Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/858

Rh 846 SMILIS. authority ; and then, when this has been done, another piece of chronological evidence has to be dealt with, totally inconsistent with either of the other accounts ; for Pliny tells us that the architects of the labyrinth of Lemnos were Sniilis, Rhoecus, and Theodorus (Plin. H.N. xxxvi. 13. s. 19; adopting the certainly correct emendation of Heyne, Smilis^ Rhoecus^ for Zmilus., Rholus). Now, al- though there is much difficulty about the precise date of Rhoecus and Theodorus, yet it is tolerably clear that they were historical personages, and that they lived after the commencement of the Olym- piads. How Pliny (or the Greek writer from whom he derived the statement) came to associate Smilis with these artists, whether it was because he found Rhoecus and Theodorus mentioned as the architects of the Heraeum, and Smilis as the maker of the statue in it, or whether their names were already thus associated in some native legend re- specting the labyrinth at Lemnos, — it is now hopeless to determine ; but, at all events, the his- torical existence of Smilis cannot be admitted on the authority of this passage ; nor can we accept, without some positive evidence, the conjecture of Miiller, followed by Thiersch, that the Smilis meant by Pliny was a real person belonging to a family which, like the Daedalids at Athens, pre- tended to derive its descent from the mythical artist Smilis ; much less can we even admit into discussion the miserably uncritical expedient pro- posed by Sillig. {Cat. Art. s. v. namely, to as- Bume that the Lemnian labyrinth was commenced by Smilis, and finished about 200 years latei by Rhoecus and Theodorus ! The true state of the case seems to be something of the following kind. Long before the historical period and even before the state of society contem- plated in some of the later legends, the necessities of an idolatrous worship had given rise to the art of carving rude statues of divinities out of wood. This art, according to a general analogy, soon became established at particular spots, among which Athens and Aegina were conspicuous ; at such places schools of art grew up, and the art itself made rapid progress ; so that the skill of the artists of these schools established their schools more and more firmly at those spots, which soon became centres from which the art was diffused. Now it was in most perfect keeping with the common Greek mode of embodying legends, that a personal representative should be imagined for each school, whose native place is its native home, and whose travels represent the diffusion of the art from that centre. Thus, like Daedalus at Athens, Smilis represents at Aegina the early establishment of a school of sculpture (wood- carving), and his visits to Samos and the Eleians * represent the early employment of the Aeginetan sculptors at two of the chief centres of Grecian worship. But more than this : as the Greeks had the most perfect faith in the reality of their legendary personages, it became tlie custom to ascribe actually existing works to these mythical artists ; and among the works ascribed to them were of course those extremely ancient wooden images {^oava), which the care of a succession of • When Pausanias says that these were the only places which the artist visited, he can mean nothing else than that they were the only places where works ascribed to him existed. SOAEMUS. priests had preserved from a period beyond any historical record, which were regarded with more reverence, as the original symbol of the god, than even the gold and ivory statues of a Pheidias, and the real origin of which was so entirely forgotten that some images of the same character, like that of Artemis at Ephesus, were even believed to have fallen straight from heaven [comp. Daedalus]. To this class of works belonged the statue of Hera in her temple at Samos. Pausanias, indeed, (/. c.) appears to fall into the error of assuming the contemporaneousness of tlie temple and the statue ; but, in the very same words, he gives us the means of correcting his mistake, for he infers the high antiquity of the temple from the high an- tiquity of the image ; and he goes on to explain what precise degree of antiquity he means, by Stating that Smilis was contemporary with Dae- dalus. A still more decided testimony to the extreme antiquity of the image is furnished By the tradition, referred to by Pausanias just before, that the Argives brought it with them, when they first established at Samos the worship of their own great goddess Hera. The statue is also expressly called a wooden one by Clemens Alexandriuus {Protrept. p. 13), and by Callimaclius (Fr. 105, Bentley), as quoted by Eusebius {Praep. Evang. iii. 8) ; and from the words used in these passages to describe the image {^i'^os and ^uMvov 'f:^os: it may be inferred that it was a wooden etatue in a sitting posture, one of the most ancient types of the statues of divinities. Of the same class were, no doubt, the statues of the Hours sitting upon thrones in the Heraeum at Elis, which were also ascribed to Smilis (Paus. v. 17. § 1, where the common reading "E/jllXos is undoubtedly wrong, and the alteration of it into 2;urAts is supported, besides other arguments, by the statement of Pau- sanias in the other passage referred to, that Sniilis visited the Eleians). [P. S.] SMINTHEUS l^nii^eeis), a surname of Apollo, w:hich is derived by some from a/xii/dos^ a mouse, and by others from the town of Sminthe in Troas (Hom. //. i. 39 ; Ov. Fast. vi. 425, Met. xii. 585 ; Eustath. ad Hom. p. 34). The mouse was regarded by the ancients as inspired by the vapours arising from the earth, and as the symbol of prophetic povver. In the temple of Apollo at Chryse there was a statue of the god by Scopas, with a mouse under its foot (Strab. xiii. p, 604, &c. ; Eustath. ad Hom. p. 34), and on coins Apollo is represented carrying a mouse in his hands (Miiller, A?icieut Art and its Rem. § 361, note 5). Temples of Apollo Smintheus and festivals (Smintheia) existed in several parts of Greece, as at Tenedos, near Hamaxitos in Aeolis, near Parion, at Lindos in Rhodes, near Coressa, and in other places. (Strab. x. p. 486, xiii. pp. 604, 605.) [L. S.] SMYRNA (Smu'p^o), a daughter of Theias and Oreithj'a, or of Cinyras and Cenchreis : she is also called Myrrhe, and is said to have given the name to the town of Smyrna. (Apollod. iii. 14. § 4 ; Ov. Met. x. 435 ; Anton. Lib. 34). Strabo (xiv. p. 633) mentions an Amazon who bore the same name. [L. S.] SOAEMUS or SOHAEMUS. 1. King of Ituraea, received the kingdom from Caligula. On his death, which Tacitus places in a. d. 49, Ituraea was annexed by Claudius to the province of Syria (Dion Cass. lix. 12 ; Tac. Ann. xii. 23.) 2. King of Sophene, a district in Armenia, be-