Dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

10X4 STATUARIA ARS. STATUARIA ARS.
barians, now felt strong enough to act on the offen- H. iV. xxxiv. 19. ~. 1; Quinctil. xii. 10. ~ 7; Cic.
sive. The fall of the Spartan Pausanias raised Brut. 18; Lucian, Imag. 6.) Pythagoras was disAthens ill 472 B. c. to the supremacy in the wars tinguished for the perfection with which he exagainst Persia. Athens had now acquired a pow- pressed the muscles, veins, and hair in his athletic
erful navy, and the tributes of the allies, which statues, for the beautiful proportions and the poweramounted at different times from 460 to 1200 ful expression of these'statues which, as Pliny says,
talents, and which from 462 B. c. were deposited made the beholders feel the pains which the indiin the treasury at Athens, raised the city to a viduals represented were suffering. (Plin. H. Ar
height of power such as few cities have ever pos- xxxiv. 19. ~ 4; Paus. vi. 6. ~ 1; 13. ~ 4.) Several
sessed. Only a small portion of these treasures of his works are specified by Pausanias and Pliny.
was spent upon war; the rest was applied at first ( See Diet. of Biog. s. v.) The career of Pheidias the
to the fortification of the city, and afterwards to Athenian begins about 01. 82. The genius of this
the building of temples, porticoes, theatres, gym- artist was so great and so generally recognised, that
nasia, &c. Among them we need only mention all the great works which were executed in the age
the Theseum, the Parthenon, the Propylaea, the of Pericles were placed under his direction, and
stone theatre, the Poecile, and the Odeum. After thus the whole host of artists who were at that time
the wars with Persia Athens appears by no means assembled at Athens were engaged in working out
exhausted or broken down, but refreshed and his designs and ideas. (Plut Peric. 12.) He himstrengthened like nature after a heavy storm. self was chiefly engaged in executing the colossal
Statuary during this period went hand in hand works in ivory and gold, the expenses of which
with the other arts and with literature: it became were supplied by the Greek states with the greatest
emancipated from its ancient fetters, from the stiff- liberality, and other works in bronze and marble.
ness and conventional forms of former times. The (For all account of the chryselephantine statues of
free and noble spirit of the Athenian democracy Athena at Athens, and of Zeus at Olympia, and.
showed its influence in all departments of litera- the other works of Pheidias, see the Dict. of Bioq.
ture and art, and among the latter statuary reached s. v.) Pheidias was greatest in the representation
its culminating point in the subl'ime and mighty of the gods, and especially in portraying the chaworks of Pheidias. (See Dict. of Biog. s. v. Phei- racter of Athena, vhlich he represented with various
dias.) The democratical spirit did not however modifications, sometimes as a warlike goddess, and
lead to any kind of extravagance in the arts: no sometimes as the mild and graceful protectress of
vehement passions or actions were represented, and the arts. (Plin. Hi. N. xxxiv. 8. s. 19. ~ 1; Panus. i.
although the character of those works which belong 28. ~ 2; Lucian, Imag. 6.)
to the latter half of this period differs very much We do not read of many disciples of Pheidias,
from those of the former half, yet on the whole but the most distinguished among them were
all show a calm dignity and an almost passionless Agoracritus of Samos and Alcalmenes of Athens.
tranquillity of mind, a feature so peculiar to all Both, though the latter with greater independence,
the great masterpieces of Grecian art. The Pelo- applied their skill like their master to statues of
ponnesian war and the calamities which accom- the gods; both were especially renowned for the
panied it produced a change in the state of things; great beauty, softness, and calm majesty with
a new generation now stepped into the place of which they represented goddesses, il the composithe heroic race which had partaken in or witnessed tion of which they rivalled each other. Some of
the memorable events of the Persian war. Sen- the statues of Alcamenes were very highly valued
suality and an indulgence of the passions became in antiquity, especially his Hecate, Athena, Aphrothe prominent features in the character of the dite in the gardens, Hephaestus, and also thel
Athenian people; and the prevailing desire after groups in the pediment of the temple at Olympia.
pleasures and strong excitements could not fail to i The most celebrated statue of Agoracritus was the
produce an injurious influence upon the arts also. Nemesis of Rhamnus, which had originally been
In the works of art which were produced after the intended as an Aphrodite to compete with that of
year 380 B. C. there was no longer that calm and Alcamenes, but was afterwards by the addition of
sublime majesty which characterised the works of the proper attributes consecrated as a Nemesis at
Pheidias and his more immediate followers, but the Rhamnus.
figures were more pathetic, and calculated to have VWe still possess a series of sculptured works in
a greater effect upon the senses of the beholders. marble which were made by the school of Pheidias,
The different stages of the arts during this period and some of them undoubtedly by the great master
bear the most striking analogy with the three himself. These works are:
phases of tragedy as they lie before us in the works i. Some parts of the eighteen sculptured metopes,
of the three great dramatists, Aeschylus, Sophocles, together with the frieze of the small sides of the
and Euripides. cella of the temple of Theseus. Ten of the metopes
Argos was, next to Athens, the most distin- represent the exploits of Heracles, and the eight
guished seat of the arts during this period, and the others those of Theseus. The figures in the fiieze
works of the Athenian and Argive artists spread are manifestly gods, but their meaning is uincertain.
over all Greece, and became the models for other All the figures are fill of life and activity, and
Greek artists. worked in the sublime style of the school of PheiThe developement of statuary at Athens and dias. Some antiquarians value them even higher
Argos had been prepared by Calamis of Athens than the sculptures of the Parthenon. Casts of
and Pythagoras of Rhegium, the former of whom, these figures are in the British Museum. (Compare
although not quite free from the hardness of the Stuart, Alnt. iii. chap. 1.)
earlier style, yet produced a great variety of works, 2. A considerable number of the metopes of the
among which are mentioned representations of gods Parthenon, which are all adorned with reliefs in
in a sublime style, graceful statues of women, and marble, a great part of the frieze of the cella, some
spirited horses, in which he was unrivalled, (Plin, colossal figures, and a nuilmberof fragments of the