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

STATUARIA ARS STATUARIA ARS. 1067'
In the various kingdoms which arose out of the a date. In Sicily the activity of the artists appears
conquests of Alexander the arts were more or less to have ceased after the Roman conquest, for the:
cultivated, and not only were the great master- numerous works with which Syracuse was adorned
works of former times copied to adorn the new ca- and with which we are made acquainted by Cicero
pitals, but new schools of artists sprang up in several (c. TIerr. iv.), mostly belong to an earlier period.
of them. Alexandria, Pergamus, and Seleuceia Shortly before the taking of Corinth by Mumrivalled each other ill art no less than in literature. mius, statues in bronze and marble were revived
At Pergamus the celebrated groups were composed at Athens; and although the artists were far inwhich represented the victories of Attalus and ferior to those of former times, yet they still proEumenes over the Gauls. (Plin. H. N. xxxiv. 8. duced works of great excellence, as they showed
s. 19. ~ 24; Paus. i. 25. ~ 2; Plut. Aniton. 60.) their good sense and taste by making the masterIt is believed by some (Miiller, Arc/h. ~ 158) that works of their predecessors the subjects of study
the so-called dying gladiator at Rome is a statue of and imitation. (Plin. H. N. xxxiv. 8. s. 19.) Among
a Gaul, which originally belonged to one of these those who contributed most to this revival of stagroups. Ephesus also had a flourishing school of tuary were Cleomenes (who made the Medicean
art, which appears to have followed ill the main Venus, an imitation of that of Cnidus, but inferior
the style of Lysippus, and excelled, like that of in point of taste and delicacy), his son Cleornenes
Pergamus, in the representation of battle scenes. (by whom there is a statue in the Lcuvre, which
The Borghese fighter in the Louvre is supposed to shows exquisite workmanship but little life), Gly.
be the work of an Ephesian Agaslas, and to have con, Apollonius, and others. (See their lives in
originally filormed a parl of' such a battle-scene. In the.Didt. of Biog.)
Syria too, art flourished at Antioch until the time About the close of this period, and for more than
ot' Antiochus IV., before whose reign a number of a century afterwards, the Romans, in the conquest
statues had already been carried away by Scipio. of the countries where the arts had flourished,
In these new monarchies statues of the gods made it a regular practice to carry away the works
vwere seldom male, and when they were executed of art; and, as they were unable to appreciate their
they were in Imost cases copies from earlier works, value and merit, they acted in many cases no
as the character in which the gods were repre- better than rude barbarians, regarding the most
sented had gradually become fixed, and few artists precious relics of art in no other light than that of
ventured to alter the forms, which had become chairs and tables, which might be made again at
typical. Portrait-statues of kings increased, on pleasure and at any time. At first these robberies
the other hand, to a great extent. The vanity of were carried on with some moderation, as by Marthe kings and the flattery of the artists created a cellus at Syracuse and by Fabius Maximus at
new kind of statues: the princes were frequently Tarentum, and only with a view to adorn their
identified with certain deities, and were conse- triumphs and the public buildings of Rome. The
quently represented as such with all the requisite triumphs over Philip, Antiochus, the Aetolians,
attributes. In many cases the mere bust of a king the Gauls in Asia, Perseus, Pseudo-Philip, and
was put upon the body of a statue of a god. This above all the taking of Corinth, and subsequently
was a most dangerous rock for artists; for the the victories over Mithridates and Cleopatra, filled
simple representation of a king in the shape of a the Roman temples and porticoes with the greatest
god, which commenced as early as the time of variety of works of art. After the taking of CoAlexander, was soon thought an insufficient mark rinth, the Roman generals and governors of proof veneration, and art degenerated into a mere in- vinces began to show a kind of amateurship in
strunment of the most vulgar flattery: pomp and works of art, which was probably more owing to
showv and tasteless ornaments were mistaken for art. the fashion prevailing amongr the Roman grandees
Flattery towards the great was also shown in the than to any real taste or love for the fine arts:
monstrous number of statues that were erected to they now carried off whatever they could, to adorn
one and the same individual. Demetrius Phalereus their owln residences. Sometimes either their avyehad 360, or according to others 1500 statues erected rice or necessity induced them to melt down the
to him. (Athen. xii. p. 537; Paus. v. 24. ~ 3; most precious works without any regard to artistic
Clem. Alex. l'otlrept. iv. p. 16, ed. Sylb.; Dion worth. The sacrilegious plunder of temples and
Chrysost. Orat. 37. p. 122.) When the honour of the carrying away of the sacred statues from the
a statue ceased to be considered as a high distinc- public sanctuaries, which had at first been pretion, and when it became necessary to produce vented to some extent by the pontiffs, became
such numbers of statues, tihe workmanship na- afterwards a common practice. The manner in
turally became worse in proportion as the lionour which Verres acted in Sicily is but one of many
sank in public estimation. During this time it instances of the extent to which these robberies
became customary to combine with the statues of were carried on. The emperors, especially Aukings and generals symbolical representations of gustus, Caligula, and Nero, followed these examtowns, which are called TruXal 7rohAec. In Magna ples, and the immense number of statues which
Graecia art gradually fell into decay after the wars notwithstanding all this remained at Rhodes, Delwith the Romans; and the example of Capua, phi, Athens, and Olympia, is truly astonishing.
from which all the statues were carried to Rome, (See VIlkel, Ueber die Wieyfiihlteng der alien
affords us an instance of the robberies and plunder Kuinstwerke a- s den esroberten Linzders e ach R1omc;
which were committed by the Romans in other MViller, AArchiiol. ~ 164, &c.)
towns of Italy. But even after the Roman con- Before we proceed to describe the state of staquests the cultivation of the phlstic arts cannot have tuary during the last stage, in which Rome was the
ceased altogether, as we must infer fronm the nu- centre of the ancient world, it will be necessary to
merous works found at Pompeii, some of which give aan outline of the history of statuary among
possess a higher degree of perfection and beauty the Etruscans and Romans down to the year 14i
thaei might have been expected in works of so late t. c.