ig6 EisoT/ upon the Art of the Foundry 



Greece, properly so called/ was not as yet sufiiciently c'vi- 

 lizctl to pay any attent.on to the arts which flow irom 

 luxury. Homer, who wrote in Asia Minor, could not know 

 any thing of the buckler of Achilles, except from some mo- 

 dels which nmst have resembled it. When he describes 

 the palace of Alcinous *, he speaks of two does, one of gold 

 and the other of silver, which Vulcan had presented to this 

 prince. He places in the same cdilice statues of cold repre- 

 senting young boys holding lighted torches ; hut it is in Asia 

 he places all this ; and when he describes the palaces of the 

 Greek princes, wc see plenty of riches, but no imitative 

 work f. 



It was from the Lydians and the Phrygians that the 

 Greeks of Asia Minor received the art of melting and work- 

 ing in bronze, as well as the musical instrunienls of the 

 Lydian fashion, and their manufactures. The works still 

 shown of the time of Herodntus J, at Delphos, are proofs 

 of this. According to him, Midas, king of Fhrygia, sent 

 to the Delphic Apollo a throne, probably of bronze, or some 

 other precious metal, which was remarkable for workman- 

 ship ; and Gyges, king of Lydia, consecrated to the same 

 god six goblets of gold weighnc; thirtv talents, and pro- 

 bably made in the country. From Asia Minor this art pe- 

 netrated into the islands of the Ionian Sea; and the first 

 founders in metal known by the Greeks were inhabitants of 

 the islands of Samos and Ohio. 



While Greece was torn with factions and intestine wars, 

 the Etruscans made great progress in the melting of the 

 metals. The most anlient statues of these people have their 

 arms resting on their sides, like those of the Egyptians §; 

 which inclines us to think they received their first arts and 

 their theolog" from the F^gyptians and the Phoenicians, with 

 ■whom they traded. They lived, moreover, in a state of 

 calmness and tranquillity, which lasted to the time of the 



* Odyssey, book vii. ver. 92 and 100. 



f 1 think il is going too far to assert that the art of CTeci-tin^ works of imi- 

 tation was unknown in Greece at the time of Homer. — tVo/e by M. Milliit, 

 J Book i. ch. 14. 

 § Gori, Museum Elruscum. 



prepon- 



