128 



of barbarians have destroyed Hie better part of them 

 yet still enough is left to prove the excellence of 

 what hath perished, and to justify encomiums bestowed 

 on them by historians. The group of figures in the 

 Niobe of Praxiteles.* and the famous statue of La. 

 coon, f still to be seen at Rome, are and ever will be 

 models or beauty and true sublime in sculpture - 

 \vhere much more is to be admired; than comes 

 M-ithin the comprehension of the eye. The Venus 

 de Medieis ; J the Hercules stiflingAntacus, that other 

 Hercules, who rests upon his clubfj, the dying Gladia. 

 tor; 5 and that- other in the vineyard of Borghese,** 

 the Apollo of the Be! videre, it the maimed Hercules 

 of the same place, and the Equerry in the action of 

 breaking a horse on mount Qtiirinal, J J are all of 

 them monuments, which loudly proclaim the jusf 

 pretensions of the ancients to a superiority in those 

 arts. These pretensions are still further supported by 



* Some ascribe this piece to Scopas, the contemporary of Phi- 

 dia, and who reached the times of Praxiteles. It is still in being-, 

 and to be seen at Rome. 



f The joint labour of Agesan<1er,rolydorus, and Athenodorus of 

 Khodes, who, according to Maffeus, -lived all of them about the 

 eighty-eighth Olympiad; it is in the Belvidere at Rome. 



I" The workmanship of Cleomenes, the Athenian, still to be seen 

 in the Farnes'vau palace at Florence. 



Ascribed tePolycletus, who made the collossal statues of Juno 

 in gold and ivory at Argos, which no longer exist. 



j| The work ufGlycon, still remaining in the Farnesian palace 

 :it .Florence. 



l[ Done by Ctesilas, 6r Cte^ias, in the gallery of the Capitol. 



** .By Agathiasof Ephesus. 



-ft By the same. These two last were at Antium, now Nettuno, 



^ Ascribed by sosne to Phidias, by others to Praxiteles. Those 

 who assign it to the latter, imagine it to be that of Alexander break- 

 ing Bucephalus. But if it was done by theformer, it must be ano- 

 ther subject, that sculptor having flourished about a century before. 

 It is thought, that nothing of this is now remaining. His Olym- 

 pian Jupiter was an object of admiration for many ages, and con- 

 tinued still at Constantinople, in the beginning of the thirteenth 

 century; together with the beautiful Cnidan Venus, the handy- 

 work of Praxiteles, and the statue of Opportunity by Lysippus. It 

 is prwbable, these fine remains were destroyed at the taking of the 

 city by Baldwin. 



