109 



JEGINETAN ABT. 



no 



decrees of the senate. The care of the public buildings and streets on 

 Mount Aventine and in the immediate neighbourhood, which in early 

 timea formed the chief residence of the commonalty, and was without 

 the limits of the city, must hare been, we may infer from their title, 

 entrusted to the plebeian icdiles. Their persons, like those of the 

 tribunes, were inviolable. There were other duties connected with the 

 office of sedile, whether curule or plebeian, such as the inspection of 

 the markets, and the superintendence of the corn trade, the examination 

 of weights and measures, the registration of courtesans, and perhaps 

 _the general management of all matters of police in Rome and the 

 suburbs : they had, of course, their courts for inquirjng into and 

 punishing offences connected with their office. The curule sedileship 

 was the second in the series of honours through which the Roman 

 candidate proceeded to the consulship; and the laws required an 

 interval of a whole year after the close of the qusestorship, before any 

 one could be a candidate for the sedileship. The title of ajdile was 

 known also in the municipal towns of Italy. 



^EOINE'TAN ART. Several ancient writers, particularly Pliny 

 and Pausanias, make frequent mention of ^ginetan works of art ; 

 and in such a manner, as to show that the productions of the 

 school of J5gina, to use a modern and well understood phrase, 

 were highly esteemed. Many names of Jiginetaii sculptors had thus 

 come down to us as almost synonymous with excellence in their art, 

 but the works of none of these could be recognised among those which 

 had escaped the ravages of time and the desolation of barbarism ; so 

 that their merits and reputation rested on report alone. The discovery 

 of the sculptures which adorned the tympana of the supposed Pau- 

 hellenium, the national temple of the JJginetans, was believed, however, 

 to have furnished us with undoubted specimens of ^ginetan art, and 

 of that period too in which the most celebrated ^Eginetan sculptors 

 flourished. This conclusion there is reason to thiuk was too hastily 

 adopted. That the sculptures referred to are of great beauty and merit, 

 and are for many reasons highly interesting, will be admitted by all ; but 

 that they are of the class and date from which the school of ^Egiua 

 derived ita celebrity, may fairly be questioned. It may now be regarded 

 as beyond doubt that the building was a temple of Minerva and not of 

 Jupiter (Miiller, ' Archaeologie der Kunst,' a. 90 ; Wordsworth, ' Greece,' 

 p. 190, ed. 1859), and it is highly probable that it was wholly, or in 

 part, rebuilt by the Athenians when in possession of /Egina. The 

 sculpture is evidently of different dates, and it may be, as has been 

 suggested (Scharf, in Wordsworth, p. 46), that the figures of the 

 western pediment, which are of a smaller size and less advanced in 

 style than those in the eastern, are really ^Eginetan works ; while those 

 in the eastern pediment are by Athenian sculptors. 



The figures principally consist of perfect statues, or statues in the 

 round, la they are termed ; those in the eastern pediment about the 

 . lift, those in the western somewhat smaller, of men armed with 

 spears, swords, shields, and bows. The bowmen have quivers of arrows 

 suspended from their waists ; most of the figures are helmed or bon- 

 neted, some with greaves on the legs, and two or three with armour on 

 the 1 irxly , f T close-fitting garments on the body and limbs ; but for the 

 most part they are naked, except the head, and all are either engaged 

 in active combat or have fallen from the effect of wounds. Besides the 

 male combatants, one helmed and draped female figure, with a spear 

 and a shield in her hands, and the helmed head of another, evidently 

 belonged to the groups. These were all so distributed on the ground 

 with reference to the temple, and are of such peculiar attitudes with 

 respect to one another, and to the places they occupied, that there 

 appears to have been no great difficulty in determining their original 

 ;ruent in groups, after the fragments into which many of the 

 figures were broken, were once brought together; especially as the 

 frames which inclosed the pictures they formed, were otherwise detej- 

 uunable, and thus assisted materially in fixing the relative positions of 

 the parts composing the groups. Thus, the perfect female figure, 

 evidently a statue of Minerva, standing upright and in full face, occu- 

 pied the central position under the highest part of the tympanum of 

 the western pediment ; and the combating warriors of that end arranged 

 themselves on her right and left, in attitudes upright and advancing, 

 kneeling, stooping, and falling, until the inner acute angles termi- 

 ' in the wounded and recumbent. The goddess stands in quiet 

 dignity, prepared, nevertheless, for action, while the battle, of which 

 she appears to be the umpire, rages around her. Of this picture or 

 group, the arrangement is so fitting and complete, and the action so 

 perfect, that there is no reason to think, that any essential portion of 

 it is undiscovered. But unfortunately it is not so with the group of 

 the eastern or principal front ; a few only of these figures can be re- 

 1. and it is only from the analogy afforded by the western group, 

 heir arrangement can be aptly determined. As far as the figures 

 can be made out, the persons seem to be nearly, if not quite, identical, 

 i period of the same action appears to be represented. The 

 ile head in that of Minerva again, and Mr. Cockerell restores 

 her figure as in the act of raising her spear and extending her vest, as 

 if to stop the contest, or to protect the fallen. The exact subject or 

 subjects intended by these groups, u not known ; though all the critics 

 liave offered opinions seein to agree that they represent some 

 actions of the distinguished ./Eginetan family of heroes, the ^acidsc, or 

 descendants of .tacus, the mythological founder of the nation. Colonel 

 LeakeV, opinion.. .y Mr. Cockerell (' Journal of Science and 



the Arts, No. 12, p. 334, note), is that they represent two periods 

 in the contest over the body of Patroclus, from the ' Iliad,' in which 

 Ajax (one of the ^Eacidse) and Hector were the principal com- 

 batants : that this was the subject of the western pediment, there 

 can be little doubt. That something connected with the Trojan 

 war is intended in each, seems very evident, from the Phrygian 

 bonnet worn by one of the warriors ; and the greaves on the legs of 

 those who may be supposed to be Greeks, in the eastern group, 

 especially, and the absence of this covering on the figures of the oppo- 

 site party, seem clearly indicative of their national difference. Thiersch's 

 opinion is, that the group on the eastern pediment represents the expe- 

 dition of Telamon, the son of ^Eacus, and Hercules, against Laomedon, 

 king of Troy. The archer he considers to be the representation of 

 Hercules. The other group, he thinks, may represent the death of 

 Achilles, and the struggles of Ajax to save his body from the Trojans. 

 (Thiersch's ' History of Greek Sculpture,' p. 249, note.) The sculptures 

 are now in Munich, having been purchased by the late king of Bavaria, 

 when crown prince. Such of the statues as were capable of repair 

 were very carefully put together, and the deficient parts supplied by 

 Thorwaldsen. Casts of the figures, as restored, are placed in the 

 Phigalian Saloon of the British Museum, within two tympana of exactly 

 the same form and dimensions as those of the eastern and western ends 

 of the temple at ^Egina, in which they originally stood. 



There is scarcely anything in the combination of sculpture and 

 architecture more admirable than the manner in which the various 

 actions and attitudes, in the western group of the figures, have been 

 adapted to the situations which they occupied ; and this too, without 

 the slightest appearance of constraint ; they are all natural and graceful, 

 and in perfect keeping with the design of the subject, and the character 

 of the architecture. The energy of action, the grace of attitude, and 

 the truth of proportion displayed in these works, are also admirable, 

 and the expression of many of the figures is excellent. But there is a 

 degree of dryness and rigidity Observable in the bodies and limbs, 

 which give the works an archaic character, whilst the countenances, 

 the hair, and the draperies, clearly betoken their near approach to, if 

 not absolute connection with, the archaic period. The faces are almost 

 entirely devoid of expression, the lips are thick, the nose is short, but 

 angular and prominent ; the eyes are protruded, the forehead is flat 

 and retiring, and the chin is long and pointed ; the hair is formally 

 laid in tiers with convoluted ends, and the draperies, though not de- 

 void of grace, are heavy and monotonous. (Lyon's ' Outlines of the 

 ^Egina Marbles.') Now these are peculiarities which could scarcely 

 have existed in the works of men whose names are mentioned with 

 those of Phidias and his compeers and immediate successors ; but they 

 pretty clearly mark a more remote period. The comparative fulness of 

 form, and freedom of action of the bodies and limbs of the figures in 

 the eastern pediment, indicate, on the other hand, a date not far 

 removed from excellence. On every part of the figures, except the 

 face, traces of colour are plainly discernible ; there are holes in many of 

 the figures for affixing bronze armour, and the hair was partly of wire. 



The temple of ^Egina is described and figured at the end of the 

 article .iEoiNA, in the GEOGRAPHICAL Dmsio:>: of the ENGLISH CTCLO- 

 MiDtA, vol. i. col. 72, &c. 



JE'NEID, the most celebrated epic poem of antiquity, after the 

 ' Iliad ' and ' Odyssey.' It was written by Virgil in the time of 

 Augustus Caaar ; and relates the wanderings of ./Eneas after the siege 

 of Troy, his arrival in Italy, and his adventures previous to his marriage 

 with Lavinia, with his final establishment in Latium. The poem, 

 however, does not carry its hero so far as this, but closes with a single 

 combat between ./Eneas and Turnus, and the death of the latter. 

 In some respects Virgil has deviated from the legend related in 

 the article JENEAS. [Bioo. Dry. ENG. CYCL., vol i. col. 46.] He 

 has multiplied the Trojan ships and increased the number of the 

 Trojans; he has carried his hero to Carthage, though we do not 

 know whether Carthage existed at the supposed date of ^Eneas's 

 wanderings : he has made the death of Turnus precede the marriage of 

 JEaeas and the foundation of Lavinium, and has allowed Latinus to 

 survive, instead of making his daughter wed the author of her father's 

 death. The poem consists of twelve books, of which the first six are 

 occupied in relating the wanderings of -Eneas, and seem to be modelled 

 on the ' Odyssey ; ' the last six contain his descent into Italy, and the 

 war which ensued between the Trojans and the natives, and seem to be 

 modelled on the ' Iliad.' In the minute details of ornament as well as 

 in the general notions of his work, Virgil has borrowed largely from 

 Homer. This poem was written later than his other works, the 

 ' Eclogues ' and ' Georgics.' It was commenced about A.U.c. 724, or 

 B.C. 30 ; and the author continued to labour on it till his death, in 

 B.C. 20 ; at which time he was so little satisfied with the state of his 

 production that, it is said, he gave earnest injunctions on his death-bed 

 that it should be burnt. The order was not fulfilled, at the desire of 

 Augustus, who intrusted the publication to two learned friends of the 

 author, Tucca and Vams. Many lines are left imperfect ; some suppose 

 this to be one proof that the finishing hand of the master was nevor 

 applied ; but wo doubt whether it is, and think it possible that they 

 'were purposely left so. This great work of Virgil called forth the 

 enthusiastic admiration of his contemporaries. Propertius wrote 

 " Yield, Homan poets ; lords of Greece, five way ; 

 The Iliad soon shall own a greater lay ; " 



