13. But why do I laugh at
the sickles and tridents which have been given to the gods? why at the
horns, hammers, and caps, when I know that certain images have4658
the forms of
certain men, and the features of notorious courtesans? For who is
there that does not know that the Athenians formed the
Hermæ in the likeness of Alcibiades? Who does not
know—if he read Posidippus over again—that Praxiteles,
putting forth his utmost skill,
4659
| 4659
Lit., “with strife of skills.” |
fashioned the face of the Cnidian Venus
on the model of the courtesan Gratina, whom the unhappy man
loved
desperately? But is this the only Venus to whom there has been
given
beauty taken from a
harlot’s face? Phryne,
4660
| 4660
ms. Phyrna, but below Phryna,
which is read in both instances by Hild. and Oehler. |
the well-known
native of Thespia—as those who have written
on Thespian
affairs relate—when she was at the height of her
beauty,
comeliness, and youthful vigour, is said to have been the model of all
the Venuses which are
held in esteem, whether throughout the
cities of Greece or here,
4661
| 4661 So
Meursius, followed by Orelli, reading istic for the
ms. iste. |
whither has flowed the longing and
eager desire for such figures. All the artists,
therefore, who lived at that
time, and to whom
truth gave the greatest ability to portray
likenesses, vied in transferring with all painstaking and
zeal the
outline of a prostitute to the images of the Cytherean. The
beautiful thoughts4662
| 4662
i.e., either the conceptions in their minds, or realized in their
works. Orelli, followed by the German translator Besnard,
adopting the former view, translates “the ideas of the artists
(die Ideale der Künstler) were full of fire
and life.” |
of the artists were full of
fire; and
they strove each to
excel the other with emulous rivalry, not that
Venus might become more august, but that Phryne
4663
| 4663
[See note 15, p. 511.] |
might stand for Venus. And so
it was brought to this, that
sacred honours were offered to courtesans
instead of the
immortal gods, and an unhappy system of
worship was led
astray by the making of statues.
4664
| 4664
[True, alas! to this day; notorious courtesans furnishing the models
for the pictures and statues worshipped as saints, angels, etc.] |
That well-known and
4665
| 4665 So
Gelenius and Canterus, reading et for ms. est. |
most
distinguished statuary, Phidias, when he had
raised the form of
Olympian
Jupiter with immense labour and exertion,
4666
| 4666
Lit., “with exertion of immense strength.” |
inscribed on the
finger of the
god
Pantarces4667
| 4667
ms. Pantarches. This was a very common
mode of expressing love among the ancients, the name of the loved one
being carved on the bark of trees (as if the Loves or the mountain
nymphs had done it), on walls, doors, or, as in this case, on statues,
with the addition “beautiful” (Suidas, s.v. Καλοί and ῾Ραμνουσία
Νέμεσις, with
Küster’s notes). [Vol. ii. p. 187, note 1, this
series.] |
is beautiful,—
this, moreover, was the name of a
boy loved by him, and that with
lewd desire,—and was not moved by
any
fear or
religious dread to call the
god by the name of a
prostitute; nay, rather, to
consecrate the
divinity and image of
Jupiter to a debauchee. To such an extent is there
wantonness and
childish feeling in forming those little images, adoring them as gods,
heaping upon them the
divine virtues, when we see that the artists
themselves find amusement in fashioning them, and set them up as
monuments of their own
lusts! For what
reason is there, if
you should inquire, why Phidias should hesitate to amuse himself, and
be
wanton when he knew that, but a little before, the very
Jupiter
which he had made was
gold,
stones, and
ivory,
4668
formless, separated, confused, and
that it was he himself who brought all these together and bound them
fast, that their appearance
4669
| 4669
Lit., “conditions,” habitus. |
had been given to them by himself in
the imitation
4670
of limbs
which he had carved; and, which is more than
4671
| 4671
Lit., “first among.” |
all, that it was his own free gift,
that
Jupiter had been produced and was adored among
men?
4672
| 4672
Lit., “human things.” |
E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
