and Cicero, in one of his epistles to Atticus, charges him to procure for him various productions of her artists. But the number of Athenians who had forborne to desert their country was trifling when compared with the crowd of distinguished names who during the Augustan age pursued the profession of the arts at Rome. Amongst the latter were Dioscorides and Pasiteles, the lapidaries; Gnaios, the sculptor of the head of Hercules in the Strozzi cabinet ;* Evander, of whom Horace makes honourable mention; † Diogenes, who adorned the Pantheon of Agrippa; Crito, Nicolaus, Stephanus, and Menalus, to the latter of whom has been attributed the Orestes and Electra of the Villa Ludovisi. Her bereavement of such sons as these soon tended to depress the popular taste of Athens; and on comparing the Grecian medals and other relics of this age with those executed in Italy, the preference is decidedly in favour of the latter. It is a proof, however, of that fictitious feeling among the Romans, to which I have elsewhere alluded, that the works of these artists, numbers of whose productions have been justly classed * Ibid. 1. vi. c. 5. mensave catillum Evandri manibus tritum dejecit.”—l. i. Sat. iii. 1. 90. with those of their immortal ancestors,* were but lightly esteemed at Rome. As the city became crowded with the spoils of Greece,† their possessors, gradually imbibing a new species of rivalry, vied with each other, not in the excellence, but the antiquity of their marbles; ‡ and the beauties of a modern work were overlooked and despised, when brought into competition with the rude efforts of a remoter age.§ * Musée Franç. p. 93. And again, + Pliny, l. xxxiv. c. 7. Damasippus emendo." Horace, l. ii. s. 3. l. 63. "I nunc argentum, et marmor vetus, æraque et artes The first epistle of his second book is exclusively devoted to the censure of this absurd mania, which operated likewise to the prejudice of literature. Quintilian refers to the same absurd custom in the tenth chapter of his twelfth book, which contains his admirable essay on varieties of oratorical style. "Primi quorum quidem opera non vetustatis modo gratiâ visenda sunt, clari pictores fuisse dicuntur Polygnotus atque Aglaophon, quorum simplex color tam sui studiosos adhuc habet, ut illa prope rudia ac velut futuræ mox artis primordia, maximis, qui post eas exstiterunt auctoribus præferantur, proprio quodam intelligendi (ut mea fert opinio) ambitu." § The passion seems to have continued down to the time of Domitian, as we may infer from Martial: "Non est fama recens, nec nostri gloria coli; Nobile Lysippi munus, opusque vides.”—Lib. ix. e. 44. Pride, and not feeling or admiration, was, in fact, at all times the stimulus of the Romans to the cultivation of the fine arts. Even in the age of Augustus, the popular standard of value seems to have been regulated, not by merit or by mind, but by the puerile test of antiquity and elaborate finish; and the talent of the Grecian sculptors, even those the most endowed with genius or imagination, was employed, not on designs calculated to develope their intellectual powers, but in chiselling those busts and figures which were to perpetuate the names of their patrons. In these, of course, continued practice produced the most consummate skill; and we find, especially in later times, works of the Roman schools unrivalled in their excellence. But at the same time, this perfection was attained only by the sacrifice of more exalted branches of the art; and it has been well observed, that although Lysippus himself could not have produced a bust superior to that of Caracalla,† still the artist who designed it would have been equally incapable of rivalling a work of Lysippus.‡ Such are the heads of Macrinus, Septimus Severus, and Caracalla. Winkelmann, 1. iv. c. 6. + At the Farnese palace. We find this observation to hold good even in the age of Augustus, all whose statues which have reached us are of In monarchical governments we can generally discover a key to the tastes and manners of the times in the peculiar characteristics of their sovereigns; and the arts especially will be found in every era to take their tone from the habits of the court. At Rome, in particular, this principle was accurately demonstrated by the varied genius of the emperors. Thus sculpture, which under Augustus had still borne a dignified and manly air,* degenerated at once into frivolity and licentiousness under Tiberius, and was employed by Caligula and Claudius in placing their own portraits on the indifferent merit, whilst his busts and portraits engraved in jewels are of the most exquisite workmanship. The decline too was so rapid, that in the reign of Caligula, only about twenty years after, the Emperor is described by Suetonius as breaking off the heads of Grecian statues to replace them with his own; thus tacitly admitting the inferiority of the artists of the age in the delineation of figure, however great their excellence in chiselling the head. Pliny, too, satirizes the practice, which continued to his time: "Artes desidia perdidit," says he in another place, in speaking of the Roman portraits in the reign of Vespasian, " et quoniam animorum imagines non sunt, negliguntur etiam corporum." (1. xxxv. c. 2.) Philemon Holland, in translating this passage, has rendered it thus: "Thus it is come to passe, that while artificers play them and sit still for want of worke, noble arts by these meanes are decaied and perished." (Plinius' Historie of the World, Lond. fol. 1601.) Agincourt, v. ii. Sc. Introd. p. 15. + Winkelmann, 1. vi. c. 5. shoulders of Grecian statues which they had mutilated for the purpose. Of the age of Nero scarcely any marbles have reached us, but of the style of the period, we have ample records in the historians of the tyrant. The same passion for extravagance developed in his architecture manifested itself in the colossal statues and paintings of himself raised under his own directions; and the depravity of his taste is sufficiently evinced by the fact recorded by Pliny of his gilding the statue of Alexander by Lysippus.* Still, even in this age of depravity, there * Greece had been robbed by Caligula of a number of her remaining statues, which he caused to be carried to Rome, under the direction of his minion Memmius Regulus. The difficulty of transporting the Phidian Jupiter alone prevented its removal from Olympia. (Suetonius, Calig. c. 22.) In imitation of so worthy a model, Nero dispatched Acratus and Secundus Carinus into the Peloponnesus on a similar errand. Enimvero per Asiam et Achaiam non dona tantum sed simulacra numinum abripiebantur, missis in eas provincias Acrato et Secundo Carinate. Ille libertus cuicumque flagitio promptus, hic Græca doctrina ore tenus exercitus, animum bonis artibus non imbuerat." (Tacitus Annal. 1. xv. 45.) So successful were their ravages, that amongst other treasures they brought away from Delphi alone, five hundred statues of bronze, which the tyrant applied to the decoration of his golden house. Amongst these splendid spoils was the celebrated Apollo Belvidere and the Gladiator of the Borghese palace, which were discovered at Anzio, the birth-place of Nero. |