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Show 108 TIIE ART OF TilE GREEKS. added to the bead to designate Demetrius as the son of Neptune; wl1ilst in ord t' to combine the horn with the human features, the hair was carved stiff, rcminuing one of the rigidity of a hull's bail'. Equally grand is tho portrait of Perseus [53], the last king of Macedonia, on a cornolian cameo in the imperial library at Paris. 181 It so Fig. 58. CYRUS TilE YOUNGER, much rcsom blcs some ancient hero, that for a consid rablc time it was taken for an ideal bead of Ulysses. Indeed, if we wish to got real Hellenic portraits, we must leave tho territory of Grecco, aud seck for thorn among the more realistic nations pervaded by Hellenism, amid whom rook art descended from the loftier heights of imaginative beauty, to tread tho humbler paths of reality. Hitherto no actual portrait has been discovered belonging to the times of republican Greece. Tho following beautiful head [54] on an Asiatic silver coin, in the British Museum, which bears the simple inscription BAl:IAE!U:, (the coin) "of the king," is with the greatest plausibility attributed to tho younger Cyrus : tho die being sunk by some Ionian Greek at the time when this Satrap of Asia Minor rose in rebellion against his brother Artaxorxes, and assumed tho title of tltc king. Still; the features can scarcely be fairly taken for a portrait; they arc altogether ideal, in fact tho embellished representation of tho purest Arian type. Tho aboriginal barbarism of the remoter provinces of the Macedoni an ompiro,-which was strongly modified, but never entirely ov~1· omo by the civilization of the conquerors,-rondors tho history of If ollonism in Asia, after tho death of Alexander, most instructive. It is recorded on tbe relics of its art, especially on the coins of those Greek dynasties which were not surrounded by Greek populations. Fr~m the shores of the Euxino to the confines of India, they pro~ lmm tho supremacy of Greek genius. Still, Hellenism maintains tts ~lory only there where n. continuous, unintel'ruptcd, influx of ~ck clements keeps up the original blood and spirit of the con- 161 l\'fll.r,rN, .J/ommwr/8 f11Mitr., 1, XIX; and Fronti~pieco to tho Bulletin arcMol. de l'Alhe· ntlmm .F'rangai8 of Juno, 1855. TliE ART OF THE GREEKS. lG9 qucrors, ns for instance at tho court of the Sclcucidro at Antioch and of tho Ptolcmios at Alexandria. Uut hero the d generation of the royal houses ~oulcl ?ot ucstroy the fertility of Hellenic art; though in all t~1o countr1os winch wore locally separated from rcecc, Hellenism declmod; and wont over into barbarism so soon as the original Greek blo?d ?£ the .conqnoro1·s was amalgamated with, and absorbed by, nat1ve mterm1xturo. 'l~hc coins. of the kingdom of Bactria give the most stril-ing illustratiOn of tins g noralrulo. During the wars between the Scleucidro and the Ptolomios, 'l'hoodotus, the governor of Bactria about the middle of the thil'd ccntul'y, n. c., declared himself independent of Syri.a, and founded the Greek dyna ty of tlJO Bactrian kingdom. Abo.ut tho same time the Parthians rose likewise in revolt against A.ntwchus Thco ·, and their success cut the Bactrians ofl' from Gr ceo I rop e, and even from tho Gt·ecians of Syria. Still, for about a contul'y, G l'Cok art beyond tho Hindoo Knsh did not decline. Tho portrait of king Eucratidos, king of Bactria, n. o. 170 [55], is, on the coins, a most creditable specimen of the taste and workmanship of his artists.'82 'l'ho isolation of the royal family, however, and its remoteness from Greece and from llollcnic influences, unavoidably brought about a relapse into barbarism. King Hermrous, lord of Bactria, n. o. 98 [56], ou a coin in the British Museum, is, accord- Fig. 55. Fig. 56. Fig. 57. EuortA'I'lO&s. JbttMAWS. KAilPIIYSFlS. ing to his features, apparently a descendant of liolio<.:lcs; but the worhHanship of tho coin is heavy and coarse, and after seeing it we can sc~tt·ccly be snrprisod at learning that his dynasty was soon sup 'L'8 dod. by rude 'l'uranian invaders, who, havi11g no alphabet of th 'it· own, maintained at first tho Greek, and then adopted the Indian letters and lancruaO'o. In the execution of tho types of their coiw;, they exhibit the rudest barbarism. King Kadphyses [57], 18 2 For th so and other oxamplos, of. Wr.LSON, Arimu1 A11tigua, Loudon, 1841. |