Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 14, 1903.djvu/294

 268 Greek Votive Offerings,

Vengeance^ &c., and relief-figures of Initiation, Dithyramb, Good Order^ but also more recondite compositions, such as the group dedicated by the Athenians at Delphi after the battle on the Eurymedon : "a palm tree of bronze, with fruit upon it, a gilt Athena and a couple of owls being apparently percht on the branches (Paus. lo. 15. 4, Plut. v. Nic. 13). This," says Dr. Rouse, modestly enough in comparison with other interpreters (see Busolt, Gr. Gesch.\\\. i. 144 n.), " must surely imply that Athena and her favourite city were now possessors of the east and its riches" (p. 145). In the same allegorical vein Alcibiades dedicated on the Acropolis a picture of Nemea seated with him upon her knees (Athen. 534E, cp. Paus. I. 22. 6).

The distinction that forms the basis of the foregoing classification, viz., between material and ideal offerings, is due, as the author acknowledges, to Reisch [Griechtsche Weihgeschenke, Wien, i8go, p. 5). But the elaboration and illustration of it throughout is Dr. Rouse's own, and is a very praiseworthy piece of work. It provides us for the first time with compartm.ents into which fresh facts can be conveniently sorted. Whether the species or even the genera recognised by Dr. Rouse can be regarded as finally settled is, of course, a different matter. The subject is one that affords endless opportunities for divergence of opinion, and that on broad questions of principle as well as on points of detail.

To speak of the principles first. Dr. Rouse sets aside as useless the distinction often drawn between public and private offerings, rightly remarking that the same feelings prompt both, and that both are meant to produce the same effects ; hence the supposed difference is, after all, only one of degree, not of kind.

The system of classification adopted and applied in detail by Dr. Rouse himself, is throughout based on logical differences; differences, that is to say, existing in the mind of the dedicator rather than in tin- nature of the object

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