RELATIONS OF CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 603 



of unfolding artistic impulses. And how much that is inartistic have 

 they interpreted into antique statues! beginning with Winckel- 

 mann, who saw in the Apollo Belvedere the picture of the moment 

 after the slaying of the python up to the scholars of our day. 



Another principle of the method of our science is that every type 

 of specimen shall be dealt with according to its characteristic quality, 

 that its peculiar conditions shall first be known before the elucida- 

 tion of a particular object is begun. Against this principle too many 

 have sinned. The Greek vase-pictures, for instance, and the Greek 

 votive reliefs, the tomb-sculpture, the coins and gems, are such unlike 

 types of objects that for each one of them the standard is given by 

 another point of view. 



An especial difficulty, however, is presented by the existing works 

 in statuary. For these are only to a slight extent original works, 

 and unfortunately the less important part, the greater number being 

 copies of late periods of the antique. Here the same conditions hold 

 as for the literary works of the ancients which exist in transcripts. 

 First all extant copies must be assembled, and out of these it must be 

 determined what has really come down to us. That is the same thing 

 which in philology is called the "recension" of manuscripts. Then 

 follows what is there designated as "emendation "; the reconstruction 

 of the lost model, which can come only through conjecture and hypo- 

 thesis with the help of imagination. As in philology his conjecture 

 is the best who has most perfect mastery of the language and gram- 

 mar, just so in archaeology he can most unerringly and correctly 

 reconstruct a lost plastic model from the extant copies who has the 

 profoundest knowledge of the plastic forms of the antique and their 

 "grammar.'' To the superficial view all conjectures seem alike 

 hypothetical: in reality they are tremendously different in value, 

 according to the powers of the originators. 



Archaeology has only lately recognized and begun to fulfill her 

 function with respect to the existing copies of the lost masterpieces 

 of ancient sculpture. She was encouraged thereto by the progress of 

 modern technique, which first furnished, in photography, the means 

 ',o compare with exactness the various existing but scattered copies, 

 and thereby to establish the tradition. Earlier students had no 

 adequate idea of this work, and contented themselves with assembling 

 the examples which were fairly alike, without deciding whether they 

 wore copies or more or less free remodelings. In passing judgment 

 on these it was usual to settle on a chance-selected copy, and on 

 its errors, and. wit h t he still undeveloped knowledge of the evolution 

 of style of the special forms, the mistakes of the copyist were as- 

 cribed to the original. V\ e have now. no doubt, made progress in these 

 matters; we are aware for instance, how mistaken it was of Brunn 

 to base his analysis of the type of the Giustiniani Apollo only on the 



