316 flint's natural histojit. [BookXXXVI. 



quantity of gold that covers it. The same question, too, 

 arises with reference to the Cupid brandishing a Thunderbolt, 

 now to be seen in the Curia of Octavia : the only thing, in 

 fact, that is affirmed with any degree of certainty respecting 

 it, is, that it is a likeness of Alcibiades, who was the hand- 

 somest man of his day. There are, too, in the Schools ^^ of 

 Octavia, many other highly attractive works, the authors of 

 which are now unknown : four Satyrs, for example, one of 

 which carries in his arms a Father Liber, robed in the palla;^^ 

 another similarly supports the Goddess Libera f'^ a third ia 

 pacifying a child who is crying ; and a fourth is giving a child 

 some water to drink, from a cup ; two Zephyrs also, who 

 agitate their flowing drapery with their breath. No less ia 

 the uncertainty that prevails as to the authors of the statues 

 now to be seen in the Septa f^ an Olympus^^ and Pan, and a 

 Charon and Achilles ;'° and yet their high reputation has 

 caused them to be deemed valuable enough for their keepers 

 to be made answerable for their safety at the cost of their lives. 

 Scopas had for rivals and contemporaries, Bryaxis,'^ Timo- 

 theus,'''- and Leochares,^^ artists whom we are bound to men- 

 tion together, from the fact that they worked together at the 

 Mausoleum ; such being the name of the tomb that was 

 erected by his wife Artemisia in honour of Mausolus, a petty 

 king of Caria, who died in the second year of the hundred and 

 seventh Olympiad. It was through the exertions of these 

 artists more particularly, that this work came to be reckoned 

 one of the Seven Wonders of the World.'* The circumfer- 

 ence'^ of this building is, in all, four hundred and forty feet, 



65 See B. XXXV. c. 37. 



66 A large upper garment, reaching to the ankles. 



^"^ Both Liber and Libera were originally Italian Divinities, who pre- 

 sided over the vine and the fields. Pliny, however, always identifies the 

 former with Bacchus, and other writers the latter with Persephone, or 

 Proserpina, the daughter of Demeter or Ceres. Ovid, Fasti, B. iii. 1. 512, 

 calls i\jiadne, " Libera," 68 ggg ^ ^y^^ q yg^ 



69 A disciple of Marsyas, and a famous player on the flute. See p. 319. 



'o All these figures have been found copied in the frescoes of Hercula- 

 neum. ''^ See B. xxxiv. c. 19. 



'2 It is doubtful whether this is the same artist that is mentioned in B. 

 xxxiv. c. 19. ■'s See B. xxxiv. c. 19. 



'* Hence, too, the use of the word ^' Mausoleum," as meaning a splendid 

 tomb. 



'* He means, probably, the extent of the colonnade or screen which 

 surrounded it. The Mausoleum was erected at Halicarnassus. 



