FIG. 76. HEROON OF GYEULBASHI.
FIG. 76. HEROON OF GYEULBASHI.
FIG. 76. HEROON OF GYEULBASHI.
In form the heroon differs entirely, as will be seen from the engraving (Fig. 76) from other Lycian monuments. Theactual grave is a modest construction in the form of a sarcophagus surmounted by a cover with gables. This stands transversely within a walled enclosure some 78 feet long by 68 wide, inside measurement. The enclosing wall is built solidly of squared stones. And it is this which is the interesting part of the whole; for the wall is adorned without and within with a series of reliefs, presenting us with a whole gallery of representations remarkable alike for their style and their subjects, some of which are portrayed nowhere else in the whole range of Greek sculpture.
The keynote here again is furnished by the group of seated heroic personages. This group is sculptured over the door through which the enclosure is entered; unfortunately it has so severely suffered that the details are obscure. The great lintel stone over the doorway is decorated as follows. Above are the foreparts of four winged bulls, separated by rosettes and a gorgon-head. Immediately below these are seated two pairs of figures, in each case male and female. The men are bearded, the women veiled. Husband and wife are turned towards one another, and behind the wife in each group stands a girl, a daughter or servant, holding in one instance a casket, in the other raising her arms in an attitude of sorrow.
These two heroic pairs are probably the proprietors of the sacred enclosure, which was built like a finely carved casket to hold their ashes. In the decoration of the casket we find one Oriental motive. Over the door inside is a line of dwarfs, or of repetitions of the Egyptian monster Bes, holding musical instruments or dancing. Here we have a touch lent by a religion less refined and artistic than that of the anthropomorphic Greeks. The rest of the reliefs take their subjects from the legendary tales of Greece. We do not appear to have here, as on the Nereid monument, allusions to the lives of the buried heroes. There is no scene which bears the impress of history. The Greek artists who were employed bythe wealthy Lycian family to adorn the wall seem to have been left quite free in their choice of subjects. So they run on almost without plan, from tale to tale and from scene to scene. Sometimes we have two subjects, one above the other, quite independent one of the other. Sometimes the two lines of decorations are occupied with a single scene.
It would be useless to attempt to describe in detail scenes which we are unable to set before the eyes of the reader. The landing of the Greeks at Troy, the siege of the City, the battle of Achilles with the Amazons who come to its rescue, Odysseus meeting Penelope, and shooting down the suitors, are taken from the cycle of Trojan legend. Then we have the hunting of the Calydonian boar, the carrying off of the daughters of Leucippus, the expedition of the Seven against Thebes, all portrayed with the freedom which Greek artists use, always ready to subordinate strict fidelity to tradition to the necessities of art and the love of balance and measure. The interest of those scenes is great, but it does not belong to our subject. The art is not sepulchral, but of the myth-loving kind which prevails in the decoration of Greek temples, and which once marked the lost masterpieces of the great Greek painters. Professor Benndorf has tried, and not unsuccessfully, to prove that in the reliefs of Gyeulbashi we may find clear traces of the influence of the great Thasian painter Polygnotus, another of whose lines of influence reached the sculptors of the Parthenon. The Lycian heroon and the Attic temple are works of about the same period, widely as they differ in some respects. At Athens the influence of Polygnotus is fairly and fully translated into sculptural style. In Lycia the sculptor has less transforming vigour, and he retains in the work of the chisel some conventions appropriate only to the work of the brush.
One other important tomb must be mentioned which was built in Asia, though its construction is purely Greek, its material the marble of Pentelicus, and its erection on thecoast of Asia Minor no more than an instance of the fortune of war.
FIG. 77. LION-TOMB, CNIDUS.
FIG. 77. LION-TOMB, CNIDUS.
FIG. 77. LION-TOMB, CNIDUS.
Among the discoveries, with the fruits of which Sir Charles Newton enriched the British Museum, there were few which he valued more highly than that of the Lion-tomb of Cnidus. The huge lion, which is now in the Mausoleum Room of the British Museum, reclined on the top of a building made solidto receive his vast weight, looking out over the Carian Sea. We engrave (Fig. 77) the whole monument as restored by Mr. Pullan[298].
It can scarcely be contended that the lion is a great work of sculpture. His size is imposing and his attitude monumental, but the head and body alike lack character and force. This is true of all the lions of Greek artists of the period, the great lion set up in memory of Chaeroneia, those which adorned the Mausoleum, and others. The fact is that the Greeks between the days of the Persian Wars and those of Alexander knew nothing of the lion, probably scarcely ever saw one, dead or alive. So their artistic and idealizing tendency had to work without constant reference to, and correction by, nature. Thus, while the types of the horse, the bull, and the dog went on developing on the lines of love and appreciation of nature, the type of the lion became fantastic and poor. The soul of the lion does not inhabit the bodies prepared for it by Greek artists.
Nevertheless the Cnidian monument has its interest. It is conjectured, with a high degree of probability, that it was set up by Conon, after his great victory of 394B.C.over the Spartan fleet at Cnidus. It commemorates alike the battle and the Athenians who fell in it. It is an Attic tomb though not erected in Attica, more imposing as a historical monument than the reliefs of the Cerameicus, but inferior to them in the higher artistic qualities.
Our subject being Greek sculptured tombs, we must leave out of consideration one of the most important classes of Hellenic or semi-Hellenic graves, that which belongs to the Greek colonists of the Crimea and their barbarous Scythic allies[299]. In the neighbourhood of the ancient Panticapaeum,a city closely connected with Athens by ties of commerce and alliance, there are many mound-graves, which being opened have been found to contain lofty vaulted chambers, in shape and design not unlike the treasuries of Mycenae and Orchomenus, but of a far later age, belonging in fact mostly to the fourth century, which seems to have been the golden age of Panticapaeum. These graves have no important architectural features and no sculptural adornment. But they have in many cases preserved to our days their contents, a rich spoil of gold and bronze, of Greek vases and barbarous armour, of ornaments and coins. By an art-loving and paternal government, these important relics of the most northerly branch of the Hellenic stock have been carefully collected and preserved, forming to-day one of the most splendid attractions of the Hermitage Museum at St. Petersburg.
They are also luxuriously published in official publications of the Russian Government, offering to the student of history a new chapter, showing how, in the Crimea of old, Greek and Scythian met, how the Greek refined the Scythian and supplied him with admirable works of art, and how the Scythian lent the Greek armour and clothes, besides no doubt supplying him with timber, corn, and skins. And to the student of art they exhibit the richness and the taste displayed by Athenian craftsmen in the fourth century, in the production even of the smallest and least considered of the appliances of daily life.
Weturn next to the Mausoleum, the great tomb erected in honour of Mausolus, king of Caria, by his widow Artemisia, in the middle of the fourth century. It ranked among the wonders of the world, and was the work of the most celebrated artists of Greece. The discovery of its remains by Sir Charles Newton occupies a prominent position among the first-rate achievements of English excavators. And their acquisition by the British Museum has made the National Gallery of Sculpture almost as rich in fourth-century sculpture as the purchase of the Elgin marbles had made it in the sculpture of the fifth century.
The problem of the reconstruction of the Mausoleum is among the most interesting of those connected with the history of Greek architecture. Generally speaking, after the excavation of the site of the great Greek building, its restoration is by no means difficult. The laws of Greek architecture are so precise, and its forms so simple, that it is possible from the evidence of a few stones to reconstruct it with the certainty with which the skilled palaeontologist constructs a geological animal from the evidence of a few bones. The wonderful reconstructions of Dr. Dörpfeld on the Athenian Acropolis, at Olympia, and elsewhere, have commonly but little in them which is arbitrary, though much which is brilliant.
Dr. Dörpfeld has not yet attempted the Mausoleum. Butit is safe to say that in its reconstruction he would meet difficulties such as he has not yet encountered. At first sight, the materials for a reconstruction seem very abundant. We have an elaborate description of the monument by Pliny. We have an account of its partial destruction in the sixteenth century by the Knights of St. John. And the excavations on the site conducted by Sir Charles Newton were complete and systematic. But the advantage derived from all this richness of material is more than balanced by the fact that the Mausoleum was a work of new and original design. It was no Greek temple, made according to well-established rules, but a monument intended to stand alone through the centuries. Thus the man who would successfully restore its design must venture to rise above convention, and has need of a thorough grasp of the tendencies and possibilities of Greek architecture.
Setting aside the fanciful reconstructions proposed by scholars before Newton’s excavations, we pass to those made with the data now available. The earliest reconstruction, one to which we must attach considerable value, is that set forth by the excavators themselves. It is hard to say who is responsible for it. It was first projected by Lieut. Smith, an engineer attached to the expedition, revised and completed by Mr. Pullan the architect, adopted and defended by Sir Charles Newton himself. Plans based upon this, but differing from it in various points, were set forth by Mr. Fergusson and Dr. Petersen. But since neither of these writers has fairly grappled with the subject from the beginning, we may feel justified in not paying much heed to their plans. If we are to set aside a restoration made on the spot, with all local knowledge and every resource, it must be only after a very careful and complete survey of all the available evidence.
The plans of Pullan, Fergusson, and Petersen have won their way into our books, and are frequently treated as final. But final they certainly are not. They have never, until quitelately, been collated with sufficient care with the evidence, especially with the ancient authorities. They contain violations of precedent and probability which it is not easy to justify. Mr. Oldfield has therefore done an excellent work in his recent attempt[300]to improve upon the received restorations, an attempt marked by extreme care, lucidity, and ingenuity.
FIG. 78. MAUSOLEUM: MR. PULLAN.
FIG. 78. MAUSOLEUM: MR. PULLAN.
FIG. 78. MAUSOLEUM: MR. PULLAN.
It is, unfortunately, not possible here to criticize in satisfactory detail the views of Mr. Oldfield and his predecessors. I propose only to set forth briefly the sum of the evidence
FIG. 79. MAUSOLEUM: MR. OLDFIELD.
FIG. 79. MAUSOLEUM: MR. OLDFIELD.
FIG. 79. MAUSOLEUM: MR. OLDFIELD.
which exists for the reconstruction, after engraving side by side the plans set forth by Mr. Pullan (Fig. 78) and Mr. Oldfield (Fig. 79)[301]on the basis of that evidence. Readers to whom such inquiries have no interest would do well to omit the rest of this chapter.
Our materials are of four kinds. First we have the statements of certain ancient writers. Second, we have the curious account by Guichard of the state of the building when it was partially destroyed by the Knights of St. John in 1522. Third, we may cite the analogy of other ancient buildings of the same kind, so far as they are preserved. And of course all these sources of information must be used in strict subordination to the evidence of excavation and of the remains actually existing.
Hyginus[302]mentions three facts in regard to the Mausoleum; he says that it was of Parian marble, 80 feet in height, 1,350 feet in circumference. In two of these statements he is certainly right. The marble of the Mausoleum is Parian, and the circuit of the sacred enclosure or peribolus is given by Newton as 1,348 English feet. But as to the height of the building Hyginus contradicts Pliny, and must probably be corrected by him.
Martial, in a curious line, speaks of the Mausoleum as suspended in the air[303]. This phrase certainly implies that it did not appear to spectators a solid and massive structure, but light and aspiring. Mr. Oldfield contends that the phrase would well describe a building whereof the upper part rested mainly on pillars[304], and would certainly not apply to a buildingof which solidity is the most striking feature, as it is of Mr. Pullan’s reconstruction.
The most important of ancient writers on the Mausoleum is Pliny[305], whose description we must transcribe at length, both in Latin and English.
In this passage are several disputed readings, which I have marked in the notes. I have accepted Mr. Oldfield’s version, which is that of the earlier edition of Sillig’s Pliny. I will briefly sum up Pliny’s evidence as to the form and dimensions of the building. His statement as to the circumstances of its erection needs no summing; it is clear, and no doubt correct.
1. The frontage towards north and south was 63 feet: the frontage (in a stricter sense the fronts) towards east and west was shorter. But the circuit was 411 feet. This latter dimension seems inconsistent with the former. How could a building which was 411 feet in circuit have no side longer than 63 feet? Impressed by this difficulty, some writers supposed the true dimensions to be 163 feet (adding to the text centenos) for the frontage to north and south. Colonel Leake, followed by Newton and Pullan, regarded the dimension of 63 feet as really the length of the cella, not of any frontage. This, however, is doing clear violence to the text of Pliny. But by a most ingenious adaptation, Mr. Oldfield has succeeded in reconciling the numbers of Pliny as they stand. He has, in fact, substituted for a square or oblong groundplan of the building �, a cruciform plan[cruciform image not available.]; and so makes it possible for any given front to be less than a fourth of the circuit of the building. Here Mr. Oldfield has certainly won a great advantage over rival constructions: he has kept to the text of Pliny, and at the same time greatly improved the form of the building. It is true that it would not be easy to find other Greek buildings of cruciform plan, but the Erechtheium at Athens gives us a hint that such a plan, produced by the intersection of two ordinary temples, would not be impossible. And the Mausoleum was a building in which originality of design was to be expected.
2. The number of columns of the pteron was thirty-six. The pteron is the temple-like building erected on the base, a construction of which, in any possible view, columns werethe principal feature. Now the writers who supposed the pteron to be a huge square edifice were compelled to place the columns all round the edge of it: and to fill up the midst with a vast and solid construction of hewn stone (Fig. 78). But Mr. Oldfield is enabled, by greatly reducing the superficial area covered by the pteron, to make the columns by far its most conspicuous feature. Within them there is room only for a small building; or the space may even be filled by a few solid piers, which is the plan he adopts. He can thus far more nearly conform to the ‘aere pendentia Mausolea’ of Martial.
3. The total height was 140 feet[311]from the ground to the top of the chariot. Let us consider how this height was made up. Thirty-seven and a half feet (25 cubits) was occupied by the pteron. Then there was a pyramid of twenty-four steps over the pteron, supporting a chariot, and there was under the pteron another pyramid equal in height to the upper one. Now we have considerable remains of the steps of the upper pyramid, from careful measurement of which Mr. Pullan has ascertained that each step was 12¼ inches in height. Thus the total height of the upper pyramid was 24½ feet. The lower pyramid was of the same height. The chariot would not occupy less than twelve feet. We have thus accounted for 37½, 24½, 24½ and 12 feet, about 100 feet of the 140 of Pliny. The amount may be filled up by assuming that the whole stood on a high podium or basis, and by inserting an attic over the pteron, or in other ways.
4. If the readingaequavitforaequatbe accepted, an opening is left for Mr. Oldfield’s view, that after the building had been set up with a pyramid rising to a point, it was decided to add a chariot on the top, and that in order to accomplish this, a basis was built round the topmost steps of the pyramid, of which six were thus concealed from view.
5. Sir C. Newton[312]and Mr. Pullan accepted the reading ‘altitudineminferiorem’ foraltitudine, and had supposed the assertion to be that the height of the pyramid above was equal to that of the basis below the pyramid. This is, however, a mere correction of the text. If we adhere to the reading of the MSS. we must retainaltitudine, and supposeinferioremto apply to a second pyramid beneath the pteron. It is thus that Mr. Oldfield takes the phrase, and of the existence of this second pyramid he finds proof in the testimony of Guichard, to which we shall next turn. The height of this lower pyramid he supposes to have been equal to that of the original pyramid of twenty-four steps, not of course to the later truncated pyramid of eighteen steps.
It will be seen on referring to Figs.78and79that the acceptance of one or the other of these readings of Pliny makes a great difference in the principles of reconstruction. Mr. Pullan admitted no lower pyramid, and regarding the chariot on the summit as part of the original design, makes the twenty-four steps of the upper pyramid support it. Mr. Oldfield does admit a lower pyramid, and regarding the chariot as a later addition works into its basis six steps of the upper pyramid. Hence a great difference between the two restorers in the area covered by the base of the upper pyramid, which is far larger in Mr. Pullan’s design: and this affects the whole form of the building, since the excavations determined the size of the area on which the whole stood. It is not easy to meet Mr. Oldfield’s argument in favour of his design, that the phrase ‘tapering to a point’ applies far better to his pyramid, as originally intended, than to Mr. Pullan’s flat-topped pyramid.
Such appears to be the testimony of Pliny. And in some points it is curiously supplemented by the very notable account,professing to come from an eye-witness, which is given us by Guichard[313]of the proceedings of the Knights of St. John on the site of the Mausoleum. ‘In the year 1522, when Sultan Solyman was preparing an expedition against the Rhodians, the Grand Master, knowing the importance of the Castle of St. Peter [at Budrum or Halicarnassus], and being aware that the Turk would seize it if he could at the first assault, sent some knights thither to repair the fortress and make all due preparations to resist the enemy. Among the number of those sent was the Commander de la Tourette, a Lyonnese knight, who was afterwards present at the taking of Rhodes, and came to France, where he related what I am now about to narrate to M. d’Alechamps, a person sufficiently known by his learned writings, and whose name I mention here only for the purpose of publishing my authority for so singular a story.
‘When these knights had arrived at Mesy (Budrum), they at once set about fortifying the castle; and looking about for stones wherewith to make lime, found none more suitable or more easily got at than certain steps of white marble, raised in the form of a staircase (perron) in the middle of a level field near the port, which had formerly been the great square of Halicarnassus. They therefore pulled down and took away these marble steps for their use, and finding the stone good, proceeded, after having destroyed the little masonry remaining above ground, to dig lower down, in the hope of finding more.
‘In this attempt they had great success, for in a short time they perceived that the deeper they went the more the structure was enlarged at the base, supplying them not only with stone for making lime but also for building.
‘After four or five days, having laid bare a great space one afternoon, they saw an opening as into a cellar. Taking a candle, they descended through this opening, and found thatit led into a fine large square apartment, ornamented all round with columns of marble, with their bases, capitals, architrave, frieze, and cornices, carved and sculptured inmezzo rilievo. The space between the columns was lined with slabs and bands of marbles of different colours, ornamented with mouldings and sculptures, in harmony with the rest of the work, and inserted in the white ground of the wall, where deeds and battle-scenes were represented sculptured in relief.
‘Having at first admired these works, and entertained their fancy with the singularity of the sculpture, they pulled it to pieces, and broke up the whole of it, applying it to the same purpose as the rest.
‘Besides this apartment, they found afterwards a very low door, which led into another apartment, like an ante-chamber, where was a tomb, with its urn and its cover (tymbre) of white marble, very beautiful and of marvellous lustre. This sepulchre, for want of time, they did not open, the retreat having already sounded.
‘The day after, when they returned, they found the tomb opened, and the earth all round strewn with fragments of cloth of gold, and ornaments of the same metal, which made them suppose that the pirates who hovered on their coast, having some inkling of what had been discovered, had visited the place during the night, and had removed the lid of the tomb.’
Those who are acquainted with the Levant, with its wondrous tales of underground chambers and hidden treasures, will scarcely be disposed to accept, without a grain of salt, the details of this curious story. It may be true, or it may be in the main a work of the imagination. Many such stories, grounded or groundless, are flitting from mouth to mouth in Asia Minor, and rapidly growing in the process. Nevertheless it is probable that Mr. Oldfield is justified in saying that the earlier part of the tale affords a clear confirmation of the existence (which has been denied) of a lower pyramid at the Mausoleum as well asthat which surmounted the building. The knights found in the ground steps of white marble like a staircase, and as they dug downwards these steps spread outwards, just as would the steps of a pyramid. The solid mass of marble had escaped while most of the upper part of the building had been carried away as material for the castles of the knights. But it survived no longer; it was carried away by the companions of De la Tourette and built into the walls of the castle. As to what Guichard tells us in regard to the contents of the inner chamber, scepticism is more justifiable.
Of monuments mentioned in these pages, only two can fairly be used for comparison with the Mausoleum. These are the Lycian Nereid Monument (Fig. 74) and the Lion Tomb of Cnidus (Fig. 77). The Nereid Monument consists, like the Mausoleum, of a pteron raised upon a base or podium; but no part of it is of pyramidal form. It is merely, if the restoration be correct, a building in the form of an ordinary Greek temple, on an unusually high podium. It may be used as proof that the Mausoleum also had a high podium, for the existence of which the existing remains furnish no direct evidence. The Lion Tomb may be suggestive from a constructional point of view, as the architectural problem involved in supporting a massive lion on the top was not unlike the problem which the architect of the Mausoleum had to solve. But its elevation was of a far simpler type than was that of the Mausoleum.
Other buildings are cited and engraved in the treatise of Mr. Oldfield, but unless we could examine them in detail it would be useless to mention them here. They are valuable rather as offering suggestions on points of construction than as affording us real parallels to the plan of the Mausoleum.
The evidence of existing remains must be studied partly inSir C. Newton’sHistory of Discoveries, partly in the Mausoleum Room of the British Museum. Lately Mr. Murray has in that museum set up one of the pillars of the pteron, with base and cornice, a reconstruction which will greatly help those who wish to revive in imagination the glories of the most splendid of ancient sepulchres.
For the manner in which out of the data Mr. Oldfield makes a conjectural restoration of the great tomb we must refer the reader to his admirable paper inArchaeologia. We can only conclude, as we began, by referring to his engraving set side by side with Mr. Pullan’s (Figs.78,79). Of the two it is by far the better, closer to the ancient evidence, less clumsy, more Greek. But of course it may be in turn superseded by other restorations hereafter. In one point both reconstructions are certainly wrong, in placing on the top of the whole, in the chariot of Pythis, the magnificent statues of Mausolus and Artemisia, found on the site, which were doubtless carefully preserved in the interior of the building, and not put almost beyond sight and exposed to the weather on the top of it. I have elsewhere[314]maintained this view by the following arguments:—
1. Pliny mentions the chariot of Pythis, but says nothing of any figures in it.
2. The statues at such a height, in a chariot, and behind gigantic horses, would have been almost invisible from below.
3. Neither Mausolus nor his wife is holding reins or clad in the dress of a charioteer.
4. The head of Mausolus in particular is too well preserved to have been long exposed to the weather.
5. Both the horses and the wheel of the chariot are on a far larger scale than the two statues.
6. They are also very inferior to the statues as works of art.
The only argument of importance on the other side arises from the fact that the statues and the fragments of the chariot were found together. But it must be observed that the course of discovery in the German excavations at Olympia proved that collocations of remains of ancient buildings have often a most fortuitous character. And not only were the statues of Mausolus and Artemisia found with the remains of the chariot, but also a variety of fragments of other statues which can have had nothing to do with that chariot.
We cannot yet venture to say to which of the Mausoleum artists the portrait of Mausolus is due. Quite lately Dr. J. Six has suggested Bryaxis and Dr. W. Amelung Praxiteles, who is said by Vitruvius to have had a share in the monument. But neither of these conjectures reaches beyond a probability.
We possess, besides the sculptured remains already mentioned, quite a wealth of fragments of statues and reliefs from the site. (1) Some fragments of metopes, one of which seems to have represented an adventure of Theseus. (2) A few figures from a most spirited frieze, representing a race of chariots. This frieze is generally accepted as the work of Scopas. (3) Scanty vestiges of a frieze representing the battle of Lapiths and Centaurs. (4) The well-known wonderful frieze of the Greeks and Amazons. (5) A magnificent torso of a Persian rider on his horse. (6) Portions of many statues of colossal size and of life size. These sculptural remains have never been properly published[315], nor are by any means all of them exhibited in the public rooms of the British Museum.
The Mausoleum was a wonder of the world, not so much on account of its size and costliness as because of its ingenious architecture and noble sculpture. Though it had not the magnificence of the Taj Mahal of Agra, nor the solidity of thePyramids of Egypt, it is probably the noblest tomb ever erected for mortal man. It not only immortalized the name of Mausolus, but it is also a leading authority for the style of the second great school of Attic sculptors. Its poor remains are among the most precious possessions of the British Museum. Of the authors, we can still say, in the words of Pliny, ‘hodie certant manus.’
Therecent great discovery at Sidon of a number of beautiful sarcophagi executed by Greek artists, and belonging to the best period of sculpture, has been quite a revelation to archaeologists. Before, we had abundance of Roman sarcophagi, the sculpture of which showed various degrees of merit; and we had a few sarcophagi from Cyprus and Lycia and Etruria, which were interesting, but not very important in relation to Greek art or Greek religion. One or two of our most beautiful sarcophagi, notably the Amazon sarcophagus of Vienna, were Hellenic, and dated as far back as the fourth century; but these seem almost lost in the brilliancy of the recent discoveries.
The Greek custom was not to bury the dead in massive coffins of stone, but either to build a receptacle for the body out of slabs of terra cotta, or to enclose it in a light earthenware vessel. I speak of course of the cases when the body was buried: when it was burned, obviously only a small vase would be necessary to hold the ashes.
The terra-cotta coffins of the Greeks had seldom any notable adornment. But exception must be made of one great necropolis, that of Clazomenae in Ionia. In some of our great museums, notably those of London and Berlin, there are preserved several remarkable sarcophagi[316]of the sixthcentury, which come from that site. They are of solid construction, made of terra-cotta, adorned with rich patterns painted on lids and on sides, and covered with scenes closely parallel to those familiar to us on black-figured vases, combats of warriors, hunting scenes, heraldic animals, and the like. A distinctly Oriental trait found on some of these coffins is found in the scenes where the hunters are pursuing in chariots stags and other game. The kings of Assyria are represented on the walls of their palaces as thus hunting in chariots; but the custom was probably quite foreign to all Greeks except a few wealthy inhabitants of Asia, who were influenced by Asiatic ways. These productions of Ionic potters are very interesting from many points of view, but are not quite in the line of our present investigation.
Let us then at once pass to the sarcophagi from Sidon, now the chief ornaments of the important museum formed by Hamdy Bey at Constantinople[317]. They all come from one series of tombs discovered at Sidon. There was a central pit sunk in the rocky soil, off which branched in all directions a series of chambers cut at various times and opening one out of the other. The rooms contained a number of sarcophagi of various periods, the earlier showing the influence of Egypt, the later that of Hellas. There can be little doubt that we have discovered one of the chief burying-places of the royal race of the kings of Sidon. Unfortunately the coffins had been opened by robbers at some uncertain period, and their contents removed. Only the sarcophagi themselves remain, for the most part in an excellent state of preservation, and even retaining to some extent the colours with which their marble was stained when they were fashioned.
Until the end of the sixth century these royal coffins areof the Egyptian form, the body being plain, and the cover imitating the form of a mummy with the face exposed. But in the fifth century these faces show the dominance of Greek style. And as the rule of Greek art in the Levant becomes during that century more pronounced, the mummy-like sarcophagus gives place to forms better suited for offering a suitable field to the sculptor, and the flat surfaces are adorned with reliefs, which in style if not in subject are of pure Greek type. We will briefly describe the four principal sculptured sarcophagi under the names which have been for convenience assigned to them, and in chronological order: (1) The Tomb of the Satrap, (2) The Lycian Tomb, (3) The Tomb of the Mourning Women, (4) The Alexander Tomb.
The Tomb of the Satrap is assigned by Studniczka to the middle of the fifth century, and though the freedom of pose of some of the figures sculptured on it may make us hesitate before accepting quite so early a date, it certainly belongs to the century. Three of the four scenes which adorn the sides and ends of the tomb are clearly scenes from the history of one man, no doubt the hero contained in it, a personage represented as having a long beard, and usually wearing the conical hat of the Persians and Phrygians. The scene of one of the ends (Fig. 80)[318]recalls the gable of the Nereid monument. The bearded man reclines on a couch at table, holding in his hand a winecup. His wife is seated at his feet; in attendance on him are two young men, one of whom fills a rhyton or drinking horn from a jug. We have here a scheme closely like that of the sepulchral banquet of Athens. And though the reference may be primarily to the family repast of the palace, yet considering that the sculptor was a Greek, it is scarcely likely that all reference to what was beyond thetomb was wholly absent from his mind. The wine which the hero drinks may very well be that poured in libation at his grave.
FIG. 80. SARCOPHAGUS OF THE SATRAP: END.
FIG. 80. SARCOPHAGUS OF THE SATRAP: END.
FIG. 80. SARCOPHAGUS OF THE SATRAP: END.
At the opposite end of the sarcophagus are represented four of the body-guard, conversing one with the other. On one of its sides is a scene of leave-taking. The hero sits on a throne, resting his arm Zeus-like on a sceptre, while behind him stand two of the women of his household. Before him is a young man, no doubt a son, stepping into a chariot to which four horses are already yoked, and of which he holds the reins. He turns to say a word of farewell to his father. Two other young men are present: one holds in the horses of the chariot, the other stands ready to mount a horse, and to ride beside it. Here again we have a scene to which abundant parallels may be found among the Attic grave-reliefs. The departure of a warrior or a horseman is, as we have already seen[319], anordinary subject on the stelae of Athens and elsewhere. It may be that the son is setting out on a military expedition which brought his father fame and increase of territory.
On the fourth side of the tomb, father and son are again prominent. It is a hunting scene. In the midst is a panther turning to bay, which father and son charge at the same moment on horseback from one side and the other. On the left a young horseman has struck down a stag, and to balance him on the right is represented a horse galloping away in a panic, having thrown his rider, whom he drags with him. There can be little doubt that all these scenes are out of the life of the person to whom the tomb is devoted, and in all his son appears with him, very probably the successor who had the sarcophagus made. The subsidiary figures may be either younger sons or merely attendants. Unfortunately we have no historical data for the assignment of the tomb to any particular ruler of Sidon.
M. Reinach insists with justice on the importance of this tomb as a monument of the great art of Ionia of the fifth century, an art of which little has come down to us, but of the splendour of which we can judge from the statements of ancient writers. Our sarcophagus lies half-way between the reliefs of Assyria, recording the great deeds of the kings, in an exaggerated and ideal historical record, and the sculpture of purely Greek monuments such as the Mausoleum, where the battles of Greeks and Amazons, of Lapiths and Centaurs, take the place of the contests of ordinary men. The Lycian Tomb and that of the Mourning Women belong almost entirely to the idealizing tendency of Greek sculpture already spoken of, which translated the present into the past and the human into the heroic. With the age of Alexander the historic tendency once more prevails, since the deeds of Alexander and his contemporaries might well seem pitched at a level quite as high as the mythic exploits of Herakles and Theseus.
The Lycian Tomb may be dated about the year 420. It owes its name to its curious form, a form common in Lycia, the cover being set on in the shape of a Gothic arch. The conjecture has been hazarded that it was originally made for a Lycian chief and carried off by its Phoenician proprietor; but for this view there is not much evidence.