Misce llan eous. 139 



who says, " fecit " (ex sere Praxiteles, to whom he ascribes the statue) 

 " piiberem Apollinem subrepeuti lacertae cominus sagitta insidiantem, 

 quem sauroctonon vocant." Apollo is supposed to wish to obtain 

 predictions from the struggles of the dying lizard. An epigram of 

 Martial* relating to our statue runs as follows : — 



" Sauroctonos Coriiithius" [i. e. of Corinthian brass]. 

 " Ad te reptanti, puer insidiose, lacertie 

 Parce, cupit digitis ilia perire tuis." 



The lizard, therefore, is creeping up to the boy. This and the 

 whole bearing of the Sauroctonus, which is quietly expectant and 

 almost negligent, the attitude of the right arm and hand, the mode 

 in which the latter holds the rod in its fingers, lightly and easily, 

 not firmly and securely as one holds a dart with which one intends 

 to kill, and, lastly, the peaceable expression of the face, indicating 

 sport rather than any thing serious, all appear to me to show most 

 definitely that in the Sauroctonus we have before us a boy waiting 

 for a lizard with a grass noose and not with a dart. It is by this 

 explanation that the whole statue becomes intelligible, and appears 

 in all its harmonious truth to Ufo. 



It is well known that there is in the Vatican a copy of the original 

 in marble, which was dug up on the Palatine Hill in 1777 ; another, 

 smaller one, in bronze, found near S. Balbina, in the Villa Albani, 

 in Pome ; another in Paris, &c. The first two 1 know well by per- 

 sonal inspection. In the best-known and finest of them, that in the 

 Vatican, both arms from the shoulders are new. In the example in 

 the Villa Albani the arms are old ; according to one of the state- 

 ments accessible to me at the moment, the right hand has, however, 

 been restored in thisf. Be this as it may, the attitude of the right 

 arm, hand, and fingers in both cases is suchthpt it can be connected 

 only with the light and easy holding of a gras&-haulm, and not of a 

 dart. I would, however, lay the chief stress upon the other charac- 

 ters of the statue, which, as already stated, can only be brought 

 into accordance with the former conception. 



It would be interesting to know whether the method of capturing 

 lizards with the noose is practised in Greece, as is very probable, 

 considering the old relations of the Greeks and Romans ; but even 

 if this should not be the case, these reVations would suffice to have 

 given Praxiteles the material for his statue. 



Thus the practice of this method would be shown to be very 

 ancient. To what ancient times similar practices may be traced 

 back, how tenaciously they transmit themselves to later ages and 

 maintain themselves therein, is proved by a fresco painting in the 

 Etruscan Museum of the Vatican, representing a boy who allows a 



* xiv. 172. 



t In the example in Paris also the right forearm and hand are new, 

 as also the fingers of the left hand. 



