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Show 172 TTIE ART OF TIIE GREEKS. following likenesses of Sauromatcs I. [63] (13-17 n. c.), Rhcscuporis II. [64] under Domitian, and Rhcscuporis III. (65], (212-210), fl'Ont their coins in the B1·itish Museum, show the progressing rudeness of Fig. 68. Fig. 64. Fig. 65. SAUROMATES, Ru~JSOUPOnra TI. Jl.m:souPonrs III. the r presentations, as well as the ebbing of Greek blood among a world of "barbarians," who, according to their features, belon()'ed to tho Slavonic race. b We might have given cqnally instructive specimens of the power and succossi ve extinction of Hellenism in Thrace, Cilicia, Adiabcne, -from the coins of those countrics,-clcarly proving that foreign art cannot maintain itself among unartistical races for any length of time, but must decline and cease so soon as tho artisticalrace which imported it has become thoroughly amalgamated with and has merged into, tho bulk of the natives. ' VII.-TIIE ART OF ROME. AT the time of the revival of letters, when the attention of the scholars and princes of Italy was for the :first time turned towards the remains of antiquity, all the statues and reliefs found in the peninsula w 1:e taken for Ro~an; and the antiquaries liked to explain any antique r prcscntatLOn from IJivy's history, and Ovid's mctamorplloses. G:· cian liio was at that timo nearly unknown; tho study of Greek htcratnre remained subordinate to that of Roman· and the works of antiquity were regarded as illustrations of the Roman classics. Who~, on the other hand, Winckclman and his phiJosophi~ al scl10ol apphed a deeper criticism to the relics of ancient art treat 1nrr them 1 · · · ' 10'>. • as equa m Importance to tho htorary remains of classical anttqmty, a reactionary notion spread all over Europe that the Romans had no national art at all ; and the father of scien~ific archro- TilE ART OF ROME, 173 ology, Winckclman himself, says: 186 "I defy those who speak of the Roman style of art to describe its peculiarities or to determine its character." About this time it was pl'oved with considerable display of en1dition that :fino arts were paid, but not honored, at Rome. Plutarch was cited, who says in sober earnest that, however we might admire tho Olympian Jupiter, nobody would wish to become Phielias :180 and Potronius also,lfl7 who, though spcaHng satirically, still expressed tho common Roman feeling by saying, that' a nugget of gold is more beautiful in the sight of God and man, than a11ything produced by those foolish G l'Ceks, A poll s and Phidias.' AccordinO'ly, it was believed that all the Roman culptul'cs arc tho work of Greeks, mostly fi·eod-men, who lived in that capital of the old wol'ld. Such views were quite in keeping with the prevalent idea that Roman and Greek mythology was altogether identical. The monuments of Rome, however, were soon mot'c thoroughly sifted; and a number of works of art wore discovorc(l at Pompeii, nearly all of them of Italian workmanship,- and that, between the emperor Augustus (under whom the town was rebuilt, after having be n nearly destroyed by an earthquake), and the emperor Titus, under whom it was buried. Archroologists are, therefore, now enabled to flX more precisely the peculiarities and the character of the Roman style; although we must acknowledge that it is but a slight modification of Greek art. The original Romans had no feeling for fine art; they were the oflspring of unartistical Umbrians and Sal>ines, with an admixture of Etl'uscaus, who thcmscl ves possessed only a varnish of art superinduced. 'l'hc few monuments which adorned republican Rome before tho conquest of Grrocia Magna,-thp statues of the Capitol and tho effigies of the kings-were withont exception of Tuscan workmanship ; so wore their· copper-coinage, their house-furniture, their earthenware and bronze vases. The Romans never vied with their neighbors either in mechanical ski 11 or in artistical feeling; their only task was conquest and aggrandizement. When at last, by the accumulation of wealth, luxury and desire of display introduced a yearning for works of art, and that statues and pictures began to play an important part at all the public shows, triumphs and entertainments, it was easier to plunder the provinces and to fill Rome with tho most colobl'ated treasures of art :fi.·om the temples and market-place of Greece, than to get them executed by native artists on the Tiber it~;elf. Still, the growing demand and failing supply at length fostered art at Rome; and though the al'Lists were mostly of fore ign oxt.eaction,- for it was not respectable for a Roman to be a 186 Cabinet Stoscll, p. 807. 186 Vi'ta Pr.riclis. 187 Satyricou, c. 88. J ;J! |
