Page:The Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology, Volume 1, 1854.djvu/249

 On the Classical Authorities for Ancient Art. 239 to offer on the evidences obtainable from Classical texts on Clas- sical Polychromy, I purpose to devote this present article to a preliminary enquiry once for all on the more special sources of the testimonia litterarum, with reference to the history of ancient artists and the processes of ancient art. Along with or subsequent to the enumeration of the witnesses, I would test the value of the evidence, and see how far the wish to be veracious was unable to compensate for want of judgment, of the " inda- gatio eorum quae rei cujusque natura fert vel poscit." And here I would observe that I think we should be apt to form a very erroneous estimate of the value of those works on ancient art which time has spared, if we did not bear in mind the nature and number of like works of which time (for all that we know at present) has left us nothing but the mention and the name : works, remember, some of which Pliny and Pausanias had in their armaria^ and to which they would doubtless refer, if they could rise from their graves, as vouchers for many a statement, which now rests with them alone. Accordingly, I hope it will be not thought paradoxical, if I preface my remarks on works extant by a catalogue raisonne of works lost. My object, I wish it to be understood, is a very simple one : first, to find out all I can about certain lost works and authors, referred to by Pliny and other extant writers on art : secondly, to estimate the trust- worthiness and value generally of those who so refer to them. I shall. begin with the Sir Joshuas and Flaxmans of antiquity, who appear to have handled the stylus as well as the chisel and the pafibLov. Among the authorities quoted by Pliny in the list of contents of Book xxxiv. of his Natural History is one Men- aechmus " qui de toreutice scripsit." It seems but fair to con- jecture, that it is to the same Menaechmus he alludes in xxxiv. 19, 80 (Ed. Sillig. 1851), where he says: "Menaechmi vitulus genu premitur, replicata cervice : ipse Menaechmus scripsit de sua arte." This is all that Pliny tells us about this artist-author, Menaechmus. The "replicata cervix" immediately turns the thoughts of the archaeologist to the so-called Mithraic bas- reliefs and statues, which are to be seen in the most considerable collections in Europe. In the Louvre is to be found one of the most curious, in the British Museum two of the most beautiful, of these representations. Works of ancient art handmaid as she was to religion fall so readily into classes, have so much