~ SCULPTURE. 21 
at the same time a moderation and noble reserve which guard against any 
violation of the feeling for the sublime and beautiful. Unfortunately the 
group has come down to us in such a fragmentary condition, that it is hardly 
possible to judge of the composition and design which animated and held 
together its various parts. 
Praxiteles likewise wrought chiefly in marble, and most of his subjects 
are taken from the myths concerning Dionysus, Demeter, Aphrodite, and 
Eros. It was he whose ideal images of Eros represented the perfect beauty 
and amiability of that boyish age which to the Greeks appeared the most 
attractive of all; while his nude Venus displayed the utmost luxuriance of 
charms joined to a spiritual expression which presented the queen of love 
herself as a woman filled with inward longing and in need of love. 
Splendid as the works of Praxiteles really are, still in his images of the 
deities (and to these he almost exclusively confined himself) there appears 
too prominently, in place of the divine dignity and sovereign might which 
are found in the works of the older sculptors, the worship of that beauty 
which charms the senses. This may have been in good measure the result 
of the artist’s way of life, who lived constantly among the heterse. A like 
spirit pervaded the works of Leochares, whose Ganymede embodied the idea 
of the favorite of Zeus carried off by the eagle in a manner equally charming 
and noble. The growing fondness for the delineation of sensual charms 
manifests itself still more strongly in the hermaphrodite figures, an artistic 
creation which we probably owe to Polycles. The reclining hermaphrodite 
of which we have given a copy (pl. 3, jig. 3) is one of the best productions 
of this class. It is now in Paris, and was formerly in the villa of Borghese. 
It was discovered in building the church of Maria della Vittoria in Rome, 
and was presented by the clergy to Cardinal Scipio Borghese, who by way 
of acknowledgment built for them the facade of their church. Bernini 
restored it by replacing the left foot, and throwing a piece of drapery over 
it to cover the joint. The cushions are also by Bernini. There is another 
hermaphrodite in the Florentine Museum; but both are exact copies of the 
bronze hermaphrodite of Polycles. 
As the first artists of this school still cherished the spirit of Phidias, and 
only so far departed from it as to endeavor to breathe into their gods and mythic 
figures an inner spiritual life, so Euphranor and Lysippus showed themselves 
disciples chiefly of the school of Polycles or of Argos and Sicyon, whose chief 
aim was the representation of physical beauty and athletic strength. The 
favorite of Lysippus among the heroes was Hercules; and him he delineated 
in a new manner, developing with such skill his muscles and limbs, as to 
serve as a model for all future representations of that hero. 
This conception is shown in the Parnese Hercules (pl. 5, figs. 1 and 2), 
which is a copy of Lysippus by Glycon the Athenian. This colossal statue 
was found in the baths of Caracalla, under which emperor it was probably 
brought to Rome. The hand with the apples is new, the legs also were 
restored by Giuliano della Porta; but when in 1787 the original legs belonging 
to the statue were found, they were put on again in place of the new ones. 
The study of nature was pursued with great zeal at this period along 
405 
