874 SOUL P 
fairly presume to be the works of Phidias and Praxiteles, as 
inscribed on their pedestals; because the animated character 
and style of sculpture seem peculiar to the age in which 
those artists lived; and because, in the frieze of the Par¬ 
thenon there is a young hero governing a horse, which bears 
so strong a resemblance to those groups, that it would be 
difficult to believe it was not a first idea for them by one of 
those artists. 
The heroic statue by Agasius the Ephesian, commonly 
called the Fighting Gladiator, is shewn by the ingenious 
and learned Abbate Fea, to be Ajax, the son of Oileus, 
as his figure is so represented on the coins of Locris, his 
country. 
The Hercules Farnese was evidently one of the first favour¬ 
ites of antiquity, from its frequent repetitions in bronze and 
marble, gems and coins. Its history, according to these, 
seems to be this. The city of Perinthus was twice besieged 
by Philip of Macedon; the citizens, however, by the strength 
of their situation, their own valour, and the intervention of 
friends, preserved their liberty. As their city was dedicated 
to Hercules, they represented him on their coins resting from 
his labours. 
The group of Laocoon, animated with the hopeless 
agony of the father and sons, is the work of Apollodorus, 
Athenodorus and Agesander of Rhodes. The style of this 
work, as well as the manner in which Pliny introduces it 
into his history, give us reason to believe it was not ancient. 
Zethus and Amphion, tying Dirce to the bull’s horns, 
an example of filial vengeance for a persecuted mother, is 
as heroic in conception as vast in execution. The restorations 
of this group are so bad, that they only become tolerable by 
something like an assimilation of spirit in their union with 
the ancient and venerable fragment. It is the work of Apol¬ 
lonius and Tauriscus of Rhodes. 
The group of Hercules and Antaeus, in the Palace Pitti at 
Florence, may be a marble, from the bronze of which the 
copyist inscribed the name of the original artist. 
The groups of Atreus, bearing a dead son of Thyestes; 
Orestes and Electra; Ajax supporting Patroclus; are all 
examples of fine form, -heroic character, and sentiment. 
There seems only to be one reason for their being 
omitted by Pliny, that they were too recent at that time to 
have obtained an equal rank in public estimation with the 
fine works of Phidias and Praxiteles, and these immediate 
descendants. 
The group of Niobe and her youngest daughter, by Scopas, 
is an example of heroic beauty in mature age. The senti¬ 
ment is maternal affection; she exposes- her own life to 
shield her child from the threatened destruction. 
The separate statues of the children all partake of the same 
heroic beauty, mixed with the passions of apprehension, dis¬ 
may, or death. 
From what'has been said, it will appear, sculpture did 
not arrive at its maturity until the age of Phidias, 490 years 
before the Christian era; and Pliny’s catalogue of the most 
celebrated Greek artists continues 160 years later, or to 330 
years before Christ. After which time, however, the Lao¬ 
coon, and several of the finest groups and statues, seem to 
have been executed: nor can we believe, from the admirable 
busts and statues of the imperial families still remaining, 
that sculpture began to lose its graces until the reign of the 
Antonines; and, indeed, so strong were the stamina of 
Grecian genius in the art of design, that after the time of 
the Iconoclastes in the fifth and sixth centuries, when the 
noblest works were destroyed, when great works of sculpture 
were not required, even then, and until Constantinople was 
taken by the Turks in the 15th century, the Greeks executed 
small works of great elegance, as may be seen in the diptychs, 
or ivory covers to consular records, or sacred volumes used 
in church service. 
The principal schools of sculpture were Athens and 
Rhodes. The sculptors of the Laocoon, and the Toro 
Farnese, and the Colossus, were Rhodians; and it is almost 
incredible, that from this little island, only forty miles long, 
and thirteen broad, the Roman conquerors brought away 
3000 statues. But we shall more readily believe this when 
T U R E. 
we recollect that the force and enterprise of these islanders 
were sufficient to conquer the navy of Antiochus commanded 
by Hannibal. 
Sicyon had long been the work-shop of metals of all 
countries. Egina was also famous for bronze sculpture, and 
continued the Egyptian style. 
Etruscan sculpture must be considered entirely the work 
of Greek colonists and their disciples. 
The Sicilian sculpture is also Grecian. Some of their 
finest medals in particular are of the Corinthian school. 
As the enterprise and taste of the present age have rescued 
two noble examples of Grecian sculpture, the pediments of 
the temple of Jupiter Panhellenius, in the island of Egina, 
and the frieze which surrounded^ the interior of the temple 
of Apollo Epicuros at Phygaleia, it may be proper to give 
some description of them in this place. 
The figures, which were decorations of the east and west 
pediments of the temple of Jupiter Panellenius, were found 
among the ruins, nearly under the scite in which they had 
been originally placed: their number was nine in the west 
pediment; that in the centre was the figure of Minerva: the 
rest seemed to be combatants, as well in this pediment as 
the six figures in the east pediment. On each side of an 
ornament, in the centre of the west pediment, were two fe¬ 
male figures; and at each corner of the pediment the re¬ 
mains of a griffon. The statues were in size small nature; 
and, according to Pliny’s description, partaking of the 
Egyptian style of workmanship. 
Among the ruins of the temple of Apollo Epicuros at 
Phygaleia, in the Argolis, were discovered, in many pieces 
the friezes which adorned the interior of the temple. They 
represented the battle of the Athenians with the Amazons, 
and the Lapithae with the Centaurs. The compositions are 
grand and energetic; the actions are natural, original and 
elastic; the lines of the bodies and limbs are beautifully 
variegated by the draperies, as flowing from the motion of the 
figures, or flourished in the air by the impulse of the wind ; 
the beauty of the figures and countenances is heroic; and 
the general style and character of the work resemble the alto- 
relievos in the temple of Theseus. The figures are about 
two feet high; and the whole extent of the different basso- 
relievos, taken together, about ninety feet. 
Of Roman Sculpture we shall say nothing, as it is 
well known, that all the nobler productions of sculpture 
executed at Rome after the times we are speaking of, were 
the productions of Greek artists. 
The busts of the twelve Csesars, from Julius to Domitian 
inclusive, are the finest productions of portrait sculpture. 
The whole imperial series, both in busts and statues, down 
to the emperors Balbinus and Pupienus, possess the highest 
merit, and scarcely in that period shew the decline of art; 
but from the time of these emperors to that when Constan¬ 
tine fixed his capital at Byzantium, the decline was so evi¬ 
dent, that the life and beauty of former times were nearly 
extinguished in these productions. 
When Constantine removed the seat of empire from Rome 
to Byzantium, he and his successors are said to have taken 
from the ancient capital of the world, as many of the fine 
works of art as they could possibly remove. The Greek 
artists were employed in their own country to decorate the 
new capital, with the same magnificence indeed as in former 
times, and like their predecessors were employed in the cause 
of religion, not in emulation of Phidias’s Jupiter or Praxi¬ 
teles’ Venus, but in the cause of that sacred person who 
disclosed, and of his followers who propagated the new dis¬ 
pensation of mercy. The architects were employed in build¬ 
ing Sancta Sophia and other great sacred buildings in the 
city; and the painters and sculptors in the illustration of 
Old and New Testament. 
The controversies of religion and philosophy had been 
agitated with so much violence by the philosophers of Alex¬ 
andria against the Christian divines, as induced the successors 
of Constantine to abolish the schools both of Athens and 
Alexandria; they also issued orders for the removal and de¬ 
struction of the Pagan Idols; and in the fourth and fifth 
centuries it is believed that the Olympian Jupiter at Elis by 
Phidias, 
