J 
a 
Pestle. 
corroborated by the observation of Maxi- - 
1809.] 
honour; the position and decorations of 
the statue, and likewise to secure them 
from damage and insult, which was too 
often the case, through envy or faction. 
Tt was not every service to the common- 
wealth, nor even dying bravely in battle, 
Which procured the honour; the exploit 
must have been marked by some sur- 
prising circumstance. What efforts 
would not the hope of such a reward ex- 
cite! No labour, no danger, nor even 
death itself, could restrain this ambitionem 
humanissimam, as Pliny calls it, to deserve 
the honour of a statue. The Athletes 
cheerfully spent their lives in extreme toil 
and hardship, in hope of a similar reward ; 
and this contributed to make them at last 
innumerable. 
only, Pliny mentions no less than three 
thousand statues, and one hundred co- 
fossi; and Cassiodorus, who attributes 
the origin of them to the Tuscans, says, 
that posterity, in imitating them, had, as 
it w ere, filed Italy with inhabitants, 
equal in number to those of nature. 
Ancient history furnishes innumerable 
passages.on this subject ; but I must not 
omit, that it was the custom to copy the 
statues of royal persons, from the most 
-masterly ones of the principal deities. 
Herod, of Judza, though of a religion 
adyerse to any kind of idolatry, dedicated 
to Augustus, a Colossus, like the Olym- 
pian Jupiter, and another in imitation 
of the Juno of Argos. . Caligula, ac- 
cording to Pausanias, erected a statue to 
his sister Drusilla, in the temple of 
Venus Genitrix. 
Whoever has traveiled, may have seen 
figures of all these sizes. From the pro- 
portion of the limbs, a judgment may be 
formed as to the part of the temple, pa- 
lace, or square, in which they were for- 
meply placed. In some, one-half of the 
body is three times larger than the other; 
but upon recollecting the rales of perspec 
tive, ‘the mind is reconciled to this seem- 
ing disproportion, I am inelined to 
think, that this did not so much arise 
from any religious or political motive, as 
from the art which adapted those ob- 
jects to their situation; devotion placing 
the statues of the gods it the most. 
elevated part of the temple, the dimen- 
‘sions of the figure would of course be 
This conjecture seems to be 
wus, of Tyre. ‘The images conse- 
erated to gods, are not all of the same 
Stature, skill, fashion, or matter.” The. 
dignity of one, usuaily determined the 
. ther, as well as their times and Places, 
Montury Mac. No. 189, & 
Anecdotes of the Oran Otan, and Chimpanzee. 
in the city of Rhodes . 
141 
For, probably, at Rome, when, as Seneca 
says, they swore by deities of clay, or 
wood, before the wealth of Asia had in- 
spired ideas of luxury and ostentation, 
the temples were neither large, nor mag- 
nificent. The god was of a piece with 
his habitation, as may be surmised from 
the following distich of Tibullus ; 
Tunc melids tenuére fidem, cum paupere 
cultu : 
Stabat in exigua ligneus ede deus. 
But this simplicity of decoration was 
soon abandoned; and as_the riches of 
the Greeks flowed in upon Rome, their 
customs were adopted, and a taste pre- 
vailed for splendour in religious rites, as 
more becoming the growing grandeur of 
Rome; and possibly as operating with 
more force upon superficial minds, which 
in all countries compose the majority. 
The heroes, likewise, having mostly per- 
formed those feats which had gained 
them the honour of statues on horse= 
back, or in cars, it was in this manner 
they were usually represented, and this 
elevation required some addition beyond. 
the natural! size. It was the same with 
kings and princes, before they began to 
affect ‘more honour than belonged to 
them, and pretended to rival the gods. 
Their statues were distinguished by no 
other mark than what indicated their 
external Superiority ; and not any moral, 
or intellectual pre-eminence. As to 
private persons, the statue was of itself 
a signal distinction; but both their sictu- 
ation and figure, being limited to the 
natural height, among the Romans they 
were called Pedestres, either for thag 
reason, or because they considered their 
standing on their feet as a proper sub- 
ordination to the heroic. But the 
vanity of some persons not approving 
this inferiority, their statues were placed 
on columns, or pedestals, ‘To avoid 
disproportion, the dimensions of the statue 
must be very different from those which 
are made to stand on the level ground. 
From these observations, it seems clear, 
fer ‘tiie different aizes of the ancient 
statues, hick have occasioned so much 
surprise and perplexity, were originally 
owing to the difference in situation. 
Yonr’s, &c. O. 
iy aa 
For the Monthly Magazine. 
ANECDOTES of the ORAN OTAN, and CHIM- 
PANZEE, by the REV. W. BINGLEY, not 
inserted in ANIMAL BIOGRAPHY. 
OR the purpose of making a proper 
distinction betwixt these two ani- 
mals, 
