VALUE OF THK STUDY OF ART. 207 



joii niaj be losing time. W'Jicii, hy long and aifcctionate inter- 

 course, jou shall have sufficiently entered into our intimacy to be 

 able at any given hour to evoke in your si)irit, as clearly as if we 

 stood before you, a vision of the forms whicli shall have become 

 dear to you, then the images M'hich shall be awakened in your 

 memories when you read the poets will be akin to those which the 

 same recitals and the same epithets suggested to the Greeks who 

 saw us born. To them you will be drawn by similarity of impres- 

 sion. You will be nearer to them, nearer to thinking and feeling 

 after their fashion, at least by moments, than the most subtle gram- 

 marian or the most learned Hellenist who never has seen us." 



Turning from Greece to Italy, Perrot derives a no less strik- 

 ing lesson from the statues of Roman emperors: 



" Is there a lesson, though given by the most learned professor, 

 that could cause to live before us all the life of the Rome of the 

 Caesars as do these effigies? In the long succession of portraits 

 which embrace three centuries of history the differences of times 

 and of men are contrasted more keenly and more vividly than in 

 the recitals of ancient authors or in the dissertations of modern 

 erudites. Augustus and Tiberius, Constantine and Theodosius, all 

 bore the same title — ' imperator ' ; all were called consuls, Caesars, 

 Augusti, patres patrice, etc. Nevertheless, from the first to the 

 fourth centuries the supreme power was greatly modified. Vol- 

 umes have been written to explain the change, but there is nothing 

 that makes it so clear as the comparison of the images of these 

 ])rinces. Augustus, in perhaps the most beautiful of all his statues, 

 called de Prima Porta, has his head, arms, legs, and feet bare. 

 Over the soldier's short tunic he wears a cuirass, and over it is 

 thrown the military mantle of command. He is represented as 

 supreme chief haranguing his troops. Another statue may repre- 

 sent him as a simple citizen, clothed with the toga and holding in 

 his hand the manuscript of the discourse he proposes reading to 

 the senate. The statues still show forth the Roman Republic, at 

 least the customs and the style of it. Most vividly is the spirit and 

 also the deception of the system perceived which, while investing 

 a single individual with a power almost limitless, affects for two 

 centuries a preservation of ancient liberties. Turn from these to 

 an image of one of the successors of Diocletian, one who preferred 

 to reside in Constantinople, the new capital of the empire. Do 

 not seek his image in one of the ceremonial statues where, by force 

 of routine, the sculptor may perchance have preserved classic rules; 

 but in monuments of another order, where the artist kept closer 

 to reality, in miniatures adorning manuscripts, in mosaics, in ivory 

 diptychs, etc. There you will find figures which have nothing left 



