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XXIV. Essay upon the Art of tlie Foundry among the An- 

 tienls : with some Remarks vpon the celebrated Horses of 

 Ckioy now brought from Fenice to Paris, By M. Seitz. 



[Concluded from p. 29.] 



Multiplied Dangers to which the Horses of Chio were ex- 

 posed at Conslantinopley and their subsequent Removal hy 

 the Venetians. 



W HEN ihey arrived at Constantinople, by order of Theo- 

 Josius the younger, that city contained all the wonders of 

 antient art : there were then to be seen the Olympian Jupi- 

 ter of Phidias, the Venus of Cnidus and of Praxiteles, the 

 figure in honour of Lysippus, and the Juno of Sanios, a 

 colossus of an enormous size. If the greater part of the 

 monuments of Rome perished by the ravages which the 

 Goths committed on that city under their generals Alaric, 

 Genseric, andTotila*; the chefs d'oeuvre contained in Con- 

 stantinople were gradually destroyed by fires ; — a scourge to 

 which, by a singular fatality, this city was always exposed. 



Under the emperor Zeno, who reigned about the year 470 

 of the vulgar nera, a fire consumed the library and a great 

 number of other buildings : the fire penetrated to the public 

 square, where it destroyed the Juno of Samos, the Minerva 

 of Lindus, and the celebrated Venus of Cnidus f. 



In the fifth year of Justinian's reign, the people, inflamed 

 by the extortions practised by this prince, revolted. The 

 emperor introduced into the city the Hellurians, a barbarous 

 people, in order to quell the insurgents. This was the very 

 worst measure he could take, as the war instantly became 

 general ; the Barbarians massacred the people, while those 



* Winckelnian, in a dissertation upon the ruins of Rome, has maintained 

 rtiat it was not the Barbarians who destroyed the monuments of Rome. Ac- 

 cording to him, Totila pardoned the inhabitants as soon as he entered the 

 rify, and endeavoured to conciliate their good wiH; but it was not until the 

 flames had ravaged Rome for thirteen days, and three-fourths of the 

 ciiy had been so much destroyed that it could never be restored. It was 

 iison ruins, therefore, that he exercised his benevolence, and with the sole 

 view of recalling tho5e inhabitants who fled in order to escape his fury. 



■{■ Z-onar. Annalcs Conslantiiidp. lib. xiv. p. 55. 



who 



