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

I]LEPHAS. ELEPIIAS. 451
parts of gold and one of silver, proportions differ- viii. p. 372). While the sculptor wrought at
ing from those mentioned by Pliny. (Isid. xvi. once upon a material, which had been compara23.) tively neglected in the early stages of art, on acEilectrum was used for plate, and the other count of the difficulty of working it, while the
similar purposes for which gold and silver were statuary reproduced in a more durable substance
employed. It was also used as a material for those forms which had been first moulded in a
money. Lampridius tells us, that Alexander plastic material, another class of artists developed
Severus struck coins of it; and coins are in the capabilities of the other original branch of'
existence, of this metal, struck by the kings of sculpture, carving in wood, which, on account of its
Bosporus, by Syracuse, and by other Greek facility, had been the most extensively practised
states. (Eckhel, Doct. Num. Vet. vol. i. pp. xxiv. in early times, especially for the statues of the
Xxv.) [P. S.] gods. (Comp. STATUARIA, and Diet. of Biog. art.
E'LEPHAS (EAXEas). As we have to speak Daedasls.) The rude wooden images were not
of ivory chiefly in connection with Greek art, we only improved in form, but elaborately decorated,
place what we have to say of it under its Greek at first with colours and real drapery, and aftername, in preference to the proper Latin word wards with more costly materials. The first great
Ebur. (ElelioantLus is also used in poetry for step in their improvement was to make the parts
ivory; Virg. Georg. iii, 2G, Aen. iii, 464, vi, 896.) which were not covered by drapery, namely the
In the early writers, such as Homer, Hesiod, and face, hands, and feet, of white marble; such statues
Pindar, the word invariably means ivory, never the were called acco liths. The next was to substitute
eleplsant; just because the Greeks obtained ivory plates of ivory for the marble; and the further imby conmmerce long before they ever saw, or had provement, the use of beaten gold in place of real
occasion to speak of, the animal from which it was drapery, constitutrd the clasyselepshantine statues.
obtained. But, on the other hand, there can be This art was one of those which have attained to
no doubt that the word etymnologically signifies the their perfection almost as soon as they have reanimal, being identical with the Hebrew and ceived their first development. There were some
Arabic, Alepih and Elef; which means an ox or works of this description before the time of Pheiother large graminivorous animal; that is to say, dias*; but the art, properly regarded, was at
the Greeks received the substance ivory, together once created and perfected by him; and the reason
with the namne of the animal which produces it, and for its immediate perfection was, that the artist
naturally applied the latter to the former. (Re- was prepared for his work, not only by his genius,
specting the name see further Liddell and Scott's but also by a perfect knowledge of the artistic
Lericon, and Pott's Ety7m. For'SCe. pt. i. p. lxxxi.) laws, and the technical processes, of all the other
Hterodotus, as might be expected from his researches departments of his art.
in Asia and Africa, knew that ivory came from Chryselephantine statuary, as practised by Pheithe teeth of the elephant. (iv. 191; Plin. I. N. dias, combined, in addition to that perfection of
viii. 3. s. 4); while on the other hand writers as form which characterised all the great works of
late as Juba (Plin. i. c.) and Pausanias (v. 12. s. i.) the age, the elements of colossal grandeur, exquifell into the mistake of regarding the tusks as site beauty and delicacy of material, and the most
horns. rich and elaborate subsidiary decorations. The
The earliest mention of ivory in a Greek general effect of his Zeus or Athena was that of
writer is in a passage of the Iliad (v. 583), where the most imposing grandeur and the most perfect
it appears as an ornament for harness (i7v'a XEvSc' illusion to which art can attain. In a bronze or
e'Xpavm'r). In the Odyssey its use as an article of marble statue the material at once dispels the
luxury is so often referred to, that it is needless to illusion of reality; but the impression produced
enumerate the passages, which prove how exten- upon a spectator by the soft tints of the ivory, the
sively the Phoenician traders had introduced it coloured eyes and the golden robe of the Olympian
into the Greek cities of Asia Minor, and no doubt Zeus, to say nothing of the expression of the feaalso into Greece Proper. It appears among the tures and the figure, was almost that of looking
ornaments of houses, furniture, vessels, armour, upon the praesens numzen. These statues were the
harness, and so forth. Neither is there any oc- highest efforts ever made, and probably that ever
casion to trace its continued use among the Greeks call be made, to invest a religion of idolatry with
and Romans, down to the luxurious and expensive an external appearance of reality; and for the
period of the empire, when the supply furnished by sake of this immediate effect the artist was willing
increased commerce was greatly enlarged by the to forego the lasting fame which he would have
prodigious quantity of elephants, which were pro- obtained if he had executed his greatest works in
vided for the slaughters of the amphitheatre. It a more durable material.
was used, not only as an ornament for, but as the The most celebrated chryselephantine statues in
entire material of chairs, beds, footstools, and other Greece and the Greek states were those of Athena
furniture, statues, flutes, and the frames of lyres, in the Acropolis of Athens, of Zeus at Olympia, of
besides many other objects. Asclepius at Epidaurus, all three by Pheidias;
The most important application of ivory was to the Hera near Argos by Polycleitus (whose works
works of art, anld especially to those statues wvhich, ill this department are esteemed by some the most
being composed of gold and ivory, were called beautiful in existence, though others considered
chryselephantine (XpveAeePi'Trlv'a). them far inferior to those of Pheidias: comp. Strab.
The art of chryselephantine statuary must be viii. p. 372; Quinltil. xii. 10); the Olympian Zeus,
regarded as a distinct subdivision, different from -.
casting in bronze, and sculpturing in marble, and Mention is made of chryselephantine statues
indeed more nearly connected with carving in by Dorycleides, Theocles, Medon, Canachus, Mewood, as is even indicated by the application of the naechmus, and Suidas. (See the articles in the
name ~4ava to the master works in this art (Strab. Diet. of' Bioqi)
0G2