Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/263

 iii6 Primitive Greece: Mycenian Art. Iliady enable him to defy all comers ; a king, in fine, whose sword and spear always secure victory to the host he leads. Had not the king inured his body by hardships, and even ex- posed himself to danger in the intervals of peace by constant exercise in the pursuit of wild beasts, he would never have acquired the indomitable courage and daring which made of him a ruler of men. That he was a mighty tamer of monsters is proved by the lion and the antelope which fill the lower part of the first stela. Apparently there is no connection between this group and the one above, where the king and the enemy he has overthrown are depicted ; the link existed none the less for the artist and the spectator, for whom his work was intended, in the idea always present to every mind of the boundless superi- ority and prowess of the king. The enamelled Mycenee daggers and numbers of engraved stones show us the monarch spearing lions, whose approach caused every other animal to turn tail and flee. The mere sight of a running lion in pursuit of his prey at no great distance from the prince, would instantly call up to the mind a royal chase which the painter and goldsmith were wont to represent, whether on the frescoed walls of palaces, the blades of show weapons, or around golden goblets. The sculptor was debarred by want of space, and mayhap also by imperfect technique, from picturing royal chases side by side with a subject obviously marked out for him by tradition and long usage. This is another point which testifies to the superiority of composition in the stela under notice. If the scenes of the chase and of battle carved on these stelae were reduced to a species of abbreviated formula, recall- ing the event rather than representing it, the stricture does not apply to contemporary metal-work, where far greater freedom and technical knowledge are exhibited than can be vouchsafed to sculpture. The reader will judge of the truth of this assertion by glancing at the annexed sketch from a drawing by Tsoundas, made upon a fragmentary silver vase (Fig. 358).^ The honour of the discovery is divided between Schliemann — who brought it out with other objects from the grave — and A. Koumanoudis, keeper of the museum of the Archseological Society, who first pointed out the unique interest attaching to the piece. The fragment at the time of its exhumation was covered with a thick layer of
 * Tsoundas, '£<^i7/i£pfc.