four o'clock, that is, in three hours, Æneas has been to Troy, has been engaged in all the combats which he describes, has defended Priam's palace, has returned to see Creusa in the town, and found it completely subdued, making no more resistance, occupied in all parts by the enemy, entirely burnt, and the magazines of plunder already closed. It is not in this manner that an epic poem ought to proceed, nor is it thus that the events advance in the Iliad. The journal of Agamemnon would not be more precise for distances and times, and for the verisimilitude of military operations, than is this epic masterpiece"." It is curious to see the Eneid thus criticised by a great practical master of the art of war, as if it was an authentic military history, and to find the experience of Moscow brought to bear on the burning of Troy. But if it is once admitted that poetry is intended to teach and not to delight, and is amenable to the rules of historical criticism, it will be impossible to deny the applicability of Napoleon's remarks; for that he has proved the second Æneid to be a military absurdity, cannot be disputed. The triumph which his military experience enables him to achieve over these graceful creations of ancient poetry and mythology, is indeed complete; but he would probably not have thought the victory worth gaining, if it had occurred to him to consider that the legends of the Trojan war are scarcely more fitted to endure the analysis of serious strategical criticism, than the exploits of Orlando or Amadis. A subject such as this was not congenial to his thoughts, even in the forced inaction of St. Helena. His practical mind was more suitably occupied in the contemplation and discussion of the realities of warfare; at the times when he passed in review the events of his former greatness; E ripensò le mobili Tende, e i percossi valli, E il celere obbedir. Before we close this article, we may mention that many similar defects and incoherencies in the plan of the Æneid are pointed out in an ingenious critique published not long ago in 39 Heyne reckons 52 or 53 days for the action of the Iliad. See his Exc. 1 ad Il. XVIII. Vol. VII. p. 571. the British and Foreign Review", the purpose of which was to show that many of the Wolfian arguments against the unity of the authorship of the Homeric poems, derived from the inconsistencies of their different parts, would apply with equal force to the Æneid, and that it would follow, by parity of reasoning, that the latter poem had a plurality of authors. G. C. L. XVII. OBSERVATIONS ON THE XANTHIAN MARBLES. THE acquisition of the Xanthian Marbles for the British Museum is a subject of rejoicing for all scholars and lovers of ancient art. It is only by the accumulation of monuments of this description in the museums of Europe that additional light can be thrown on the history of Greek art, and these Lycian remains could nowhere be studied more profitably than in close contact with the marbles of the Parthenon and of Phigalia. Too much credit cannot be given to Mr. Fellows for his zeal and perseverance in finally securing these interesting objects; and it is sincerely to be hoped that the Museum may again acquire fresh treasures of equal value from the same spots and by the same agency. We do not propose to discuss at length either the style of art or the subjects of the Xanthian Marbles, but in a periodical of this sort, a notice of some kind is due to the reader with regard to so important an addition to our means for investigating the history of art in a district of the ancient world hitherto unexplored. The most interesting of these Lycian remains are,— The frieze of the so-called Harpy tomb. The frieze representing, as it is supposed, the taking of Xanthus by Harpagus. A frieze the subject of which is a battle between combatants on horseback and foot. Eight fragments of figures (now placed in the centre of the room). Besides these, there are parts of other friezes, and of several pediments, as well as other fragments and detached objects. To begin with the frieze of the monument which Mr. Fellows has termed the Harpy tomb, its mythological import has been 40 On the self-contradictions of Homer,' No. XVIII. Art. 9. discussed at considerable length, by M. Panofka, in a recent number of the Archäologische Zeitung, and by Mr. Birch of the British Museum, as well as by Mr. B. Gibson and M. Raoul Rochette, in the Journal des Savans. The subjects are very obscure, and scarcely appear as yet to have been satisfactorily explained, even if that should be possible. As a work of art, the style is very ancient, resembling that of the bas-relief in the Villa Albani, described by Winkelman (Werke, 11. 194. Compare Zöega, Bassi-relievi, 1. 40; Müller, Handbuch der Kunst. § 96. 13) as Leucothea, and not unlike the Samothracian fragment of Agamemnon and Talthybius in the Louvre (Müller, Handbuch der Kunst. § 96. 12; Millingen, Uned. Mon. series II. 1). A portion of one of the pediments too, in the centre of the Phigalian room, may seem to bear marks of an early period, but it is far less rude in execution, and less stiff in the movements of the figures, than the sculpture on the Harpy tomb. It seems rather to be executed by an artist capable of working with freedom, but who has purposely adhered to a hieratic character. One singular thing about the costume of the figures on the frieze of the Harpy tomb is the long train attached to the dress of the sitting goddesses, whom M. Panofka takes to be Demeter and Cora. It is by no means clear, as has been remarked by a writer in the last number of the For. and Col. Quarterly, that the harpies are connected with the main subject of each panel. Certain other portions of sculpture, which are now placed under this frieze, are also well worthy of observation in many respects. The mythology, the costume, the treatment, and the execution of the Harpy frieze are, to our eyes, thoroughly Greek, however ancient and rude they may appear. They are, at any rate, less clumsy than the Hercules Melampygos or the Perseus of the Selinuntine metopes. This is not, however, so clearly marked on some of the fragments now standing under it. The fragments alluded to were, it is believed, found built into the wall of the Acropolis; and they are remarkable for showing the forelocks of the horses, and one or two other points precisely similar in arrangement and in character to the Persepolitan sculptures (Fellows' Second Tour, p. 173). There is something not Greek in the treatment of the figures also, and the whole feeling of art is different from that of the other monuments. Among these slabs occur some with what the writer in the For. and Col. Quarterly calls "the deer-slaying lion, so common in Asiatic works of art'." The frieze which represents the taking of the city is highly interesting, both as regards its subject, its conception, and its execution. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the subject is the very capture described by Herodotus (1. 176); for the circumstances are so special as hardly to be applicable to two events. The person before whom the vanquished are brought wears a Phrygian cap, and is seated under an umbrella; but his soldiers, both in this slab and in those representing the attack on the town, are habited as Greeks. This agrees exactly with the account of Herodotus (r. 171): Αρπαγος δὲ καταστρεψάμενος Ιωνίην ἐποιέετο στρα τηΐην ἐπὶ Καρας καὶ Καυνίους καὶ Λυκίους, ἅμα ἀγόμενος καὶ Ἴωνας καὶ Αἰολέας. Moreover, as Colonel Leake has remarked, in his recent letter to Mr. Hamilton, some of the troops wear a peculiar long x or shirt, being probably the characteristic garment alluded to by Homer, in the description of the same race as Ιάονες ἑλκεχίτωνες (I. XIII. 685), and very different from the short military garment called KUTAσσís, which only reached half-way down the thigh, such as is seen in the Æginetan statues, in the detached recumbent figure of the Selinuntine marbles, or in the figure of the warrior (probably Sarpedon) receiving the helmet, on the north side of the Harpy frieze (compare Müller, Handbuch der Kunst. § 337. 4; Pollux, vii. 71; Alcæus apud Athen. xiv. p. 627; and Casaubon's note). Nothing can be more curious than the details of the city-gate, and the general aspect of the fortifications, as shown on this frieze. They resemble generally the bas-relief representation of an ancient city, from a tomb at Pinara, engraved in Mr. Fellows' Second Tour. The battlements are shaped somewhat like inverted heater shields, and resemble in form frontons on ancient buildings, such, for instance, as the fragment No. 39, now lying on the floor of the same room, which covered the ends of the joint tiles over the cornice. The angle of the wall is generally protected by returning the half of such a battlement round the corner, thus forming very much the sort of termination which often finishes the angles of the It is a singular fact, that in one of the courts of the Alhambra of Granada, there is an old Moorish sarcophagus of marble, now serving for the cistern of a fountain, which is sculptured with this subject, in low relief, very closely resembling the early Greek works. An Arabic inscription, and the general style, however, leave no doubt of its being Moorish work. lid of a sarcophagus. It will be observed that the combatants, on both sides, are habited like Greeks; they have round or perhaps sometimes oval shields, and, for the most part, the ordinary Greek helmet. Some however have pointed helmets. This naturally leads us to the question, what was the population of Xanthus before its capture by Harpagus? It is to be inferred perhaps from what Mr. Fellows says at pp. 250, 252, and 253, of his Second Tour, taken in conjunction with the supplementary chapter, that he is inclined to hold the city of Xanthus before the conquest by Harpagus (B. C. circa 546), to have been in the main Lycian, as distinguished from Greek. That some Greek elements existed, is clear from the adoption of the Greek alphabet, (an adoption later, as Colonel Leake observes, than that by the Etruscans), and from other circumstances; and it appears probable that for a very long period anterior to the conquest by Harpagus the main elements of civilization and the general character of the people were Greek. This question is too important to be discussed incidentally, but it will be sufficient to remark, that this early connexion is sufficiently pointed out in the myths of Sarpedon, and of Lycus, son of the Attic king Pandion, as well as in the Homeric story of Bellerophon, (see Thirlwall, Hist. 11. 89; Herodotus, 1. 173), and in the prevalence of Greek stories and mythology on the monuments of the country. No stress can be laid on the names of the Lycian warriors in Iliad. v. 677, whom Ulysses slays: ἔνθ' ὅγε Κοίρανον εἷλεν, Αλάστορά τε Χρόμιόν τε, Ἀλκανδρόν θ' Αλιόν τε Νοήμονά τε Πρύτανίν τε. They are Greek certainly, but so are the names of the Phaacians in the Odyssey. One fact, however, of great weight, as showing the early and complete preponderance of the Greek element, is the name of the river. At the time when the poems of Homer were written it was called Xanthus, yet its original name was Sirbes or Sirbe, (see Cramer, Asia Minor, 11. 247; Strabo, XIV. 3). This fact is mentioned by Mr. Fellows, (Second Tour, p. 278), who states that Sirbes is a Persian word similar in meaning to the Greek Xanthus. We may infer, from the established use of the name Xanthus, that the population who spoke the language allied to Zend was not the dominant race at the time of Homer. Similar cases of double names are not uncommon in modern |