Page:The Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology, Volume 1, 1854.djvu/259

 On tJie Classical Authorities for Ancient Art. 249 i/. Among the literary Artemons, I cannot find any to whom I should be inclined to attribute this work. I therefore turn to Pliny, where I find the following statement respecting a painter of the same name, from which we must endeavour to elicit his date. " Artemon Danaen, mirantibus earn praedonibus ; reginam Stratonicen ; Herculem ab (Eta monte Doridos exuta mortalitate, consensu Deorum in coelum euntem ; Laomedontis circa Hercu- lem et Neptunum memoriam. ,, (xxxv. 11. 40). With regard to the first picture, I should be inclined to the reading of the Dale- camp codex [K], which substitutes piscatoribus for prazdonibus : for I have no doubt that the moment depicted was the arrival of the castaway daughter of Acrisius on the island of Seriphus. Strabo's version of the story is that the apva containing her and her child Perseus was there fished ashore by Dictys. I cannot find out from the fragments of the Dictys of Euripides, whether the poet made the brother of Polydectes a fisherman or not. At any rate, his name is decidedly piscatorial ; which circumstance, combined with Strabo's express testimony, removes, from my mind at least, all hesitation about the substitution proposed. Nor is this all. Among the Kei^Xta of the Museo Campana at Rome is a vase, of the so-called " early Doric" style, one side of which represents the golden shower affair, while on the other we find the very scene here spoken of by Pliny. What if the vase-painter had seen Artemon's picture ? nay more : what if he had actually copied it? That vase-paintings often are reduced copies of larger studies by more famous artists, is an opinion pretty generally held in the archaeological world. In the present case, however, I do not pretend to do more than throw out the conjecture. Our chief, indeed our only clue to the date of this Artemon, is to be gathered from the painting next mentioned, the portrait of Queen Stratonice. Stratonices there were many: but of these the most famous was the daughter of Demetrius and Phila, whom her husband Seleucus surrendered to gratify the love of his own son, who a la Don Carlos was passionately enamoured of his step-mother. This would place Artemon about B.C. 280. With regard to the paintings mentioned by Pliny as deposited in the " Octaviae Opera" a term, all are aware, of some latitude I may as well mention that as in the Danae pic- ture, so likewise in the apotheosis of Hercules, a vase has come down to us (Gerhard. Ant Bildw. I. 31), which answers exactly