SCULPTURE. 
(53 7 . 
And the back. Venus has tw® cinctures, the 
one passing over the shoulder, and the other 
surrounding the waist. The latter is the 
cestus so celebrated by the poets. 
'The mantle was called peplon by the 
Greeks, which signifies properly the mantle 
of Pallas. The name was afterwards applied 
to the mantles of the other gods, as well as 
to those of men. This part of the dress was 
not square, as some have imagined, but of a 
roundish form. The antients, indeed, speak 
in general of square mantles, but they re- 
ceived this shape from four tassels which were 
affixed to them: two of these were visible, 
and two were concealed under the mantle. 
The mantle was brought under the right arm, 
and over the left shoulder: sometimes it was 
attached to the shoulder by two buttons, as 
may be seen in the beautiful statue of Leuco- 
thoe at V ilia Albani. 
With respect to the head, women generally 
wore no covering but their hair; when they 
wished to cover their head, they used the 
corner of their mantle. Sometimes we meet 
with veils of a fine transparent texture. ! 
Old women wore a kind of bonnet upon their j 
head, an example of which may be seen in a ! 
statue in the capitol, called the Pracsica ; but 
Winckelmann thinks it is a statue of Hecuba, j 
The covering of the feet consisted of shoes 1 
or sandals. The sandals were generally an i 
inch thick, and composed of more than one 
sole of cork. Those of Pallas in Villa Albani 
have two soles, and other statues had no less 
than five. 
But in no part of art are the Grecian 1 
sculptors more eminently excellent than in j 
the general characteristic expression which 
they gave to their figures. 
The most elevated species, of tranquillity 
and repose was studied in their figures of the 
gods. The father of the gods, and even in- 
ferior divinities, are represented without emo- 
tion or representment. But Jupiter is not 
always exhibited in this tranquil state. In a 
bas-relief belonging to the marquis Ron- 
dim, he appears seated with a melancholy 
aspect. The Apollo, once called of the Bel- 
vedere, in the Vatican, represents the god in 
the act of discharging from his bow the mor- 
tal shaft against the serpent Python. 
To express the action of a hero, the Gre- 
cian sculptors delineated the countenance of 
a noble virtuous character repressing his 
groans, and allowing no expression of pain to 
appear. 
Philoctetes is introduced by the poets 
shedding tears, uttering complaints, and rend- 
ing the air with his groans and cries; but tne 
artist exhibits him silent, and bearing his 
pains with dignity ; in the same manner as 
the Ajax of t lie celebrated painter Tinioma- 
chus was not drawn in the act of destroying 
the sheep which lie took for the Grecian 
chiefs, but in the moments of reflection which 
succeeded that frenzy. 
Illustrious men, and those invested with 
offices of dignity, are represented with a noble 
assurance and firm aspect. The statues of 
the Roman emperors (executed by Greek 
astists) resemble those of heroes, and are far 
removed from every species of flattery, in the 
gesture, in the attitude, and action, I hey 
never appear with haughty looks, or'with the 
splendour of royalty. None but captives are 
ever represented as offering any thing to them 
with bended xiu’e- 
The G reek works of ivory and silver were 
not always of a small size. The colossal 
Minerva of Phidias, which was composed of 
these materials was twenty-six cubits high. 
It is indeed scarcely possible to believe that 
statues of such a size could entirely consist of 
gold and ivory. The quantity of ivory ne- 
cessary to a colossal statue is beyond concep- 
tion. M. de Pauw calculates, that the statue 
of Jupiter Olympus, which was 54 feet high, 
would consume the teeth of 300 elephants. 
The Greeks generally hewed their marble 
statues out of one block, though they after- 
wards worked the heads separately, and some- 
times the arms. The heads of the famous 
group of Niobe and her daughters appear to 
have been adapted to their bodies after being 
separately finished. It is proved by a laige 
figure representing a river, which is pre- 
served in Villa Albani, that the antients first 
hewed their statues roughly, before they at- 
tempted to finish any part. When the statue 
had received its perfect figure, they next 
proceeded to polish it with pumice-stone, and 
again carefully retouched every part with the 
chisel. 
The antients, when they employed por- 
phyry, usually made the head and extremi- 
ties of marble. It is true, that at Venice 
there are four figures entirely composed of 
porphyry; but these are the productions of 
the Greeks of the middle age. They also 
made statues of basaltes and alabaster. 
The antients, as well as the moderns, made 
works in plaister ; but no specimens remain, 
except some figures in bas-relief, of which 
the most beautiful were found at Bake, near 
Naples. 
We have beeri thus minute in our account 
of the Grecian sculpture, because it is the 
opinion of the ablest critics, that modern art- 
ists have been more or less eminent, as they 
have studied with the greater or less atten- 
tion the models left us by that ingenious 
people. Winckelmann goes so far as to con- 
tend, that the most finished works of the 
Grecian masters ought to be studied in pre- 
ference even to the works of nature. 'Fire 
: reason assigned by the abbe for his opinion 
is, that the fairest lines of beauty are more 
! easily discovered, and make a more striking 
1 and powerful impression, by.fheir reunion in 
these sublime copies, than when they are 
scattered far and wide in the original of na- 
ture. Allowing, therefore, the study of na- 
ture the high degree of merit it so justly 
claims, it must nevertheless be granted, that 
it leads to true beauty by a much more te- 
| dious, laborious, and difficult path, than the 
i study of the antique, which presents immedi- 
! ately to the artist’s view the object of his re- 
! searches, and combines in a clear and strong 
! point of light the various rays of beauty that 
i are dispersed through the wide domain of 
1 nature. But this reasoning is too paradoxical 
to be admitted, without great allowances for 
the peculiar creed of the writer. 
Decline of Greek sculpture. 
When the restless genius ot the Grecians, 
and the aggressive spirit of the Romans, con- 
spired to the second thraldom of the Greek 
states, and L. Mummius was directed to lay 
siege to Corinth, the capture of a city so 
famed as the repository of all that was most 
perfect in the arts, provoked the avarice of 
the conqueror ; who, by transporting many 
of the most superb works 'of taste to Rome, 
to grace his triumph, excited in his fellow- 
citizens so insatiable an ardour of possessing 
treasures of the same kind, as totally trans- 
ferred the seat of the arts from Athens to the 
growing metropolis of the world. 
Sicyon, at the same period, had been ra- 
vaged by M. Scaurus, and Sparta by Mu- 
raeua and Varro: and Greece began thus to 
be exhausted of all it once boasted in art. 
Nor was the fate of the arts in Egypt more 
auspicious; whence, after the defeat of the 
Seleucida:, they took refuge in the court of 
Attains ; hut their security was there of short 
duration. On the death of Attains, his ter- 
ritory devolved to the Romans ; and the trea- 
sures of sculpture which adorned his palace, 
were also transferred to Rome. 
Rome. After taking a view of the extinc- 
tion of the arts in Greece, we may find some 
satisfaction in directing our minds to the in- 
troduction of them at Rome, and to the liberal 
encouragement which men of talents ■ex- 
perienced even from their haughty and rapa- 
cious conquerors, 
Pasiteles, a name which has been con- 
founded with Praxiteles, was a native ot Ca- 
labria; and cast in sib. er a statue of Roscius, 
the celebrated actor, as an infant lying in a 
cradle, and entwined by a serpent, a situation 
of danger from which his nurse is said to have 
preserved him. Nearly ■about the same time, 
Archesilaus and Evander were in great re- 
quest at Rome. Archesilaus was patronized 
by the profuse and wealthy Luculius; and 
both these artists had gained celebrity by 
their works in chalk, modelled probably from 
the finest antiques, as well as being specimens 
of their own invention. A Venus, made for 
Julius Cassar, and the restoration of a h^ad of 
Diana for a statue, the original work of Fi- 
motheus, the contemporary of Scopas, by the 
command of Augustus, are noticed by Pliny 
as their work, and ascertain their aera, and 
their fame. Horace alludes to the superior 
style of Evander in bas-reliefs. 
Among the monuments of sculpture made 
at Rome, in these last days of her republic, 
and certainly by Grecian artists, are the two- 
statues of the Thracian kings, as prisoners at 
a triumph, in grey marble. 't hese were 
kings of the Scordisci, a rude people, who 
were defeated by M. Licinius Luculius. 
Exasperated by their repeated perfidv, he 
commanded their hands to be cut off, a cir- 
cumstance of cruelty represented in the 
marble, which now remains in the museum 
of the capitol. 
The statue of Pompey (now in the hall of 
the Spada palace, but originally standing m 
the curia or basilica of Pompey), at the base 
of which Caesar fell, affords a singular proof 
of a devjation from the known custom of the 
Romans, who represented their living heroes 
in armour. But the great triumvir is sculp- 
tured as a deified hero, naked, and of colossal 
proportions. 
Abbate Winckelmann, with great inge- 
nuity, asserts the statue denominated Cincin- 
natus at Versailles, and another called Mar- 
cus Agrippa at Venice, to have been of an. 
earlier ana than that of those celebrated 
Romans; and shews, with sufficient evidence; 
that the style in which- they are executed is- 
of a prior date. 
We must now consider the arts as trans- 
planted to Rome, although still professed, aU 
