236 Dr DONALDSON, ON THE STATUE OF SOLON 



authorship of the celebrated group of Niobe, which the ancients attributed to one or other of 

 these founders of the later Athenian school (Plin. H. N. xxxvi. 5, § 28), there is every reason 

 to believe that Scopas must have been employed both to make the marble statue of Solon, 

 which the Athenians had erected in the forum of Salamis, even if he did not design the bronze 

 statue of the same person which had been set up, apparently about the same time, before 

 the Pcecile Stoa (Pausan. i. 3 6, § 1 ; ^lian, V. H. viii. l6) in the forum at Athens (Pseudo- 

 Demosth. c. Jristog. ii. p. 807, § 27). The passage in Pliny, which mentions Scopas among 

 the workers in bronze (H. N. xxxiv. § 90 Sillig), is undoubtedly corrupt, and I should pro- 

 pose to read for philosophos Scopas uterque the words pJiilosophos poetasque. But although 

 Scopas generally took his subjects from mythology there is no doubt that he made statues of 

 human beings also. Horace, who must have seen many of his works, speaks of him as 

 (iv. Carm. 8, 8) : 



Sellers nunc hominem ponere, nunc deum. 



And a dedicatory statue of Solon would possess enough of the ideal to gratify his taste. That 

 the statue before us was quite in his style may easily be shown. The Apollo Citharcedus, in 

 the Pio-Clementine Museum, which is known to be a copy of the Palatine Apollo of Scopas 

 (Plin. H.N. XXXVI. 5, $ 25), is thus described by Propertius (ii. 31, ll): 



Pythius in longa carmina veste sonat: 



and exhibits precisely the same characteristics in the elaborate treatment of the drapery. Indeed 

 I do not know any ancient statues in which the folds of a robe and tunic are more carefully 

 given than in the Palatine Apollo and this statue, as I suppose, of Solon. The Maenad, which 

 was undoubtedly a work of Scopas (Miiller, Denkm. d. alt. Kunst, No. 140), shows in a lesser 

 degree the same skill in this department, and we have further exemplifications of it in the group 

 of Niobe, whether that was the work of Scopas or of Praxiteles (Miiller, Arch. § 126, p. 1 ; 

 Welcker, alte Denkmdler, i. pp. 218 sqq.). I incline with Schlegel and Gerhard to the belief 

 that this master-piece of Greek sculpture was due to the chisel of Scopas, and, if so, we may 

 compare the sandals of our figure with those on the feet of the youngest son of Niobe. 



But whether Scopas was or was not the sculptor of the Salaminian statue of Solon, it is 

 easy to show that the costume of the statue before us is that wliich is especially characteristic 

 of the most elegant and cultivated Athenians at the very period when, according to Demos- 

 thenes, the statue of Solon was erected. The orator describes the figure as ara/Be/SX^jMecos, 

 that is, with the luaTtov or mantle wrapped around it. " The himation," says Miiller {Arch. 

 & 337), "was a large square garment, generally drawn round from the left arm, which held it 

 fast, across the back, and then over the right arm, or else through, beneath it, towards the left 

 arm. The good-breeding of the free-born, and the manifold characters of life were recognised, 

 still more than in the girding of the chiton, by the mode of wearing the himation." Hence, 

 as AthensBus tells us (i. p. 21 b): " the ancients took great pains about gathering up (avaXan- 

 fidveiv) their clothes in an elegant manner, and ridiculed those who neglected to do this," and 

 he cites a remarkable passage from the Thecetetus of Plato, written about the time when Solon's 

 statue was set up, in which the illiterate and vulgar-minded pettifogger is described as " not 

 knowing how to put on his mantle to the right-about like a gentleman " {ava^dWeaOat ovk 



