pausanias does not describe. Only some insignificant ruins of the temple now remain. (Dodwell, Tbwr, vol. ii. p. 419 ; Klenze, Aphorist. Bemerk. auf einer Reise nacli Grieclien- land, p. 647 ; MUller, Arch'dol. d. Kunst, § 109, n. ii. 13.) In his account of this temple, Pausanias takes occasion to mention that Scopas made statues in many places of Greece Proper (ttjs dpxaias 'EAa- 8os), besides those in Ionia and Caria ; an impor- tant testimony to the extent of the sphere of the artist's labours. 2. Pliny, in describing the temple of Artemis at Ephesus (//. A/, xxxvi. 14. s. 21), says that thirty-six of its sixty columns were sculptured {caelaiae; perhaps Caryatids), and then adds words which, according to the common editions, affirm that one of these columns was sculptured by Scopas ; rather a curious circumstance, that just one of the thirty-six should be ascribed to so great an artist, and nothing be said of the makers of the other thirty-five ; and rather surprising, also, that Scopas should have been en- gaged on what was more properly the work of a stone-mason. The fact is, that in the common reading — ex Us XXXVI. caelatae, una a Scopa ; operi prac/uit Chersiphron, ^c. — the a is a conjec- tural insertion of Salmasius (who, however, with greater consistency, also changes una into m«o), and it is wanting in all the MSS. The case is one of those in which we can hardly hope to clear up the difficulty quite satisfactorily, but we are inclined to accept as the most probable solution that proposed by Sillig {Cat.Art.s.v. namely, to follow the reading of the MSS., pointing it thus: — eas its XXXVI. caelatae, Una Scopa operi praefuit Ckersiphron architectus, i. e. " Together with Sco- pas, Chersiphron the architect superintended the work ;" for wna, like simul^ may be used as a preposition with an ablative. It is known that Chersiphron was the architect, not of this temple, but of its predecessor, which was burnt by Hero- stratus [Chersiphron]. But it is clear enough from Pliny's whole description, that he confounded the two temples ; and therefore we may infer that. SCOPAS. 7S5 finding, in his Greek authorities, Chersipliron men- tioned as the architect of the one, and Scopas as the architect of the other, he confused the two to- gether. In no other passage is Scopas mentioned as the architect of this temple : it is generally ascribed to Deinocrates : but the variations in the name of the architect warrant the conclusion, which might be drawn a priori from the magnitude of the work, that more than one architect superin- tended its erection. The idea that Scopas may have been one of these architects, receives some confirmation from the reference of Pausanias, al- ready quoted, to his works in Ionia and Caria ; and the fact of his share in the temple not being referred to by any other writer, may be explained by his architectural labours having been eclipsed by his greater fame as a sculptor, and by the re- nown of Deinocrates as an architect, especially if the latter finished the work. The absence of any mention of Deinocrates by Pliny is another reason for retaining the name of Scopas in the passage. It is to be hoped that some critic may be able to cast some further light on a question which is so in- teresting as connected with the character of Scopas as an architect. 3. The part which Scopas took in the decoration of the Mausoleum has been already referred to. It is now scarcely possible to doubt, either that, by the sculptures mentioned by Pliny and Vitruvius, on the four faces of the edifice, we are to under- stand the bas-reliefs of the frieze of the peristyle which surrounded it, or that the slabs brought from Bitdrum (the ancient Halicarnassus), and now deposited in the British Museum, are portions of that frieze (see Diet, of Ant. 2nd ed. art. Mauso- leum). These slabs are thought, by competent judges, to show traces of different hands, and unfortunately we have no means whatever of determining which of them, or whether any of them, were the work of Scopas ; since, of the whole frieze we possess only enough to make up a quarter, or one side of the peristyle, and these pieces are not all continuous, nor were they found in their places in the building, but in the walls of the citadel of Budrum, into which they had been built by the knights of Rhodes. In consequence of an opinion that the reliefs are hai'dly worth}'- of the fame of Scopas, it has been suggested that the slabs Avhich we possess may have been all the productions of the other three artists ; but a supposition so perfectly gratuitous cannot be ad- mitted until some proof of it shall be furnished ; nor do we think it required by the case itself. A bas-relief on the frieze of a building must not be compared with such statues as those of the Niobe group. The artist was somewhat fettered by the nature of the work, and still more by the character of his subject, the battle of the Amazons, which belongs to a class from which, as may be seen in the Phigaleian frieze, and even in the metopes of the Parthenon, the conventionalities of the archaic style were never entirely banished. These remarks, however, are only intended to apply to the com- parison between these marbles and the separate statues, upon which the artist, free from all restraint, lavished his utmost skill ; for in truth, considered by themselves, they do not seem to us to need any apology. Allowance being made for the great " corrosion of the surface in most parts, they are beautiful works of art, and they exhibit exactly the characteristics of the later Attic school, as described 3c 2