THE ANTIQUITY OF THE LION IN GREECE. 6C)7 



dagger, were made from nature, viz, at a time when the animal still 

 occurred there in a wild state. Lewis is of a diti'erent opinion, and 

 says:" "The lions on the gate of M3'cena? are of great antiquity, but 

 the occurrence of this animal in w^orks of early art can not be con- 

 sidered as evidence of his presence in the country. Sculptured lions 

 occur more than once in connection w^ith Etruscan tombs, and there 

 is no reason to believe that the lions ever existed in Italy * * *.'" 

 But can this last objection be considered valid ? * Besides, not all non- 

 naturalists are of this opinion, as, for instance, Perrot and Chipiez:'' 

 ''Unless we assume — and we have no ground whatever for so doing — 

 that it was an object imported from without,'^ we must admit, not- 

 withstanding all that has been said to the contrary, that the lion in 

 those remote times still haunted the mountains of the Peloponnesus 

 and central Greece, and that the engravers and sculptors, when they 

 portrayed that animal, were able to do so from nature." Thus in the 

 discussion of the earliest historic time more or less subjective opin- 

 ions come into play, and natural science likewise can consider the 

 question as solved only when the discovery of recent lion bones under 

 incontestable circumstances gives positive proof. Of this, however, 

 there seems little hope. At all events it might be suggested that in 

 future excavations all animal bones be conscientiously collected and 

 submitted to experts for examination. 



« Loc. cit. , vol. VIII, ]). 81. 



''Prof. P. Herrmann, of the Royal Sculpture Collection at Dresden, writes me: 

 "The view of Lewis, which is based on the lion representations in Etruscan art, and 

 quoted by you, is absolutely untenable. These Etruscan monuments are a thousand 

 years younger than the Mycenaean and have, besides, their parallels in the contem- 

 porary art creations of the Greeks. No archaeologist has maintained or will main- 

 tain of either of them that the lion images appearing on them were made from direct 

 observation of nature. They are obviously borrowed from Asia. This shows itself 

 clearly enough in the absence of the refined and free realism which characterizes the 

 Mycenaean representations in such a high degree." Compare also the chapter 

 "The lion and the lotus," in William II. Goodyear's The Grammar of the Lotus, 

 London, 1891, pp. 205-211, witli plates xxix and xxx (add. 1904). 



'Hist, (le I'art dans ranti(iuitc. La Grece primitive, I'art mycenien, vol. <>, p. 

 828-82(5, figs. 402 and 403, 1894. 



<f I can not think that the idea of introducing captive lions which may have served 

 as models for the artists should so lightly be rejected. 



