279 XX. FURTHER REMARKS ON THE GROUPS IN THE No. XVIII. of the Classical Museum, (p. 396-443,) contains a dissertation, by Mr. W. Watkiss Lloyd, on the Western Pediment of the Parthenon, which is directed against my explanation, printed in Vol. II. of the same Journal, and proposes an entirely new one. My opinion was formed by the impression made on me when for the first time I beheld the original groups of the two pediments, and I wrote it down in the autumnal vacation of the year 1844, during a short visit to England. The extreme kindness of Mr. Panizzi and other gentlemen connected with the British Museum, to whom I feel the most lively obligations, enabled me to compose my essay with perfect ease, and offered me the greatest facility in consulting the books of that institution; but the proximity of the extensive collection of works of art, as well as the abundance of the treasures and curiosities of the library, naturally urged me on not to spend too much time upon my dissertation. It appeared in the Classical Museum in an English translation, from my manuscript, by my friend, Dr. L. Schmitz. Under these circumstances, I was prepared to look, in regard to the detail, for corrections and new lights from competent judges, who might be in a position to devote persevering industry to a further investigation of the subject; but I did not anticipate that the explanation of the whole of the Western Pediment would again go astray, and abandon the simple truth, which, it appears to me, is expressed clearly and unequivocally in the words of Pausanias, no less than in the old drawing and in the fragments which perfectly agree with it. Such, however, unfortunately, is the case in the new explanation attempted by Mr. W. Watkiss Lloyd. All the most important points in the explanation depend upon the view taken of the two principal figures in the centre; and all the errors of my opponent, which I shall combat, seem to arise from the fact that he has misunderstood the expression and meaning of this group. He considers it difficult to understand how the "expression of victory and triumph could have been imparted to a figure quitting the field of contest with such precipitancy in the face of a powerful antagonist." Everybody with whom I have spoken of the conception, has recognized in the manner in which Phidias has contrived to find such a clear and ingenious expression for the decisive moment of the contest, the most happy idea, and has been struck with admiration of a power of invention, which, in spite of the difficulties of sculpture, and of the space allotted to it, could represent the victory of Athena so clearly and so strikingly, and at the same time in so simple and pleasing a manner. This is one of those inventions, which every one fancies he could easily have made himself, just because it is so perfectly natural, and because this solution of the problem appears as the only satisfactory one that could possibly be devised, but to make which it nevertheless requires nothing short of the highest genius. The two combatants have proved their claims, the verdict is pronounced, and the judges of the contest (the twelve gods rather than Zeus or Cecrops) are added by the imagination, as the shooting gods are at the destruction of the children of Niobe. There is no reason for tarrying on the scene of contest, but we may conceive many why the victorious goddess should quickly leave it. Between the victor and the defeated there is, in the first moment, no communion, and it is natural that the former should hastily withdraw from the sight of the latter. But the joy at her victory also explains the vivacity with which Athena hastens to her chariot, managed by the goddess of victory, and the idea of the artist seizing the moment immediately succeeding the decision of the victory, happily agrees with the composition in the Eastern Pediment, which represents the moment immediately succeeding the birth of the goddess. It is an equally surprising assertion, that "Athene cannot be hastening with such energy to ascend her chariot in a direction where her next step must either bring her into collision with the fore legs of the outer horse, or carry her between the pair." Whoever thus measures space and other empirical circumstances, will find much to remark or misinterpret in all compositions, not merely of groups, but also of reliefs and paintings on vases, all of which presuppose that we should approach their contemplation with our thoughts and imagination alive. However, a few pages further on, Mr. Lloyd ex pressly acknowledges that Athena is not moving towards Poseidon, but away from him. I will now add the remark, that Poseidon also seems hastily or indignantly to turn away from the field of contest, and that in parting, he casts a final glance at his antagonist, who, for the present, is hateful to him. This is likewise a naive idea; and the perfectly equal movement. of both brings before our eyes all the more distinctly the moment at which the combat is decided. The new expositor, instead of the separation of the combatants after the decision, assumes the representation of a contest itself, and instead of the one mentioned by Pausanias, which has hitherto been understood by all as the contest about the country, (èp the rñs), he substitutes a new one, of which neither the ancients nor any of the modern mythologists and archæologists (though there have been and still are among them many of great inventive powers) know any more than of the new subject which Müller had devised, in place of the one known to all the world. According to Apollodorus' account, Poseidon, from indignation at the verdict of the twelve gods, visited the Thriasian plain with an inundation. The god accordingly, as my opponent conceives the matter, does not acquiesce in the sentence, but the struggle begins in consequence of the decision, the god attempting to bring the fertile tract of land under his own dominion, or at least to damage or destroy it. This, according to him, is the particular occurrence represented by the sculptor. He is led to this conclusion by the manner in which Proclus, in his hymn to Athena Polymetis speaks of the dispute, and which, in his opinion, so closely agrees with the sculptures, that Proclus, in writing those verses, seems to him to have had the work of Phidias before his mind's eyes. He declares that he is already indebted to Proclus for good service in the elucidation of antiquities; and to prefer Proclus' statement, (which, however, if properly understood, has nothing peculiar or contradictory to others,) to the unanimous consent of all others, seems to him a point requiring no justification at all. Thus we understand how he could be led so lamentably to misinterpret and distort 1 In thus conceiving the movement, though with a different meaning, I have the concurrence of Bröndsted, who supposed, that the olive tree, which had grown up, and which he placed in the centre, compelled Poseidon and his retinue to flight. a popular tradition which is so plain and intelligible. Proclus however praises the goddess who loved (chose for herself) the learned city, overcame her uncle's desire to possess it, gave to the city her name and spirit, where she caused the olive tree to spring forth, a glorious sign of the contest even to a late posterity, when Poseidon sent a flood over the country of the Cecropidæ. εὖτ ̓ ἐπὶ Κεκροπίδησι Ποσειδάωνος ἀγώγη πάντα πολυφλοίσβοιο ἑοῖς ῥεέθροισιν ἱμάσσον. Now, who does not see that the poet has passed over the other oñua páxns originating with Poseidon, while he adds the outburst of anger of the defeated which succeeded the victory of his antagonist? The latter concluded the account with the addition which it afterwards received, and the miracle which Poseidon had wrought before that of Athena, could be passed over by Proclus, because it was an integral and inseparable part of the popular tradition, which was known to all the people. It is, however, alluded to in the words πατροκασιγνήτοιο βιασαμένη πόθον ipóv; for, when the gods chose cities for themselves, Poseidon, as Apollodorus relates, first came to Attica, and by a stroke with his trident he produced the salt-well in the central point of the Acropolis; after him there came Athena, who took possession of the country by means of the olive tree. A dispute thus arose between the two, which Zeus caused to be decided by the twelve gods. Proclus and Apollodorus, therefore, agree perfectly, and the dispute (pg in Apollodorus) is about the country, as to which of the two the country should belong, Epic Sлèρ τ ys, the subject which, according to Pausanias, Phidias has represented. Statius (Theb. XII. 632,) speaks quite in a similar manner as Proclus: Collis ubi ingens Lis superum, donec nova surgeret arbor Rupibus, et longa refugum mare frangeret umbra. Pausanias in other passages also mentions the salt-spring and the olive-tree, and uses the expressions auproßýnos, and arov (1. 26. 6, 27. 2). Now, this contest is spoken of in the same manner, but without mention of the subsequent anger of Poseidon and the inundation, by Herodotus, (VIII. 55,) Callimachus, (Schol. ad II. XVII. 54, where Cecrops pronounces the judgment,) and Ovid, (Metam. vI. 70-82,) in whose account the twelve gods decide the dispute, (de terræ nomine litem,) and the victory of Minerva is expressly declared to be the conclusion in a piece of embroidery; the olive tree springs forth mirarique deos: operi victoria finis.2 The anger of the defeated Neptune is added by Varro, (ap. Augustin. de Civ. Dei, XVIII. 9,) and Hyginus, (Fab. 164.) The latter limits this anger to Neptune's desire, Jupiter who here is the judge interfering through the instrumentality of Mercury. It so happens that Hyginus, in his brief account, also omits to mention that which Neptune had produced in the contest, (inter Neptunum et Minervam certatio,) only the olive tree being noticed, and the salt water spring is not even alluded to, as it is by Proclus. In a collection of fables, this is, properly speaking, a deficiency, since even that which is best known should not be reported imperfectly, and the spring and olive tree are inseparably connected in this legend. The contest, (lis deorum, as Varro also expresses it,) according to all accounts, was only about Attica, or about the honour of giving the name to Athens, and the xua, fretum, and the olive tree are unanimously mentioned in the proceedings as the things by which the dispute was decided. It is therefore a forced and unhappy supposition, and one so arbitrary that I cannot help being amazed at it, to consider the Thriasian inundation, which is only an addition unessential to the story itself, and a distinct fable, which, according to the general tendency of mythographers to combine things, has been connected with the other, as an advanced stage of the contest, and as the real contest represented by Phidias. It was tempting enough to transfer the indignation which Poseidon seems to betray by calling forth a lake of salt water, to the moment when he was obliged to yield to Athena. A hundred other things might have been appended with equal propriety, and one example occurs in a satiric idea in the Scholiast on Aristophanes, (Eccles. 473, who uses qλoveixouv of the contest,) where Poseidon, from 2 In like manner, Aristides, Panath. p. 106, (who, in regard to the judges, alludes to the tradition in Varro, which is also adduced by his scholiast,) Himerius, Or. 11. p. 378, (who alludes to it,) and Geopon. 1x. 1. Aristides and the author of the Geoponica add the remark, that Poseidon withdrew to his dominion without giving up his love for the country, whereby they intended to declare against the account of the issue of the contest preferred by others. According to the Vatican mythographers, 1. 2, and II. 119, Neptune, instead of the salt well, created the horse. |