Полная версия
Ruins of Ancient Cities (Vol. 1 of 2)
From these observations, it would appear that the spoliation of the Parthenon may be vindicated on the ground, that neither the Turks nor the citizens cared any thing about them, and that if they had not been taken away, they would, in a short time, have been destroyed. Respectable testimony, however, is opposed to this: most travellers have inveighed against the spoliation; and two, highly qualified, have given a very different account from what the above statement implies. These are Dr. Clarke and Mr. Dodwell. We shall select the testimony of the latter in preference to that of Dr. Clarke, only because he was at Athens at the very time in which the spoliation was going on. "During my first tour to Greece," says he, "I had the inexpressible mortification of being present when the Parthenon was despoiled of its finest sculpture, and when some of its architectural members were thrown to the ground." * * * "It is, indeed, impossible to suppress the feelings of regret which must arise in the breast of every traveller, who has seen these temples before and since their late dilapidation! Nor have I any hesitation in declaring, that the Athenians in general, nay, even the Turks themselves, did lament the ruin that was committed; and loudly and openly blamed their sovereign for the permission he had granted! I was on the spot at the time, and had an opportunity of observing, and, indeed, of participating, in the sentiment of indignation, which such conduct universally inspired. The whole proceeding was so unpopular in Athens, that it was necessary to pay the labourers more than their usual profits, before any one could be prevailed upon to assist in this work of profanation."
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
1
Plutarch; Diodorus; Rollin; Sandwich.
2
Pliny; Strabo; Plutarch; Diodorus; Wilkinson.
3
Simon; Count Fedor de Karacray; Malte-Brun.
4
"Ægina abounds," says Wheler, "with a sort of red-legged partridge, against which, by order of the Epitropi, or the chief magistrate of the town, all, both young and old, go out yearly, as the pigmies of old did against the cranes, to war with, and to break their eggs before they are hatched; otherwise, by their multitudes, they would so destroy and eat up the corn, that they would inevitably bring a famine every year upon the place."
5
Mr. C. R. Cockerell and Mr. John Foster; W. Linckh and Baron Haller.
6
Wheler; Chandler; Barthélemi; Sandwich; Lusieri; Clarke; Dodwell; Williams; Leake.
7
Rollin.
8
Livy, Cicero, Diodorus Siculus, Rollin, Brydone; Encyl. Lond., Brewster's Encyl.
9
Dionysius of Halicarnassus; – Sir W. Gell.
10
Jose Almana.
11
Browne.
12
Myos Hormos.
13
Four hundred and fifty talents of gold. See 2 Chron. viii. 18. This, we may suppose, was the gross sum received; not the profit.
14
A. M. 3685. Ant. J. C. 321. Diod. lib. xviii. p. 608, 610.
15
This author lived in the fifteenth century.
16
Earl of Sandwich.
17
Some have commended Ptolemy for permitting the architect to put his name in the inscription which was fixed on the tower, instead of his own. It was very short and plain, according to the manner of the ancients. Sostratus Cnidius Dexiphanis F. Diis Servatoribus pro navigantibus, i. e., "Sostratus the Cnidian, son of Dexiphanes, to the protecting deities, for the use of sea-faring people." But certainly Ptolemy must have very much undervalued that kind of immortality which princes are generally very fond of, to suffer that his name should not be so much as mentioned in the inscription of an edifice so capable of immortalising him. What we read in Lucian, concerning this matter, deprives Ptolemy of a modesty, which indeed would be very ill-placed here. This author informs us that Sostratus, seeing the king determined to engross the whole glory of that noble structure to himself, caused the inscription with his own name to be carved in the marble, which he afterwards covered with lime, and thereon put the king's name. The lime soon mouldered away: and by that means, instead of procuring the king the honour with which he had flattered himself, served only to discover to future ages his unjust and ridiculous vanity. – Rollin.
18
Savary.
19
Lib. xxii. c. 16.
20
See his observations on the supposed conflagration of the Alexandrian library, with a commentary on the 5th and 6th sections of the first chapter of the tenth book of Quintilian.
21
Rees.
22
Browne.
23
A very curious instance is afforded by Bruce, who wrote an account of Alexandria, and, literally, did not spend one entire day in the city. He was at sea on the morning of the 20th of June, 1768, previously to his landing in Alexandria, (see Bruce's Travels, v. i. p. 7,) and in the afternoon he left that city for Rosetta. – Clarke.
24
Browne.
25
After the English were in possession of Alexandria, a subscription was opened by the military and naval officers for the purpose of removing the prostrate obelisk to England. With the money so raised they purchased one of the vessels, sunk by the French in the old port of Alexandria: this was raised, and prepared for the reception of the obelisk. The French had already cleared away the heaps of rubbish which enveloped it, and the English turned it round, and found it in a fine state of preservation. It was moved towards the vessel, when an order arrived from the Admiralty, prohibiting the sailors from being employed at this work. No further attempts have been made to remove this fine monument to Europe. – Anon.
26
Wilkinson.
27
Sonnini.
28
He gives a full description of them. – Part iv. p. 285, 4to.
29
Sat. Mag.
30
Diodorus Siculus; Quintilian; Ammianus Marcellinus; Abulfaragius; Prideaux; Rollin; Shaw; Harris; Gibbon; Johnson; Drake; Savary; Sonnini; Sandwich; Rees; Miot; Clarke; Wilkinson; Browne; Parker; Knight.
31
Rollin; Sandwich.
32
A. M. 3604, A. C. 300.
33
Wheler; Pococke; Chandler; Rees; Sandwich; Porter; Kinneir; Buckingham; Carne; Robinson; Walpole.
34
Rollin.
35
Rollin.
36
Clarke.
37
The devastations of time and war have effaced the old city. The stranger in vain inquires for vestiges of its numerous edifices, the theatre, the gymnasium, the temples, and the monuments it once boasted, contending even with Athens in antiquity and in favours conferred by the gods. – Chandler.
38
See Tiryns.
39
Lib. vii.
40
The district of Argol is first received colonies, who introduced civilisation into Greece. It has been reckoned the cradle of the Greeks, the theatre of events, which distinguished their earliest annals, and the country which produced their first heroes and artists. It was accordingly in the temple of Juno at Argos where the Doric order first rose to a marked eminence, and became the model for the magnificent edifices afterwards erected in the other cities, states, and islands. – Civil Architecture.
41
Rollin; Rees; Clarke; La Martine.
42
Chardin; Cartwright; Ouseley.
43
Every nation had a great zeal for their gods. "Among us," says Cicero, "it is very common to see temples robbed, and statues carried off; but it was never known, that any person in Egypt ever abused a crocodile; for its inhabitants would have suffered the most extreme torments, rather than be guilty of such sacrilege." It was death for any person to kill one of these animals voluntarily.
44
Herodotus; Rollin; Savary; Belzoni; Rees.
45
Strabo; Rees; Porter
46
For the loves of Chosroes and Shirene, see D'Herbelot, and the Oriental collections.
47
Rees; Sir Robert Ker Porter.
48
Brewster.
49
The Attic stater was a gold coin weighing two drachms.
50
Brewster.
51
Dodwell.
52
Diogenes, and Hermias; Eulalicus, and Priscian; Damaschius; Isidore, and Simplicius.
53
Anon.
54
Hence Shakspeare, confounding dates, talks of Theseus, "Duke of Athens."
55
Quin's Voyage down the Danube.
56
Dodwell.
57
Hobhouse.
58
Dodwell.
59
Clarke.
60
Dodwell.
61
Clarke.
62
Hobhouse, p. 343.
63
Clarke.
64
Clarke.
65
The theatre of the ancients was divided into three principal parts; each of which had its peculiar appellation. The division for the actors was called in general the scene, or stage; that for the spectators was particularly termed the theatre, which must have been of vast extent, as at Athens it was capable of containing above thirty thousand persons; and the orchestra, which, amongst the Greeks, was the place assigned for the pantomimes and dancers, though at Rome it was appropriated to the senators and vestal virgins.
The theatre was of a semicircular form on one side, and square on the other. The space contained within the semicircle was allotted to the spectators, and had seats placed one above another to the top of the building. The square part, in the front of it, was the actors' division; and in the interval, between both, was the orchestra.
The great theatres had three rows of porticoes, raised one upon another, which formed the body of the edifice, and at the same time three different stories for the seats. From the highest of those porticoes the women saw the representation, covered from the weather. The rest of the theatre was uncovered, and all the business of the stage was performed in the open air.
66
Boindin; Rollin.
67
Plutarch, in his inquiry whether the Athenians were more eminent in the arts of war or in the arts of peace, severely censures their insatiable fondness for diversions. He asserts, that the money, idly thrown away upon the representation of the tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides alone, amounted to a much greater sum than had been expended in all their wars against the Persians, in defence of their liberty and common safety. That judicious philosopher and historian, to the eternal infamy of the Athenians, records a severe but sensible reflection of a Lacedæmonian, who happened to be present at these diversions. The generous Spartan, trained up in a state where public virtue still continued to be the object of public applause, could not behold the ridiculous assiduity of the Choragi, or magistrates who presided at the public shows, and the immense sums which they lavished in the decorations of a new tragedy, without indignation. He therefore frankly told the Athenians, that they were highly criminal in wasting so much time, and giving that serious attention to trifles, which ought to be dedicated to the affairs of the public. That it was still more criminal to throw away upon such baubles as the decorations of a theatre, that money which ought to be applied to the equipment of their fleet, or the support of their army. That diversions ought to be treated merely as diversions, and might serve to relax the mind at our idle hours, or when over a bottle; if any kind of utility could arise from such trifling pleasures. But to see the Athenians make the duty, they owed to their country, give way to their passion for the entertainments of the theatre, and to waste unprofitably that Footnote: time and money upon such frivolous diversions, which ought to be appropriated to the affairs and the necessities of the state, appeared to him to be the height of infatuation." – Montague.
68
He bequeathed to every Athenian a sum nearly equivalent to 3l. of our money.
69
The funeral of Herodes Atticus must have afforded one of the most affecting solemnities of which history makes mention. He was seventy-six years old when he died; and in the instructions which he left for his interment, he desired to be buried at Marathon, where he was born; but the Athenians insisted upon possessing his remains; and they caused the youth of their city to bear him to the Stadium Panathenaicum, which he had built; all the people accompanying, and pouring forth lamentations as for a deceased parent. – Clarke.
70
Clarke.
71
Dodwell.
72
Sandwich.
73
Clarke.
74
Lord Sandwich.
75
Sandwich.
76
Hobhouse.
77
Wheler.
78
Dodwell.
79
Clarke.
80
Clarke.
81
Dodwell.
82
Dodwell.
83
Idem.
84
Rollin.
85
"It is generally supposed," continues Mr. Williams, "the marble temples are white; but, with the exception of the temple of Minerva at Cape Colonna, (which is built of Parian marble,) this is not the case. The marble of Pentelicus, with which all the temples at Athens were built, throws out an oxide of iron of the richest yellow, and this certainly makes them infinitely more picturesque than if they were purely white."
86
"The two principal statues among the Elgin marbles are those of Theseus, the Athenian hero, and a recumbent figure, supposed to be the river-god Ilissus (numbered in the Synopsis 93 and 99). They are executed in a style of extraordinary breadth and grandeur. Theseus is represented half reclined on a rock, covered with the skin of a lion, and appears to be resting after some mighty labour. The figure of the Ilissus is less robust: all his contours flow in lines of undulating elegance. But in both these statues, that which chiefly strikes us, in spite of the dilapidations which they have suffered, is the vitality which seems to pervade them. In these, not only the office and appearance of the muscles, whether in action or at rest, but the bearings of the skeleton, are expressed with an accuracy which could only have resulted from the most profound science, added to an acute and perpetual observation of nature. The statue of the Ilissus is especially remarkable for its graceful flexibility; and we would observe, without going too technically into the subject, how different is the indentation, formed by the lower line of the ribs in this figure, so admirably expressing its position, from that geometrical arch by which this part of the body is designated in the ordinary antique statues, and which is so rarely accommodated to the action represented. The principle, pointed out in this instance, may be traced throughout the Elgin marbles, in which true art is never superseded by conventional style. We believe that in the opinion of the majority of connoisseurs, the statue of Theseus is considered superior to that of the Ilissus. Canova, however, preferred the latter; and Raffaelle, who imported designs from Greece, has adapted this figure to that of the fallen Commander, in his picture of Heliodorus. It is well known that the Ilissus was a small stream which ran along the south side of the plain of Athens. The statue in which it is here personified occupied the left angle of the west pediment of the Parthenon, and that of Theseus was placed opposite to it on the east pediment next to the horses of Hyperion."
