[ ^9 ] 



his fublime defcription Phidias * caught the noble idea, which 

 enabled him to form his great mafter-piece, the Olympian Jove. 

 Perhaps alfo I may be allowed to mention, as in fome fort 

 favourable to this conjedlure, a pafTage of Strabo, who, Lib. viii. 

 page 593, cites the following ancient faying — Kofi^]/ug S" Itp^oci xxi 

 TO, roig ruv ©iuv Imovccg, ri f/,ovog iSuv, r; f^ovog iei^ag — " It is wittily 

 " faid of Homer that he alone faw the forms of the Gods, or he 

 " alone fliewed them." Indeed, though from the defcriptive 

 manner in which Homer every where fpeaks of the Gods we 

 might naturally be induced to fuppofe that he defcribes them 

 from images fuch as now exift, and which were freqiient in his 

 time, yet as there is fome reafon to fufpecSl, not only from the 



[ C 2 ] authority 



* For the verification of this ancient tradition fee Valerius Maximus, Lib. iii. page 314; 

 Macrobius, Lib. v. Saturnalium, Cap. xiii. ; but above all Strabo, Lib. viii. page 543. — 

 A«of4»)ifio»iuou[ri Je tod pijJioi;, &c. — " It is recorded that Phidias, being aflced by Pandaer,ua 

 (or rather Pansenus) what archetype he had chofen to imitate in exprefling the image of Jupiter, 

 anfwered, that which is propofed in thefe verfes of Homer, Iliad i. verfe 5281 



H. xai Kvctviyijtv i-TT o^fVffk vluae Kptjnup., 

 AjLti3foff(ai ^ Ufa. x^^^"^^ ETTE^'^wraw, ataxlof, 



Eurtathius alfo, in his note on this infpiring paffage, informs us that not only Phidias formed 

 his Jupiter upon this pattern, but that Euphranor alfo copied the fame idea in his famous 

 piflure of Jove In refutation of this fentiment of all antiquity the redoubted Scalig^r.^Vr ^il's 

 obftinate champion, at once cuts ftiort all authority by the following acute obfervation : 

 " Aut iudunt Phidiam, aut nos ludit Phidias; etiaii line Ho-nero puto ilium fciiie Jovem 

 " non carere fupcrcilus et casfarie." Matchltfs alTuranC'. i A modern hypercritic, with his 

 inconclufive, flat and vapid witticifm againft all antiquity ! liut fuch ii the ulual triumph of 

 modern fagaoity ! 



For an accurate defcription of th's ftatue, which was counted among the wonders of the 

 world, vide Pauf. Eliac. Prior. Cap. xi. page 400. ■V/ti^J 



