Zeus : a study in ancient religion - Warburg Institute

Apollon and Artemis 475
who with bill-hooks, or without^ attempt to lop or rend away
the entangling vegetable growth. The centre of the transforma-
tion-scene is occupied by a spiral column with a rosette on the
top of it and a ladder leaning against it. P. Hartwig^ and H. Goez'
draw a sharp contrast between the two scenes of the downfall
and the metamorphosis : the former they take to be a rich and
harmonious composition implying an artistic prototype"*, the latter
a loosely-connected and clumsy row of figures perhaps first put
together by Bargates and certainly filled out by him with a mere
ornamental column^ I do not agree with this estimate. On the one
hand, the boasted composition is full of absurdities. Zeus, comfort-
ably seated, is yet hurling a thunderbolt! Helios is on horse-back
a notion that is not Greek®. And Artemis is unexampled dans cette
galere. The fact is that the Arretine potter, not possessed of sufficient
genius to invent a new type, is simply using up stock patterns.
He has by him a seated Zeus, who will serve for the thunderer. He
has a set of neo-Attic dies for the tragedy of the Niobids' : three of
them can be worked in—Artemis, the dead youth (Phaethon), the
fleeing maiden (Tethys). He knows how to represent Troilos on
horse-back :
the
familiar figure with its spare horse will do for
Helios, and the two horses of Troilos can be duplicated for the
captured solar pair. All patch-work ! But patch-work, when the
patches are Greek, is apt to produce-^as it were by a turn of the
kaleidoscope—new and satisfactory combinations of old and well-
amber with that of obtaining frankincense (Theophr. hist. pi. q. 4. 4, Plin. nat. hist. 12.
68). H. Goez loc. cit. thinks that the youth without the bill-hook, like the two Heliades
in front of him, is trying to tear away the fatal poplar-branches, and can hardly be viewed
as an amber-collector. G. Knaack loc. cit. leaves the question in suspense.
^ Cp. Ov. met. 2. 358 f. (of Clymene) truncis avellere corpora temptat |
manibus ramos abrumpit.
^ P. Hartwig loc. cit. p. 493.
^ H. Goez loc. cit. p. 479.
et teneros
* P. Hartwig loc. cit. p. 494
inspired by a literary (but iton-tr&g\c) source, to which Ovid and Valerius Flaccus were
likewise indebted.
ff. presupposes some toreutic work of the Hellenistic age,
^ E. Robinson loc. cit. :
' This may have something to do with the subject, but seems
more probably introduced to fill the space.' P. Hartwig loc. cit. p. 49 1 f. :
' Die gewundene
Saulc.halte ich mit Robinson fiir eine rein ornamentale Zuthat unseres Bargates.' For
the twisted column as a favourite motif oi Arretine ware see H. B. Walters History of
Ancient Pottery London 1905 ii. 493.
^ Supra i. 333 n. 5. Yet Eur. Phaethon frag. 779, 8 f. Nauck^ ap. Longin. de suhlim.
15. 4 says of Helios : Trarrip 5' oiricrde vwra a-eipaiov /3e/3u)s |
tinreve
TratSa vovderwv k.t.X.
^ F. Hauser Die neu-attischen Reliefs Stuttgart 1889 p. 73 ff. nos. 104— 107 b. Furt-
wangler Masterpieces of Gk. Sculpt, p. 43 f. fig. 7 shows that these reliefs were originally
extracts from a fifth-century representation of Apollon and Artemis slaying the Niobids,
probably that carved by Pheidias on the throne of Zeus at Olympia. For other views see
A. H. Smith in the Brit. Mus. Cat. Sculpture iii. 262 f.