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CATALOGUE
OF THE
BRONZES
GREEK, ROMAN, AND ETRUSCAN,
IN THE
DEPARTMENT OF GREEK AND ROMAN ANTIQUITIES,
BRITISH MUSEUM.
BY
H. B. WALTERS, M.A., F.S.A.,
ASSISTANT IX IHE DEPARTMENT.
LONDON : PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE TRUSTEES.
So'd at the British Museum, and by Messrs. Longmans & Co., 39, Paternoster Row;
Mr. Bernard Quaritch, 15, Piccadilly; Messrs. Asher & Co., 13, Bedford Street, Covent Garden
Messrs. Kegan Taut,, Trench, Trubner & Co., Paternoster House, Charing Cross Road ;
and Mr. Henry Frowde, Oxford University Press Warehouse, Amen Corner.
1899. \.l// rights reserved?^
LONDON : PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.
"UcGns~
/ 1
PREFACE.
Tins Catalogue of Bronzes, prepared by Mr. H. B. Walters, has been revised by myself, and also by Mr. Cecil H. Smith and Mr. Arthur H. Smith.
In the INTRODUCTION Mr. Waiters has discussed the methods of ancient bronze work, its artistic character and its uses. It seemed advisable that this should be done at some length because attention has frequently been called to the want of a continuous statement of this kind in English.
A. S. Murray.
Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities, February, 1899.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
TAGE
Preface Hi
Table of Contents v
List of Plates ix
Introduction :
I. Historical Account of the Collection xiii
II. History of Bronze-working in Antiquity xvii
III. Greek Bronze Work xxxvii
IV. Etruscan Bronzes xliv
V. Gaulish and Graeco-Roman Bronzes liii
VI. Personal Ornaments and Implements :
i. Fibulae lix
2. Seal-Boxes lxii
3. Finger-Rings .......... lxiil
4. Surgical Instruments ......... lxiv
5. Razors ............ lxv
6. Locks and Keys .......... lxv
7. Arms and Armour :
A. Homeric .......... Ixvi
B. Greek lxvii
C. Italian lxix
CATALOGUE OF BRONZES. I. BRONZES HISTORICALLY GROUPED.
A. Greek Bronzes (1-336).
I. Mycenaean period (1-118).
A. Rhodes and other Greek Islands (1-48). .... I
B. Cyprus (49-1 14) 4
C Caria (115-118) 8
VI CATALOGUE OF BRONZES.
T T /-» -1 PAGE
11. Geometrical period (i 19-186).
A. Thebes (119-131) 9
B. Rhodes (132-178) IO
C. Unclassified early Bronzes (179-186) ... 1 3
III. Archaic Greek Bronzes (187-264) . ... 15
IV. Greek Bronzes of the Best period, 460-300 B.C. (265-336).
A. Statuettes (265-284) 33
B. Reliefs (285-311) 39
C. Miscellaneous Objects (312-336) ..... 47
B. Etruscan and Early Italian Bronzes (337-785).
I. Primitive period before Greek Influence (337-446) ... 52
II. Archaic period (447-601).
A. Statuettes (447-539) ........ 6 1
B. Archaic Etruscan Mirrors, etc. (540-552) .... 74
C. Cistae, Vases, Candelabra, etc. (553-601) .... jS
III. Period of finest Etruscan Art (601-669).
A. Statuettes (601-616) 89
B. Mirrors (617-636) 91
C. Cistae, Vases, etc. (637-669) . . . . . . IOI
IV. Late Etruscan Bronzes of Free Style (670-785).
A. Statuettes (670-694) . . . , . . m , \\\
B. Mirrors (695-740) . . . . . . # _ I 1 5
C. Cistae, Vases, Candelabra, etc. (741-785) . . . . 1 29
C. Gallo-Roman and Graeco-Roman Select Bronzes (786-908).
I. Bronzes from Gaul, mostly of local workmanship (786-824) . 142
II. Select Graeco-Roman Bronzes (825-908).
A. Statuettes, Busts, and Reliefs (825-863) . . . . 1 48
B. Miscellaneous Objects (864-884) I 56
C. Inscribed Objects (885-908) 1 65
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
Vll
D. Statuettes of the Graeco-Roman Period (909-1928).
I. Olympian Deities (909-1325).
A. Zeus, Hera, etc. (909-957) .
B. Marine Deities (958-975)
C. Agricultural Deities (976-986)
D. Apollo and kindred Deities (987-1030)
E. Hephaestos, Athene, and Ares (1031-1078)
F. Aphrodite (1079-1124) G Eros and kindred types (1125-1194) H. Hermes (1195-1241) . I. Heracles (1242-1325) .
II. Miscellaneous Deities and Heroic Figures (1326-1582) J. Dionysos, Satyrs, and Maenads (1326-1428) . K. Various Deities, Heroic Figures, etc. (1429-1455) L. Isis and Harpocrates (1456-1508) M. Roman Deities (1509-1582) .
(a) Agricultural (15 10-1523)
(b) Fortune (1 525-1 546) .
(c) Victory (1548-1561) .
(d) Lares ( 1 562-1 580)
III. Miscellaneous Statuettes and Busts (1 583-1728)
IV. Monsters and Animals (1729-1928)
170
175 178 179 186 192 199 207 212
222
234 238 246 246 249 252 254
257
274
II. IMPLEMENTS AND UTENSILS (1929-3188).
A. Personal Ornaments (1929-2312).
1. Fibulae, Brooches, etc. (1929-2224)
2. Seal-boxes (2225-2242) .
3. Finger-rings (2243-2312)
290
307 308
B. Surgical and Other Instruments (2313-2382) .
313
C. Objects used in Toilet (2383-2456).
1. Pins (2383-2393)
2. Miscellaneous Implements (2394-2419)
3. Strigils and Bath Implements (2420-2456)
317
317 319
Vlll CATALOGUE OF BRONZES.
PAGE
D. Cooking Utensils and Vases (2457-2512) 322
E. Lamps, Candelabra, and Furniture (2513-2585).
1. Lamps (2513-2542) 326
2. Candelabra (2543-2558) 328
3. Furniture, etc. (2559-2585) . . . . . . . 330
F. Locks and Keys (2586-2668) 333
G. Miscellaneous Implements (2669-2703) 338
H. Arms and Armour (2704-2910).
1. Etruscan armour and weapons (2704-2734) 341
2. Greek and Roman weapons (2735-2815).
(a) Swords and knives (2735-2766) ....... 343
{b) Spear-heads (2767-2796) ........ 345
(c) Arrow heads (2797-2815) 346
3. Greek and Roman armour (2816-2876).
(a) Helmets (2816-2844) 348
(i>) Cuirasses, greaves, etc. (2845-2876). . . . . . 350
4. Horses' trappings, etc. (2877-2910) 352
I. Tools (291 1-2978).
1. Celts and Axe-heads (291 1-2954) ....... 355
2. Knives (2955-2974) 357
J. Steelyards and Weights (2979-3030).
1. Steelyards (2979-2996) .359
2. Weights (2997-3030) 360
K. Stamps and Inscribed Objects (3031-3 194). ... 363
III. APPENDIX. Recent Acquisitions (3 195-32 1 6) . . . . . . ' 371
lNDKX 379
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS,
PLATES.
I. 192. Female Figure : Archaic Greek.
197. Aphrodite (?) : Archaic Greek. 209. Apollo after Canachos.
II. 188. ElLEITHYlA (?) : Archaic Greek.
199. Aphrodite Ourania : Archaic Greek.
212. Heracles or Athlete: Archaic Greek.
213. Athlete : Archaic Greek.
214. Archaic Relief: Satyr with ram. 270. Apollo from Armento.
III. 194. Aphrodite (?) : Archaic Greek.
198. Aphrodite : Archaic Greek. 208. Running Girl : Archaic Greek.
222. Man riding on Camel : Archaic Greek.
224. Archaic male Figure from Thebes.
238. Aphrodite, forming stand of Mirror : Archaic Greek.
IV. 241-243. Aphrodite, forming stand of Mirror : Archaic Greek. V. 271. Apollo from Thessaly.
272. APOLLO from Paramythia. 1084. Aphrodite fastening Sandal. VI. 274. Poseidon or Zeus from Paramythia.
277. One of the Dioscuri from Paramythia.
279. Dione OR Aphrodite from Paramythia. VII. 275. ZEUS from Paramythia.
278. Ganymede (?) from Paramythia.
280. Aphrodite from Paramythia. VIII. 285. The Siris Bronzes.
286. Heroic Figure from Lake Bracciano. IX. 288. Mirror-case and Cover : Greek designs. X. 294. Mirror-case : Hermes seizing Nymph. 298. Mirror-case : Woman offering incense. XI. 291. Mirror-case : Artemis in combat with Giant.
309. Fragment of Greek relief : Eros and Psyche. 311. Relief from vase : Dionysos and Ariadne. 859. Relief : Deity between two Gryphons. 1582. Relief : Romulus and Remus suckled by the wolf.
CATALOGUE OF BRONZES.
|
XII. |
450. |
|
508. |
|
|
c 22. |
|
|
534. |
|
|
602. |
|
|
680. |
|
|
XIII. |
449. |
|
464. |
|
|
555- |
|
|
609. |
|
|
610. |
|
|
672. |
|
|
XIV. |
491. |
|
612, |
|
|
XV. |
492, |
|
XVI. |
509. |
|
514, |
|
|
681. |
|
|
XVII. |
244- |
|
543- |
|
|
XVIII. |
542. |
|
XIX. |
619. |
|
631. |
|
|
XX. |
603. |
|
666. |
|
|
671. |
|
|
XXI. |
789- |
|
809. |
|
|
813. |
|
|
818. |
|
|
819. |
|
|
XXII. |
792. |
|
808. |
|
|
821. |
|
|
XXIII. |
798. |
|
1071. |
|
|
1248. |
|
|
XXIV. |
799- |
|
825. |
|
|
1077. |
|
|
XXV. |
882. |
|
XXVI. |
837. |
|
838. |
|
|
839. |
|
|
849. |
Artemis : Archaic Etruscan work. Two Gymnasts : Archaic Etruscan. Male FIGURE : Archaic Etruscan. Dancing GIRL : Archaic Etruscan. Demeter in rustic car : Etruscan. Male Figure : Etruscan.
Aphrodite adjusting sandal : Archaic Etruscan. Heracles : Archaic Etruscan. Hermes Criophoros : Archaic Etruscan. Reclining Figure : Etruscan. Youth kneeling : Etruscan. Heracles and the Nemean Lion : Etruscan. Winged Victory : Archaic Etruscan. 613. Two Etruscan Female Figures. 607. Two Goddesses : Etruscan work. Male Figure : Archaic Etruscan. 515. Two Athletes : Archaic Greek or Etruscan. Youth with Sword : Etruscan. Archaic Mirror : Eros flying.
ETRUSCAN Mirror : Winged Aphrodite and Erotes (?) ; Archaic work. Etruscan MIRROR: Heracles carrying off Malache ; Archaic work. ETRUSCAN MIRROR : Heracles and Erymanthian Boar. Etruscan Mirror : Satyr and Maenad. ARES : Greek or Etruscan work.
Female Figure from candelabrum : Etruscan work. Heracles subduing Horses of Diomede : Etruscan. -790. DlSPATER : Gaulish work. SEILENOS : Gaulish work. Two Months : Gaulish work. Gaulish Prisoner. Gaulish Woman. Apollo : Gaulish work. DlONYSOS : Gaulish work. Barbarian Warrior : Gaulish work. Ares : Gaulish work. ARES : Graeco-Roman period. Heracles : Graeco-Roman period. Apollo : Gaulish work.
HERMES (Payne Knight) : Graeco-Roman period. ARES : Graeco-Roman period.
Patera : Scylla destroying companions of Odysseus. Marcus Aurelius. Bust of Septimius Severus. COMMODUS on horseback. Philosopher : late Imperial times.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
XI
XXVI. XXVII.
XXVIII.
XXIX. XXX.
XXXI. XXXII.
1618. Equestrian Figure.
1722. BUST of Boy : Roman period.
786. Zeus : Gaulish work.
853. Two Wrestlers : Graeco-Egyptian. 1010. Ephesian Artemis : Graeco-Roinan period. 1303. Heracles : Graeco-Roman period. 143 1. Hygieia. 1440. Atlas.
851. Portrait of Man: Greek or Graeco-Roman.
994. Apollo. 1015. Helios. 105 1. Athene. 1389. Satyr.
1454. Ajax son of O'ileus. 189-191, 1042, 1046, 1049. Types of Athene. 1291. Heracles. 1473. Harpocrates. 1523. Silvanus.
638. Etruscan Cista : Sacrifice of Trojan captives by Achilies.
3210. Mirror-case : Horseman.
321 1. Mirror-Case : Female head.
ADDENDA ET CORRIGENDA.
P. 3, under No. 42, add : Tomb 38. Furtwaengler and Loeschcke, Myken. Vasen, pi. B,
fig. 27, p. 17. P. 5, under No. 58,/fr pi. 150, fig. 2, read : pi. 146, fig. 6 b. P. 20, under No. 213, for i\ in., read: 4I in. P. 45, under No. 305, add : Arch. Zeit. 1876, p. 9. P. 48, under No. 317, add : Gr. Dial.-Inschr. 4614.
P. 50, under No. 332, add : Athen. Mittheil. xix. (1894), p. 210 ; C. I. A. iv. 908 b. P. 67, under No. 486, add : Micali, Mon. Ined. pi. 50, fig. 5. P. 68, under No. 493, add : Bull, de Corr. Hell. xxii. (1898), pi. 3, p. 201. P. 99, line 19, under No. 632, for " cords " read " chords.1' P. 176, under No. 964, add : Brunn, Denk/naeler, 53, 54. P. 248, under Nos. 1523, 1524, add in each case : A similar example in the Ashmolean Museum,
Oxford. P. 322, under No. 2457, add : Archaeologia, xxxix. p. 509 ; cf. C. I. L. iii. Suppl. 12031 15.
INTRODUCTION.
I. HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE COLLECTION.
The collection of classical bronzes in the British Museum has been formed from a nucleus which is almost coeval with the foundation of the institution ; indeed the history of several specimens can be traced back even beyond the year 1753, when that event took place. This original nucleus was formed by bequests or donations from Sir Hans Sloane * (1753), Mr. Hollis | (1757— 1765), the Earl of Exeter (1760), and Mr. Pitt Lethieullier (1756). The present of the Earl of Exeter consisted of the head of Sophocles (No. 847), the history of which can be traced back even further than 1760 ; brought from Constantinople to England by the second Earl of Arundel (1586-1646)! at the beginning of the seventeenth century, it remained in the possession of that family till 1721. It figures in a painting of the Earl and Countess by Van Dyck, now in Arundel Castle. § In the above-mentioned year it was purchased by Dr. R. Mead, from whom it passed to the ninth Earl of Exeter in 1755, who in his turn bequeathed it to the Museum. The recently-acquired Apis-bull (No. 3208) was also once in the possession of Dr. Mead.
In 1772 the first parliamentary grant was made for the augmentation of the Museum collection, to the amount of ^8410, a part of which was devoted to the acquisition of antiquities collected by Sir W. Hamilton,! when British Ambassador at Naples from 1764 to 1800, partly by purchase, partly from excavations set on foot by himself. His chief passion was for painted vases, but the collection included also a considerable number of bronzes, mostly statuettes of deities, of Etruscan and Graeco-Roman work, fibulae, and Roman stamps. The bronzes numbered altogether 627, chiefly pieces of armour. Many of them are from the neighbourhood of Naples and Mount Vesuvius.
The beginning of the nineteenth century saw a great advance in the
* From the Sloane Collection: Nos. 761, 778, 943, 1093, 1118, 1170, 1171, 1709, 1748, 1759, 1919, 1924, 2541.
t From Mr. Hollis: Nos. 917, 942, 1044, 1087, 1207, 1298, 1374, 1477, 1483, 1575, 1601, 1798, 1808. See, for these two collectors, Brit. Mus. Cat. of Sculpture, i. Introd. Mr. Lethieullier gave the figure of Harpocrates, No. 1500.
% Edwards, Lives of the' Founders of the Brit. Mus., p. 174 ; Diet, of Nat. Biogr. xxviii. p. 73.
§ Described by Walpole, Anecdotes of Painting, i. p. 297.
II For an account of Sir W. Hamilton, sec Edwards, Lives of the Founders, p. 347 ff. ; Michaelis, Ancient Marbles in Gt. Britain, p. 109.
XIV CATALOGUE OF BRONZES.
Museum collection in all branches of Greek and Roman antiquities, but chiefly in sculpture, owing to the acquisition of the Elgin and Phigaleian marbles and the great collection of Mr. Charles Towneley.* The latter was purchased in 1805 by Act of Parliament for £20,000. Mr. Towneley's collection also included many fine and interesting bronzes. Of these the largest are the Heracles from Byblos, No. 827, and the Apollo, No. 987, the latter having been purchased at the Choiseul sale by Mr. Towneley ; the Heracles had been sent to England in 1779 by Dr. Swinney, Chaplain to the Factory at Constantinople. Among other Towneley bronzes may be mentioned the Eileithyia and the Satyr with ram (PL II.) ; the Etruscan cista with the sacrifice of Polyxena (743) ; and several fine Etruscan mirrors, notably Nos. 244, 541, 544, and 723. These were purchased in 1 8 14 by a second Act.
For the next ten years the collection of bronzes received few, if any, additions, but in 1824 it was greatly enriched, both in quality and quantity, by the bequest of Mr. Richard Payne Knight,| who left all his antiquities to the Museum, including marble busts, gems, coins, and vases, but above all, bronzes. He was regarded as the greatest connoisseur of his time, and a curious charac- teristic was that he denied the possibility of beauty and magnitude existing together, so that he limited his acquisitive energies almost entirely to the smaller productions of art. The chief attraction among his bronzes was formed by the Paramythia group, found near Dodona in Epirus in 1792 and 1796, nearly the whole of which came into his hands. Those now in the Museum (Nos. 272-281 and 1445) were collected by Payne Knight from various sources. Nineteen in all were found at Paramythia, and some were purchased at Janina by a Greek merchant, who rescued them from being melted down by a coppersmith. From him they came partly into the possession of the Czernicheff family, partly into the hands of M. de Wierislowsky ; the latter share was purchased by Payne Knight. Of the others, two were given to Payne Knight by the Earl of Aberdeen, and one was purchased by him from a Greek dragoman ; two more came into the possession of Mr. Hawkins. The Czernicheff bronzes consisted of a Zeus, a Satyr, an Eros, a triple Hecate, and a Hera. Those purchased from M. de Wierislowsky were Nos. 272-274 and 276-280; the Zeus, No. 275, he acquired from the Greek dragoman, and Nos. 28 1^, from the Earl of Aberdeen. Into Mr. Hawkins' possession came a Hermes (Spec. Ant. Sculpt, ii. 21) and the Aphrodite and Anchises mirror-case, of which No. 287 is a cast. The nineteenth bronze was a Heracles, which found its way to Russia.!
Among the other Payne Knight bronzes the two most important are the Apollo after Canachos (PI. I.) and the Hermes (PI. xxiv.) ; the latter was found at Pierre-en-Luiset, near Lyons, on February 19th, 1732. " Two labourers named
* For a detailed life of Mr. Towneley and account of his collection, see Ellis, Towneley Gallery, 2 vols., 1846; also Michaelis, Ancient Marbles in Gt. Britain, p. 127, and Edwards, Lives of the Founders of the Brit. A fits. p. 369 ff.
f Michaelis, .Indent Marbles in Gt. Britain, p. 119 ff. ; Edwards, Lives of the Founders, p. 401 If.
% Spec. Ant. Sculpt, ii. p. lxv, ; Edwards, Lives oj the Founders, p. 407 ; see 1'ls. v \ii.
INTRODUCTION. XV
Claude Bouillet and Gabriel Leandrat, being driven from their work by a heavy- shower of rain, observed a small cave near a cascade, the mouth of which was stopped up by a large stone. This they immediately removed with their pick- axes ; and within found this figure, which they forthwith carried to a Mons. Janin, a bourgeois of Huis, in whose possession it remained to the year 1747 ; when it came to the knowledge of the Abbe Chalat, almoner of the Chapter of Belleville, who purchased it of Janin, and had the circumstances of its discovery taken in a proch-verbal before a notary, which he sent to Comte Caylus ; who has published it in the seventh volume of his Antiquities, p. 268, and given engra- vings of the pedestal, the purse, and the gold torques, Suppl. pi. lxxvi. ... It continued in the possession of the Abbe Chalat at Belleville, in the Beaujolois, till the year 1788, when he died and left it to his friend the Abbe Tessant at Paris, who, upon the dangers which threatened all the French clergy in the year 1792, sold it to me;' *
Other of these bronzes worthy of mention are the helmet (251) dedicated by the Argives from the spoils of the Corinthians ; the tablet (264) with a treaty between the Eleans and Heraeans ; a head of Hermes of Greek work (283) ; a bust of Triton (975) ; a statue of the youthful Dionysos (1326) ; and various Etruscan mirrors and statuettes.
In the year 1823 an important acquisition was made by the liberality of His Majesty King George IV., who presented the bronze helmet from Olympia (250) with an inscription recording its dedication by Hiero and the Syracusans after the victory over the Tyrrhenians in B.C. 474. It had been found at Olympia in 1817, and presented to the King by Sir Patrick Ross.
During the next few years the most important accession was that of the Siris bronzes (PI. VIII.), found in 1820 and purchased from the Chevalier Brond- sted in 1833 by public subscription. This was followed by a series of Etruscan acquisitions, mostly candelabra, vases, and statuettes from the Canino excavations at Vulci and from the dealer Campanari (1837-1847;.! Through the agency of the latter was acquired an interesting group of objects from the Lake of Falterona (Nos. 450, 459, 463, 614-616, 679). About 600 statuettes and votive objects in bronze were found in and near this lake, and it is supposed that they had fallen in a landslip.^ The lake is high up on the mountain side and it has been suggested that it possessed certain medicinal qualities which would account for the presence of a shrine containing these votive objects.§
In 1850 the Museum acquired the contents of the Polledrara tomb, or Grotta d' Iside, near Vulci. These objects are very important for the history of early Etruscan art, as they include several Egyptian vases and scarabs in porcelain, which give the tomb an approximate date of about 600 B.C.
* Payne Knight, MS. Catalogue of Bronzes, p. i8r.
t See Nos. 588, 591, 594, 597, 609, 659, 668, 782 ; 392, 587, 590, 599, 619, 747, 755, 781.
X See Micali, Mon. Ined. p. 86 ft"., and Dennis, Etruria", ii. p. 107 IT.
§ Braun in Bull. Jell' Inst. 1842, p. 179.
XVI CATALOGUE OF BRONZES.
The bronzes include a female bust, two braziers, and sundry vases (434-
439)-*
In 185 1 a considerable addition was made to the collection in a branch previously little represented, that of Gaulish bronzes, by the acquisition of the Comarmond collection of statuettes and smaller objects found chiefly in the neighbourhood of Lyons. In 1856 Sir William Temple bequeathed to the Museum his fine collection of vases, bronzes, terra-cottas, and other antiquities, which included several fine bronze statuettes and a good collection of arms and armour from Southern Italy. Between the years 1856 and 1867 the additions were mostly small, consisting of isolated specimens from the Hertz (1859), Strangford (1864), Pourtales (1865), and other collections, together with a number of early Greek bronzes excavated by MM. Salzmann and Biliotti at Cameiros, Rhodes, in 1863-4 (Nos. 132-175).
In the course of the next two years a great increase resulted from the acquisition of the collections of the Due de Blacas (1867) by purchase, and of Mr. James Woodhouse, of Corfu f (1868), by bequest. One of the best specimens in the latter collection is the engraved diskos (248) from Sicily. Two well-known bronze tablets (262 and 263) with archaic inscriptions should have passed with this collection to the Museum, but fell into private hands, and were only finally acquired in 1896. The collection of M. Fejervary-Pulszky also came into the market in 1868, and from it the Museum obtained the so-called Meleager (1453) and other interesting specimens. In 1870 and 1872 a valuable donation was received from Mr. Ruskin in the shape of a series of bronze weapons (1-27) from M. Biliotti's excavations at Ialysos, in Rhodes, all of the Mycenaean period.
But some of the greatest treasures of the present collection have been obtained from the famous dealer, Signor Castellani, whose first contribution was made in 1865, and included the figure of a philosopher from Brindisi (848), the Etruscan Demeter (PI. XII.), and several fine statuettes and Etruscan mirrors, also a collection of Greek armour from Southern Italy. These were followed by the Hypnos head (267) and sundry bronze vases in 1868, and a series of fibulae, rings, keys, and small bronze objects with the collection of gems and gold ornaments acquired in 1872. In 1873 the Museum through the same agency became possessed of the splendid bronze head from Armenia (266), the equally fine heroic figure from the Lake of Bracciano (PI. VIII.), the archaic statuette with diamond eyes from Verona (PI. I.), and many fine statuettes and mirrors. Finally, at the last Castellani sale in 1884, several very fine Etruscan cistae were acquired.
During the last twenty-five years the collection of bronzes has increased but slowly, the additions made being more remarkable for quality than quantity. In 1878 a large collection of small objects was presented by General Meyrick, but nearly all the other acquisitions have been isolated purchases or donations, such as the Marsyas (269) in 1876, the leg from a colossal statue (265) purchased
* Bull, deir Inst. 1839, p. 71 ; Micali, A/on. Ined. pis. 3-8; Abckcn, Mittelital. p. 268 IT. ; Dennis, Elruria'-, i. p. 457 ff. ; Journ. Hell. Stud. xiv. p. 20G ff. f Edwards, Lives of Founders, p. 702.
INTRODUCTION. XV11
from M. Piot in 1886, and the series of bronze mirror-cases (288-302). We must not, however, omit to mention the considerable number of early bronzes obtained during the Museum excavations in Cyprus, chiefly at Enkomi (Salamis) in 1896 ; the special importance of these bronzes is that they nearly all belong to the Mycenaean period.
II. HISTORY OF BRONZE-WORKING IN ANTIQUITY.
The earliest bronzes in the collection belong to the Mycenaean period or later Bronze Age of Southern Europe, and have been obtained from Rhodes, Cyprus, and other localities ; but of the exact provenance of the greater number we have no record.
On the subject of the Bronze Age in Southern Europe a
The Bronze Age, very extensive literature has arisen, but it may be regarded
its character as a matter of general agreement that throughout Europe
and duration. there was a period when on the one hand stone fell into
disuse for cutting-implements, and on the other iron was
practically unknown or at any rate little used for tools and weapons. It is
however impossible to fix hard-and-fast limits for this stage of civilisation,
as not only does its approximate duration vary in different countries, but it
is overlapped by the Stone Age on the one side and the Iron Age on the other.
And it is very probable that the Bronze and Iron Ages make their respective
appearances earlier in some countries, and at a comparatively late date in
others ; thus for instance Maspero traces the use of iron in Egypt back as far as
the Sixth Dynasty (33CO-3100 B.C.),* while in Greece it was quite unknown until
Homeric and post-Mycenaean times, about 800 B.C.
In the Old Testament, especially in the Pentateuch,f we find occasional mention of the use of iron, as opposed to the frequent mention of brass (i.e. bronze) ; but some of these passages must not be pressed, such as Gen. iv. 22, which speaks of Tubal-Cain as " the forger of every cutting instrument of brass and iron" (R.V.). Here the A.V. reads "an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron," a phrase which recalls Pliny's frequent allusions to early artists as inventors of particular processes, implying no more than that they were early workers in metal, like Daedalos.
As far as concerns actual remains of the Bronze Age discovered on Greek soil, the contents of tombs of the Mycenaean period may be considered to answer with tolerable accuracy to this period. Little was found at Mycenae itself, but a considerable number of bronze weapons have been found in Rhodes (see
* Maspero, Guide au Musee de Bouloq, p. 296 ; see also Reinach in Revue Arch'ol. viii. (1886), p. 1 19, and Evans, Ancient Bronze Implements, p. 6. It seems most probable that in Egypt both bronze and iron had always been known and worked from the earliest times, and that there was no succession of the two Ages as in Europe. Cf. Piehl in Ymer for 1888, p. 99.
t E.g. Numb. xxxi. 22, xxxv. 16 ; Deut. iii. II, iv. 20, xxvii. 5 ; Job xxviii. 2.
b
XV111 CATALOGUE OF BRONZES.
Nos. I --42), and more recently in Cyprus much bronze of this period has come to light. In the Museum excavations at Enkomi in 1896 the hoard of a bronze- founder (Nos. 94-114) was discovered a tew feet below the surface. The contents are described seriatim in the Catalogue, and include almost every variety of implement, besides masses of bronze in an unworked state.
We may classify the evidence for the existence and duration of a Bronze Age under three heads: (1) the direct testimony of literature; (2) indirect deductions drawn from literature ; (3) the evidence of finds and of technical processes.
As regards (1) we have sufficiently definite statements in Hesiod, Op. et Di. 1 50 ff., and Lucretius, v. 1286 ff. The former in speaking of a Bronze Age says :
T0Z9 8' 7]v yc'CkKea fiev rev^ea, ^dX/ceoc Se tc oIkoi, ■%a\/ca> 8' ipydfyvTO ' /xe\as S' ov/c ecr/ce al$r)po<;.
The passage in Lucretius is probably a reminiscence of that just quoted, and
runs as follows :
Posterius ferri vis est aerisque reperta,
et prior aeris erat quam ferri cognitus usus,
quo facilis magis est natura et copia maior.
Acre solum terrae tractabant, aereque belli
miscebant fluctus et vulnera vasta serebant
et pecus atque agros adimebant. ....
Inde minutatim processit ferreus ensis
versaque in opprobrium species est falcis ahenae,
et ferro coepere solum proscindere terrae
exaequataque sunt creperi certamina belli.
(2) Secondly, there are the indirect deductions to be drawn from literary evidence, from the incidental mention of bronze or iron in the earliest writings, such as Homer and the Pentateuch, or from later historians such as Herodotus and Thucydides. It is possible, however, that evidence from non-classical sources such as the early Semitic writings does not affect the question of European or at any rate of Greek civilisation. We have seen above that there is evidence for the use of iron in Egypt as early as the Sixth Dynasty, and Prof. Petrie has found remains of bronze in the Fourth Dynasty (3800-3600 B.C.).* No doubt the knowledge of both was acquired by the Israelites during their sojourn there ; the passage in Genesis (iv. 22) is, as we have seen, susceptible of another interpretation. The evidence from Homer is discussed later on. Herodotus (i. 68) speaks of the surprise evinced by a man at seeing a smith (for whom he uses the word ^aX/cew) working in iron.
Another form of evidence to be drawn indirectly from literature is the
* Petrie, Medun, p. 36; see also Evans, Ancient Bronze Implements, p. 8, and Brit. Assoc. Report, Liverpool meeting, 1896, p. 930.
INTRODUCTION. XIX
deliberate avoidance of iron in connection with religious observances, as in the lines of Hesiod (Op. et Di. 741) :
fjajS' citto irevTO^OLO dewv ev Sairl daXeirj auov airb -^\o3pov rdfiveiv aWcovi <ri&7]pfo.
Frazer in the Goldm Bough (i. p. 172) considers that the aversion to the use of iron in ritual dates from the time when it was a novelty, and consequently viewed with suspicion. This trait may be observed not only in the Mosaic Law, but in both Greek and Roman cults.*
(3) Thirdly, we have the evidence from actual finds, and from our knowledge of the technical processes and scientific attainments of the earlier ages. We have pointed out that, as far as classical soil is concerned, iron is nowhere found before the end of the Mycenaean period, i.e. about 800 B.C. We have also noted that the tombs of the Mycenaean period in Cyprus have yielded large numbers and a great variety of bronze implements. Again, in Italy, the lake-dwellings of the plain of Lombardy, which are coeval with the oldest settlement at Hissarlik, yield evidence of a primitive method of bronze- casting, but no traces of iron. The earliest remains of iron are found in the cemeteries of Villanova and the oldest parts of the necropolis of Cervetri (ninth and eighth centuries B.C.), but only in inconsiderable fragments ; the bronze remains from this source are of an advanced and superior character.
So far, all the evidence points in the same direction. The weightiest objections against the existence of a Bronze Age before that of iron are of a purely scientific nature. It has been urged that it is incorrect to regard the working of iron as developed from that of bronze, as the more complicated process from the simpler. The melting-point to which it is required to raise iron to separate it from the ore is not so high as that required for copper, and it is assumed that so high a temperature as 11000 C. was not easily reached in primitive times, while the 7000 C. required for iron was more readily obtained. f Another difficulty is that in order to obtain bronze a supply of tin is essential, and connotes an extensive commercial intercourse, which cannot be predicated before the time of the Phoenicians. Thirdly, it is maintained that some of the ornamentation on primitive bronzes can only have been produced by a steel (or iron) tool.
A way out of the difficulty is suggested by Beck.} He supposes that when the peoples of Europe first came into contact with the civilisations of Western Asia, in a very remote pre-historic period, they had practically no acquaintance with the methods of obtaining and working metal, except in so far that they
* Classical Review, vii. (1893), p. 391 ; Movers, Fhbnizier, ii. pt. 3, p. 68 ; Hock, Kreta, i. p. 264 ; Preller-Jordan, Rom. Mythol.* i. pp. 112, 130, ii. p. 135 ; and Dent, xxvii. 5.
t We may recall the elementary methods adopted by Benvenuto Cellini in casting his Perseus, in order to obtain sufficient heat for the metal to melt (see Life, ed. Symonds, 1896, p. 361 ff. ).
X Geschichte des Eisens, i. p. 44 ft".
b 2
XX CATALOGUE OF BRONZES.
could produce rude objects from iron ore. In the course of commerce they would have met with bronze weapons and tools of advanced technique and ornamental appearance, which would attract them to such an extent as to cause them to give up the working of the rough iron ore for that of the new metal. This would be supplied to them in a ready-mixed state, from which they would have no difficulty in working it up into the required forms. Gradually their newly-acquired knowledge of technical processes in bronze would be extended to that of iron, and hence the apparent transition from one metal to the other.
This hypothesis does not, indeed, dispose of all the difficulties, but may be taken for what it is worth, in connection with the other kinds of evidence which have already been discussed. Granting, however, that the Bronze Age was succeeded by an Iron Age in Europe, it remains to decide the complicated question as to the period at which the working of iron was introduced.
In the tombs of the Mycenaean period on Greek soil no
Earliest iron nas ever been found except a few finger-rings in the
introduction of lower graves of Mycenae and two lumps of unworked iron
Iron. from the burnt city of Troy. On the other hand, nine iron
spear-heads and knives were obtained at Assarlik in Caria
(cf. p. 8), while in Cyprus a certain amount of iron has been found in tombs
containing two scarabs of Amenophis and Taia, as also pottery of Mycenaean
character ; this however may belong to the time when iron was gradually
coming into use, notwithstanding the presence of these scarabs. The evidence is,
in fact, the same in all the Mediterranean countries ; where iron has been found,
it is in insignificant quantities. The only argument that can be urged on
the other side is that, owing to the more perishable nature of iron, it has
disappeared more completely than bronze. In answer to this, it is only
necessary to point out that in the later tombs it has been found sufficiently often
and in sufficient quantities to refute such a hypothesis. The date of the
introduction of iron-working seems to vary in different parts, but nowhere can
evidence be obtained for its appearance earlier than iooo B.C. Even then it was
only used for swords and other weapons, owing to the strong religious prejudice
to which allusion has been made.
The Homeric poems are, of course, an important source
Iron in Homer. of testimony. The passages where iron is mentioned seem to
imply that iron stood to bronze much in the same relation
as gold stands to silver or silver to plated metal nowadays. It was in a sense
a precious metal. This we learn from such passages as 11. xxiii. 826 ff. :
avrap TlrjXetSr]*; dfj/cev aoXov avro-^ocovov,
ov irpiv fxev plirraaKe /neyct cr6evo<i 'HeT/<wi>o<?,
aW rjToi rov €7re<pve TroSdpfcr/s &to$ 'A^tWeu?,
rov o ay€T ev vijeacrt avv dXkoiai Kredreaaiv, k.t.X.
Other passages which point to the value set upon iron are //. vi. 48, vii. 473, xxiii. 261, and Od. i. 184. The word actually occurs 48 times in Homer,
INTRODUCTION. XXI
23 in the Iliad and 25 in the Odyssey. Prof. Jevons* has summed up the question by laying down that iron is not more common in the later Homeric poems than in the earlier, and that all these poems must be placed at the beginning of the Iron Age ; further, that if Homer lived in the Mycenaean period, iron must have been known in that period ; if it was not, then even the earliest poems must be post-Mycenaean. If his conclusions are correct, we see that they point roughly to this result— that the Mycenaean period is coincident with the Bronze Age, and the time at which the Homeric poems were compiled with the beginning of the Iron Age, at all events in Greece. But it must be borne in mind that a strong line of demarcation must not be drawn between the Mycenaean and the Homeric civilisations ; if they are not actually contempo- raneous, as maintained by many authorities, they cannot lie far apart, represent- ing as they do respectively the end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age.
Another question which arises in this connection is The "Copper" concerned with the use of pure copper as contrasted with Age. bronze. It has been maintained by some scholars! that there
was a period in Europe during which copper only was known, either from an ignorance of the properties of tin as an alloy, or from the difficulties of procuring the latter metal. Such a question can only now be solved by an exhaustive analysis and comparison of primitive weapons and implements, as even where they are known to be of more or less pure copper, the appearance is much the same as when the metal is mixed with tin. There is every reason to suppose that many, if not all, of the early bronze weapons from Cyprus are composed of pure copper ; and it is, of course, a well-known fact that the working of copper was known from the earliest times in Cyprus, with its rich mines ; the question which remains doubtful is that of the supply of tin available, not only for Cyprus, but for other countries.J On the whole, it seems to be too sweeping an assertion to lay down that there was a Copper Age in the sense in which we speak of a Stone or Bronze Age. The most natural explanation is this : that in Cyprus, as elsewhere, when copper first became known, it was worked by itself. Finding that this was unsatisfactory, and that sufficient hardness could not be obtained for their weapons, men sought for an alloy that they could use, and gradually the properties of tin became known, and that metal itself became a popular article of commerce. There is much reason for supposing that this so-called " Copper Age " was confined to Eastern Europe and Asia, a part of the world where tin was not easily obtained, until the Phoenicians brought it in large quantities from the West.
* Joum. Hell. Stud. xiii. p. 31.
t See especially Much, Die Kupferzeit"1, (Vienna, 1885) ; also Myres, Cyprus A/us. Cat. p. 14 ff., and in Schncc Progress, July, 1896, pp. 347, 357, and Anthropol. Journal, xxvii. p. 171 ff.
% Dr. J. H. Gladstone (Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch. xii. p. 230) gives the results of analysis of various early Egyptian and Assyrian bronzes ; the proportion of copper varies from 89 to 93 per cent., and some are of pure copper ; the tin never exceeds 1 1 per cent.
XX11 CATALOGUE OF BRONZES.
The word "Bronze" has been generally adopted by
Definition of archaeologists to designate a mixed metal composed chiefly
Bronze and of copper, with an alloy of tin, which latter is found by the
meaning of analysis of many specimens to range from twenty to nine per
XaA./co<?. cent. The combining, tempering, and casting of this mixed
metal were, as we have seen, known to Oriental nations at a
very remote period, and long antecedent to the dawn of Hellenic civilisation ;
but it was reserved for the Greeks and Etruscans to bring this art to perfection,
and to develop the full capabilities of the metal.
The Greek word for bronze or copper is ^aX/cos, used indiscriminately for either. This word occurs very frequently in Homer, and the general opinion is that he uses it in the sense of bronze ; for instance, a sword made of ^aX/cos could hardly be of copper, or it would not break off sharp (cf. //. iii. 363), and in any case it would not be a very practicable weapon. Moreover, as we have seen already, the use of weapons of pure copper belongs to the very earliest period of the Bronze Age, and it is certain that tin was known in Homeric times. In later times, the word -^aXico^ acquires the more general sense of " metal," just as the word %a\K€v$ comes to mean " a smith."
As to the sources from which copper was obtained by Sources whence *ne ancients, Pliny (N.N. xxxiv. 2-4) gives us much informa- Copper and Tin tion, as also about the different varieties of bronze which were obtained. obtained in different parts of Greece. The ancient world was remarkably rich in copper-producing localities ; we also learn from other authorities besides Pliny of the various parts of the world whence copper was procured in varying degrees ; other places again are known to us from actual or apparent remains of copper-mines, as, for instance, in North Wales, Gaul, and Germany.
The list of localities given by Bliimner* is a long one, and includes most of the countries that were under Greek or Roman dominion ; they are nearly all in or near the Mediterranean. Pliny mentions with special commendation the ore of Cyprus and Campania {H.N. xxxiv. 2-3) : " Fit et e lapide aeroso quern vocant cadmean, celebri trans maria et quondam in Campania, nunc in Bergomatium agro extrema parte Italiae ; ferunt nuper etiam in Germania provincia repertum. Fit et ex alio lapide quern chalcitim appellant in Cypro, ubi prima aeris inventio, mox vilitas praecipua reperto in aliis terris praestantiore maxumeque aurichalco, quod praecipuam bonitatem admirationemque diu obtinuit . . . Proxumum bonitate fuit Sallustianum in Centronum Alpino tractu . . . successitque ei Livianum in Gallia . . . Summa gloriae nunc in Marianum conversa, quod et Cordubense dicitur."
The antiquity of the copper mines of Cyprus is well attested, not least by the fact that the name of the metal is derived from that island (^aX/cos Kxnrpuv;, Lat. aes Cyprium). Tradition attributed the discovery of the working of copper
Tcchnologie u. Terminologies iv. ]>. 57 If.
INTRODUCTION. XX 11 1
to Kinyras. Homer alludes to the mines of Tamassos in a well-known passage (Od. i. 182 ff.) :
vvv &' cohe %vv vrji /caT)']\v6ov ?}S' erdpoKjiv
irXewv eir\ olvoira ttovtov eV dWoOpoou-; avOptoTOvs,
e<; Tefiecnyv fierd -yaX/cov, dyto 8' aWwva athrjpov.
We may also mention an epigram on a base of a statue found at Argos (Kaibel, Epigr. Graec. 846) :
elp.1 6e Ki/coKpewv, dpe-^rev Se fie yd irepU\varo<;
Kv7rpl<i deiordrajv eV irpoyovwv ficuTikr}. a-rdaav 6' ""Apyelol fie ydpw yak/colo rtovres,
'Hpai bi> et? epoTtv nri/nro\v de\9\a veoL$.
It records how Nicocreon,* a king of Cyprus, had had a statue erected by the Argives in return for the bronze vessels which he had sent them as prizes in the games. The richest mines in Cyprus were those of Temesa (Tamassos), Amathus, Soli, Curium, and on Cape Crommyon (Kormakiti) ; remains of ancient mines also exist near Poli (Marion-Arsinoe).
In Greece itself the chief centre for obtaining copper was Euboea, and above all the neighbourhood of Chalcis, where there was a tradition that the ore was first found (Pliny, H. N. iv. 64, aere ibi primum reperto).\ In the time of Strabo however (x. 447) the supply had failed, or else the mines had been spoiled by water ; but while they lasted they must have been exceedingly productive. All traces of them have now disappeared. Other places in Euboea were Aedipsos and Mount Ocha. On the mainland we have records of mines in Attica, Argolis, and Sikyon. In spite of the celebrity of Corinthian bronze in the ancient world, we have the express statement of Pausanias that there was none to be found there (ii. 3, 3 : /ecu rbv Koptvdcoi> ^aX/cov hidirvpov /ecu Bepfiov ovra viro tov v8cito<? tovtov fSaTTTeaOai Xe'yovaiv, eirel %a\tc6<i ye ovk ecrrt ls.opiv6toL<i), although he does not deny that it was worked at Corinth.J
In Central Europe, copper was found in the south of Italy (Temese in Bruttium) ; at Volaterrae in Etruria, where the mines were of considerable importance ; in the island of Elba ; and in Spain, Gaul, Germany, and Great Britain. § The mines of Spain were the richest and most important ; they have remained almost inexhaustible from Phoenician times to the present day. They exist at Cotina in the Sierra Morena, and at Rio Tinto in Huelva, Western Andalusia ; at Rio Tinto the ancient shafts are still worked.
* See also Athenaeus, viii. 337 E.
t But compare the passage quoted above (xxxiv. 2, ubi prima aeris inventio). Wherever Pliny use the word primus his statements must be received with caution.
% See Fiedler, Reise, i. p. 242, and Frazer, Pausanias, iii. pp. 24-5. The words fid-rneadai virb may be rendered, "gets its colour from," probably from some ochre-like deposit in the water in which it was tempered. See also M idler, Handlmch, § 306.
§ See C.I.L. v ii. p. 220, and Yates in Proc. Somersetsk. Arch, and Nat. Hist. Sec. viii. (1858), p. 1 tt.
XXIV CATALOGUE OF BRONZES.
In Africa copper mines existed all along the north coast, and at Meroe in Ethiopia ; those of Mount Sinai supplied Egypt with ore for many centuries. Copper was also found in Palestine, Syria, Chaldaea, and near Chalcedon in Asia Minor. None of these mines attained to great celebrity except those of Cyprus, Chalcis, and Spain. In early Greek times the copper was largely brought by the Phoenicians, from Cyprus and elsewhere ; the Romans would have obtained it from all parts of the world.
The sources from which the Greeks and Romans derived Tin : whence their tin are not so easily ascertained. We know that tin was obtained. used in primitive times in Egypt, or at any rate from the
eighteenth dynasty, and also in Chaldaea. A fragment of a bronze sword found by Schliemann at Mycenae was analysed, with the result that it was found to contain 86*36 parts of copper to 13*06 of tin ; and a fragment of a vase-handle contained 89/69 of copper to io'oS of tin.* On the other hand, bronze axes from Hissarlik (first city) contained the merest traces of tin, and clearly belong to a "copper" age.f It is hardly probable that tin was obtained from Britain during the Mycenaean period, and it was certainly not found locally. But it is possible that it came from Paropamisus (Hindu Kush) on the borders of Bactriana (Strabo, xv. 724 ; Bliimner, Techuologie, iv. p. 84). In the period represented by the poems of Homer and Hesiod, the tin with which the poets show themselves familiar was almost certainly brought by the Phoenicians from Britain, Spain, and Gaul, as in later times. Homer mentions tin frequently, but only in the Iliad ; it was apparently used extensively for plating armour and for greaves. Hesiod {Theog. 862) has an interesting reference to it:
ir)]fC6T0, KCMTGLTepOS (M<? T^XVV ^7r' Gl&WV V7T0 T €VTpl]TOV \OUVOLO
6aX(f)6ei<i.
Herodotus (iii. 115) speaks of tin as coming e| co-^cirr)? tj}s Ei)/xo7r?7?, and Diodorus Siculus (v. 22) mentions the Land's End in this connection. Pliny (H. N. xxxiv. 156) speaks of it as plumbum candidum: " Pretiosissimum hoc, Graecis appellatum cassiterum, fabuloseque narratum in insulas Atlantici maris peti vitilibusque navigiis et circumsutis corio {i.e. coracles) advehi. Nunc certum est in Lusitania gigni et in Gallaecia summa tellure harenosa et coloris nigri ; pondere tantum ea deprehenditur."
The classical word for copper-mining is ^aXKcopv^eia
Working- of (Strabo xvii. 821 and 830); ^aXKovpyela also occurs, but
copper a,nd pre- appears to have a more extended meaning, and to include
1 n ° smelting and the other processes of preparing the copper ore.
Teeh . . ' The ordinary name for the ore is ^aX/ciTis, but Pollux (vii. 98)
cesses rejects this, and prefers yrj v-rro^aXKo^. The ancients also
regarded cadmium as a copper-producing ore (see Pliny,
Schliemann, Tiryns, p. 171. t Id. Ilios, p. 251.
INTRODUCTION. XXV
//. N. xxxiv. 2 and lOO IT.). Pliny tells us (H. N. xxxiv. 2, cf. xxxiii. 95) that the mining process is like that of silver {jionnisi in puteis reperititr nullaque spe sui nascitur) ; but we have no descriptions of copper-mining in ancient writers. There are, however, some representations of mining in art that may possibly illustrate this, viz., among the Corinthian piuakes from Penteskouphia near Corinth. Of those in the Berlin collection, four* represent mining-scenes : they depict a man in a sort of cave plying a pickaxe against its sides. A similar example from another pinax is given in Gazette Arcfu'ol. 1880, p. 105. There is no evidence that the mines are copper-mines, but the fact that other pinakes\ have representations of smelting-furnaces seems to point to the working of some metal. On the other hand it must be remembered that Pausanias (v. S7tpr.) denies the existence of copper ore at Corinth, and this fact weighs against the probability of a reference to a local industry such as we find in the representations of pottery-making (Nos. 640-645, 813-815, 868-870, 884, 893 ; Gazette Arche'ol. 1880, pp. 105, 106). Most probably all these scenes relate to the ceramic industry, and the men in the caves are digging out clay, while the furnaces are potters' ovens.
The smelting processes again resemble those employed ia working silver ; they include "roasting," stamping, grinding, and washing. Among the various methods of smelting, the most usual process is to break up the copper ore into small fragments and mix it with more than an equal proportion of charcoal ; it is then put into a kiln with a wood and charcoal fire. The metal is thus " reduced," and runs out in a fluid form into sand moulds and is cast into ingots. Pliny affords us little connected information concerning these processes, while much that he says incidentally refers rather to the treatment of alloys than of pure copper. Dioscorides (v. 85, in Kuehn, Med. Graec. Opera, xxv. p. 743) describes the smelting-ovens that were used in Cyprus : iv oXkw Stcrreyoi KaraaKev d^erat KafAivos Kal Kara ravTr/v irpos to i"irepu>ov €KTOfir) o~v/np,eTp6<i re Kal €K rwv avcodev fiepoiv dvewy/JLevij. 6 8e rolyos rov olfcr/p,a.TO<i, w TrXijcnd^ei 7) fcdfxivos, rnparcn, Xeirrd) rpyifxarL dyjpis avTrj<i t% y^covr]^ els irapahoyriv (pvarjTripos ' €%ei Be Kal Qvpav avp.p,erpov Trpos eiaoBov Kal e^oSov Karea Kevaa fxevrjv inro T6i) reyvirov ' (jwriirraL 8e tovtw ra> olvrj/jLaTi k'repos oIkos, qj at (fcvaai, Kal 0 (f)varjT7]p ipya^erat ' \olttov avdpaKes ivrldevrai rfj KafiLvcp Kal irvpovvrai. eTreira 7rap€aro}<; 6 reyvir^ iixTrdcrcrei XeXeTrTOKOTrrj/Aeviiv tt)v Kahpuelav €K twv virep K€(pa\i)v Trjs ^covtjs tottgov ' o inro ^elpd re to avro 7roia, dfia Kal dvOpaKiav irpoaepbjBdWei.
Pliny distinguishes two varieties of Cypriote copper {H.N. xxxiv. 94 ff.) : " Nunc praevertemur ad differentias aeris et mixturas. In Cyprio coronarium ct regulare est, utrumque ductile ; coronarium tenuatur in lamnas taurorumque felle tinctum speciem auri in coronis histrionum praebet, idemque in uncias additis auri scripulis senis praetenui pyropi brattea ignescit. Regulare et in aliis fit metallis itemque caldarium. Differentia, quod caldarium funditur tantum, malleis fragile, quibus regulare obsequitur ab aliis ductile appellatum,
* Furtwaengler, Vasensammlung, Nos. 638, 639, 871, 872; see p. 70 note. t Nos. Soi-812, 826-S30, 865-S67.
XXVI CATALOGUE OF BRONZES.
quale omne Cyprium est. Sed et in ceteris metallis cura distat a caldario ; omne enim diligentius purgatis igni vitiis excoctisque regulare est."
Among other varieties, Pliny speaks of Campanian bronze, used especially for vessels and implements (H.N. xxxiv. 95) : " In reliquis generibus palma Cam- pano perhibetur utensilibus vasis probatissimo. Pluribus fit hoc modis. Namque Capuae liquatur non carbonis ignibus sed ligni purgaturque roboreo cribro perfusum aqua frigida, ac saepius simili modo coquitur, novissime additis plumbi argentarii Hispaniensis denis libris in centenas aeris ; ita lentescit coloremque iucundum trahit, qualem in aliis generibus aeris adfectant oleo ac sole. Fit Campano simile in multis partibus Italiae provinciisque, sed octonas plumbi libras addunt et carbone recoquunt propter inopiam ligni."
It is to be noticed that Pliny here speaks of lead being employed as an alloy as well as tin (plumbum argentarium). In this connection it may be re- marked that lumps of smelted copper with stamped Roman inscriptions have been found in England, which contain a certain proportion of lead. Pliny gives further reasons for the advantages of this process (ibid. 96) : " Quantum ea res differentiae adferat in Gallia maxume sentitur ubi inter lapides candefactos funditur, exurente enim coctura nigrum atque fragile conficitur. Praeterea semel recoquunt, quod saepius fecisse bonitati plurimum confert." Modern experience has proved that this is more or less true ; tin is apt to oxidise under heat and diminish in volume, so that it is important that the melting should be accomplished as quickly as possible ; if the mixing does not proceed rapidly enough, lead has to be thrown in to make up. Again he says (ibid. 98) : " Cyprio si addatur plumbum, colos purpurae fit in statuarum praetextis."
The process of alloying did not usually follow imme- Copper and diately on the smelting of the copper ore, but was undertaken
Bronze Alloys. separately, or on the spot where the bronze was to be worked. Pure copper, as we have seen, was very rarely worked, at least after the introduction of tin, owing to its incapacity to attain a sufficient degree of hardness. The usual term for alloying is tcpaaLs, mixtura ; also in Latin, temperatura. The preparation of the bronze was undertaken by a XaX/covpyos, flaturarius faber, or fusor. The Latin term officina aeraria seems to apply to the place for the preparation of the ore, not of bronze. The respective proportions of the copper and tin are seldom mentioned in detail by ancient writers ; Pliny in particular is consistently vague, and at times obviously inaccurate ; moreover he seems to be speaking only of contemporary usages, not of Greek methods. The most important passage is H.N. xxxiv. 97 : " Id quoque notasse non ab re est, aes omne frigore magno melius fundi. Sequens tempera- tura statuaria est cademque tabularis hoc modo : massa proflatur in primis ; mox in proflatum additur tertia portio aeris collectanei, hoc est ex usu coempti. Peculiare in eo condimentum attritu domiti et consuetudine nitoris veluti mansuefacti. Miscentur et plumbi argentarii pondo duodena ac selibrae, centenis proflati. Appellatur etiamnum et formalis temperatura aeris tenerrimi, quoniam nigri plumbi decuma portio additur et argentarii viccsima maxumeque
INTRODUCTION. XXV11
ita colorcm bibit qucm Graecanicum vocant. Novissima est quae vocatur ollaria, vase noraen hoc dante, ternis aut quaternis libris plumbi argentarii in centenas aeris additis."
Here it can only be supposed that when he speaks of massa aeris, he means the combined copper and tin. Again, the temperatura formalis which produced the colorem Graecanicum denotes the combination of a tenth part of lead with a twentieth of tin. A mixture of copper and lead only would be quite impossible. We have further information on alloying with tin from a passage in Philo, the mechanician (iv. 43, ed. Schoene, 1893) : avrai he i^covevOyaau fiev ^aX/cov 7rapacr/ceuacr0evTos epvOpov o><? ^prjaroTarov teal /ceicaOapfievov Ka\6)<i km dTTOWTrjOevTOs irXeovd/cis, eW ovrcos els tijv p^vdv fjui^devros Kaaairepov d\jcfj<i hpa^/ial rpels, ical toutov /ce/cadap/xevov /cal dTrcoirrriixivov 7T€pcaacos (i.e. a propor- tion of three per cent, of tin) ; and again on the effects of the tin on the copper in Plutarch, de defect, orac. 41, p. 433 A : /cal [x^v a>s Kaaalrepos p,avbv ovra ical TToXinropov rov %a\/cbv ivra/cels d/xa pkv ecrcpty^e /cat KareirvKvcoaev, ap.a he. XafiTrporepov dvehei^e /cal /caOapcorepov-
Pliny only seems to have known the varieties of ancient bronze by name, hardly by appearance. He distinguishes three varieties of Greek bronze : Delian, Aeginctan, and Corinthian ; but his distinctions are arbitrary and unscientific. Probably these were varying mixtures of copper and tin. Each was adapted for a particular purpose, and of the Corinthian bronze again there were three varieties. Of the Corinthian he says : " aeris in usu proximum est pretium, irarao vero ante argentum ac paene etiam ante aurum Corinthio " {H.N. xxxiv. 1). The receipt for this alloy appears to have been lost at an early date. A story was current that it owed its origin to an accident {hoc casus miscuit, Corintho cum caperetur incensa, Pliny, H.N. xxxiv. 6) which occurred at the sack by Mummius in B.C. 146 : " Ouicquid Corinthii aeris toto orbe laudatur incendio superfuisse comperimus. Nam et aeris notam pretiosiorem ipsa opulcn- tissimae urbis fecit iniuria ; quia incendio permixtis plurimis statin's atque simulacris, aeris auri argentique venae in commune fiuxere" (Florus, ii. 16). Another version is given by Plutarch, Pyth. orac. 2, p. 395 B : top /xev yap Y^oplvdtov ou re)(yr) dWd auvrv^la ti)s XP°a<i ^afiew T« adWos, eTTiveifxa/xevou 7rvp6<; ol/ciav eyovcrdv ri ^pvcrov icah dpyvpov, ifkelarov he %a\/cbv diiOKeip,evov ' o)v avy^yOevTo^v /cal avvTa/cevrayv ovo/xa rod yak/cov tw /xel^ovt to TrXrjdos irapeyeiv. In reference to this story, it is hardly necessary to point out that Corinthian bronzes were known and admired long before B.C. 146. There is also an interesting allusion to Corinthian bronzes in Petronius {Sat. 50).
Delian bronze was at first used principally for the feet and supports of couches ; it then came to be used for statues of gods, men, and animals. It was favoured by Polycleitos, and was used for the statue of the Capitoline Jupiter. Third in the scale of popularity was the Aeginetan, which was used for candelabra. It was also employed by Myron in the statue of the cow afterwards set up in the Forum Boarium at Rome. Pliny mentions in this connection a fourth variety of bronze, the Syracusan, which was used for doors, and also
XXV1U
CATALOGUE OF BRONZES.
for roofs. The roof of the temple of Vesta at Rome was covered with plates of bronze arranged like overlapping scales {opus pavonaceum). Other possible examples of Syracusan bronze in Rome are the doors of the Pantheon (if ancient), and four columns in the Lateran Church, dating from the reign of Constantine.
More is to be learnt about the composition of ancient bronzes from an analysis of the metal than from literary authorities ; but up to the present little has been done in the way of establishing and formulating results. We have alluded above to experiments made by Dr. Schliemann on bronzes from Mycenae and Hissarlik ; and a list of investigations with later bronzes is given by Blumner, Technologie u. Tenninol. iv. pp. 186-190. From the former we learn that in the Bronze Age the proportions varied as follows : Copper, 97*00 to 86*36; tin, 2-00 to 13*06. In Greek bronze vessels the proportion of tin varies from 10 to 14 per cent, and in coins from 2 to 17 per cent. In Roman coins the proportion is generally lower, and does not rise above 8 per cent. ; but these often contain 12 to 29 per cent, of lead. Traces of lead, iron and nickel are found at times in Greek bronze, and according to Pliny it sometimes contained an admixture of gold, in the proportion of six scruples to the ounce, this alloy being known as pyropus (see p. xxv.). An archaic fibula has been shewn by analysis to contain 7 per cent, of gold and 20 per cent, of silver, as against 73 of copper.
A few tentative investigations have been made on filings from certain bronzes in the British Museum by Mr. Arthur Wingham, the results of which are here appended in tabular form. It will be seen that, generally speaking, the proportion of copper is highest in the earlier bronzes. The almost entire absence of tin and its replacement by zinc in No. 836 is very remarkable, especially as there is nothing in the appearance of the figures to suggest that they are not composed of the ordinary alloy ; but they are very much decayed and corroded.
|
Object. |
Period. |
Num- ber. |
Copper. |
Tin. |
Lead. |
Zinc. |
Traces of other metals. |
|
i. Fragment of drapery |
Greek, 5th cent. . |
265 |
84-49 |
9"47 |
5-31 |
Iron |
|
|
2. Archaic lion . |
Etruscan .... |
1751 |
82-IO |
12*64 |
1-86 |
0-73 |
lion |
|
3. Mirror-handle |
Etruscan, 5th cent. |
553 |
89-96 |
7-64 |
1-44 |
Traces Iron, silver |
|
|
4. Apollo .... |
Gaulish, 1st cent. A.D. |
779 |
80*70 |
6-44 |
9-97 Traces Iron, silver |
||
|
5. Dionysos .... |
Graeco-Roman period |
1328 |
85-05 |
10-35 |
4-62 |
Iron |
|
|
6. Aurelius and Faustina |
Roman, 2nd cent. A.D. |
836 |
70-41 |
Traces |
2-44 |
26-70 |
Iron |
|
7. Gladiator .... |
Roman, 3rd cent. A.D. |
1605 |
79*26 |
4"7i |
7-05 |
6-8o |
Iron |
Had the ancients any knowledge of our brass ? It appears that its com- ponent, zinc, was only known to them as an ore, not as a metal ; and that zinc oxide (i.e. /cao>a'a, according to Blumner, op. bit. p. 92) was used largely in com- position with copper in Roman times, as we have seen in the above table, No. 6. The result appears to have been what is known in Latin literature as orichalcum,
INTRODUCTION. XXIX
answering to our " latten." It is frequently mentioned by Alexandrine and Roman writers, and is described as like gold in appearance, but not specially valuable ; for instance, Horace (De Art. Poet. 202), in speaking of the difference between the Roman and Greek stage, alludes to the
tibia non ut nunc orichalco vincta.
Early allusions to opeiyaXicov in Greek writers seem to be merely poetical, as in Horn. Hymn, ad Ven. v. 9 : ev he rp-qrolai Xofiolai | avdefi opet%aA«of yjpvaolo re Ttfnjev7o<? ; and again in Hes. Scut. Here. 122 : w? eliroov KvqpTihas opei-^akKoio (paetvov, I '\\<paio~Tov kXvtcl hwpa, irepl Kv/jpirjatv eOr/ice. Plato (Crit. 1 14 E) speaks of this metal with much commendation : kcli to vvv ovopba^opuevov p-ovov, Tore he irXeov 6v6p,aTos r)v to yevos etc 7/7? bpvTTop-evov 6pef%d\Kov, kcito, tottou? ttoWovs tj}? vtjerov, tt\i]v xpverov TtpucoTaTov iv toI? TOTe 6v. It is also alluded to by Pliny (H.N. xxxiv. 2) as a natural mineral, long since exhausted.
There are in all five processes which were employed by
Methods of the ancients for the production of works in bronze: I. For
working1 in statues : (a) solid casting ; (b) beaten plates riveted together
Bronze. (acpvpijXaTov) ; (c) hollow casting or cire perdu. 2. For
reliefs and decorative work : (a) repousse work or epu-TracaTiKi] ;
(b) chasing or TopevTiicr).
Although 'xakicevs and <)(a^K^0V are use<^ generally for all kinds of metal, words like ^aX/coruTretv and the like are restricted in their sense to working in bronze ; the expression for " worked bronze " is ^;aX,«&)/u,a, or, in the poets, Xa\icevp,a. Of Latin words, statuaria a>s was in Imperial times specially applied to bronze sculptures.
One thing that is likely to strike a modern is the extensive use of bronze in antiquity, as compared with its use at the present day ; and this even while iron and other materials were equally well known and in equally constant use. For instance, the ancients frequently employed bronze for locks and keys, for knives and other tools, or again for defensive armour, spear-heads, and arrow-heads, where in all cases we should use iron, or at any rate steel. No doubt this is largely due to the invention of the latter metal, which appears to have been quite unknown to the ancients, but. this does not explain the preference for bronze over iron in many cases. It may also be noted that bronze is largely used for furniture, such as chairs and couches, and for vessels of all kinds, where we employ wood, glass, clay, and other materials.
The earliest Greek bronze figures are either cast solid or Solid Casting. made by the process of o-tyvprfkenov, both of which methods seem to have lasted down to the sixth century B.C., when the hollow casting was introduced. No doubt the waste of valuable material and inconvenient weight of the solid-cast statues led to the invention of this later process. The process of solid casting was of course simple enough ; it was presumably acquired from Egypt, where this process seems to have been known
XXX CATALOGUE OF BRONZES.
as early as the fifth and sixth dynasties.* All the earliest statuettes we possess, such as those from Cameiros (132-138), are cast solid, and not a few later examples ; it is quite intelligible that the easier process should have remained in use for small objects, in the case of which its disadvantages were less obvious. This was also the method employed in early and later times for works in relief with a fiat back or for inscribed tablets ; Schliemann f found several stone moulds at Mycenae which according to him had been used for casting small bronze objects, though they are more likely to have been for stamping. Vitru- vius testifies to the use of stone moulds (ii. 7, 4) : " non minus etiam fabri aerarii de his lapicidinis in aeris flatura formis comparatis habent ex is ad aes fundendum maximas utilitates." But such methods can only have been employed for small and fiat objects ; for statues, which required a round mould, and one in several pieces, some such material as sand, clay, or gypsum must always have been employed. We have a reference to the use of clay by Hiram, king of Tyre, in the Old Testament (I Kings, vii. 46) : " In the plain of Jordan did the king cast them, in the clay ground between Succoth and Zarethan." We may suppose that this method was universally employed for tools, weapons, and all small and simply-formed objects.
The process of acpvprfkaroi', or riveting together beaten Sphyrelaton. plates, appears to have held the field about the time when sculpture was first obtaining a footing on Greek soil, and when Greek art begins to have a history, and to emerge from anonymity. We gather this, not only from the character of certain early bronze statues that have come down to us, but from several notices in Pausanias in which he describes the earliest specimens of Greek sculpture that he saw. Bronze appears to have been the material of most ancient statues, at any rate down to the sixth century B.C.
The image of Apollo on the throne at Amyclae, and a statue of Dionysos at Thebes appear to have been cast solid, to judge from Pausanias' description (iii. 19, 2) : "Rpyov ov Badv/ckeovs icrriv, a\\a ap-^alov Kalou avv rexvV TreTTOirjixdvov ' otl yap p.7] mpoawrrov ai)T(p kcu 7r6Se<? elcrlv aicpoc ical ^etpe?, to Xoittov ^aX/cco klovl io-Tcv eiKaa/jbivov. Again, ix. 12, 4: lik^o-iov Be Awvvaov ayaXfia, /ecu tovto 'Ovao-o/jn']^ e7rotr;cre St' oXov TrXr/pes v-rro rov ^aX/cov. On the other hand Semper i considers that the Apollo of Amyclae was an acrolithic statue with pillar-shaped body (in fact a %6avov), of which the body was of wood covered with bronze plates. He points out that the plating of wooden %6ava with bronze arose from a desire to " clothe " them, and regards this as the first step in bronze statuary. This idea of " clothing " comes out in another description, by Pausanias, of a statue which was set up at Thebes next th* Dionysos just
* Perrot and Chipiez, Hist, dc PArt, i. p. 650. It should be mentioned Lere that a statue of Horn*, belonging to a period earlier than the Fourth Dynasty, found in 1897 at El Kali, is made of bronze 1 dates riveted together, as in the a^vp-qAarov method {Proc. Soc. Antiqs. 2nd Ser. xx'.i. p: 176).
f Mycenae, p. 108.
\ Der Stil, i. p. 234 ; see also Murray, Hist, of Gk. Sculpt, i. p. 75.
INTRODUCTION. XXXl
described (ix. 12, 4) : . . . irecrot %vXov e% ovpavov ' TloXvSwpov re to %v\ov tovto ^uXko) Xeyovaiv enriKoa/j.^aavTa Atopvaov KaXeaat HdSpiewv. We may com- pare the use of bronze-plating for decoration in the Homeric poems,* and also its use in the Treasury of Atrcus. Semper t speaks of the friezes of Greek temples as being in a manner afyvp/fkaTa, i.e. bronze reliefs metamor- phosed into stone. Probably all the metal-work mentioned in Homer was beaten out hollow and riveted together out of plates, just as we find the spear-heads of this period (cf. Nos. 19-29) hammered out of flat plates and beaten up into a cylindrical form. Welding (tcoXXrjTi/crj) appears to be of later appearance, and to have been borrowed from other civilisations ; according to Pausanias (x. 16, 1) it was invented by Glaucos of Chios, whose date is about 600 B.C.
It may be worth while to quote in full another passage of Pausanias which throws light upon the acpvpqXaTov process. In iii. 17, 6 he is describing the temple of Athene Chalkioikos at Sparta, near which was a statue of Zeus Hypatos : iraXaiOTaTov trdvTwv OTrocra earl -^clXkov ' 6Y oXou yap ov/c ecrrcv eipyaa- puevov, iXr/Xaapievov Be 18 ta twv pbepwv /cadauTo eKaarov auv>']ppLOo~Tai re 7rpo9 dXXrfXa, koX rjXoi crvve^ovaiv aura //,»; BiaXvOrjvai. ivXeap^ov Be civBpa 'Yr/ylvov to ayaXpia 7rotrjo~at \eyovai,v, bv Alttolvou /ecu i/cfAAi'So?, ol he aurov AatSdXov <pao-\v elvcu pLadrjTi)v.\ Here we see that the plates of bronze are riveted together, not soldered, after being beaten out into the shape required. In this connection we may notice a theory that has been promulgated § with regard to the statue in the adjoining temple, where Pausanias speaks of bronze plates with bands of reliefs, which, it is supposed, were not on the walls, but on the statue itself, as suggested by a coin of Sparta, and by the reliefs on the statue found at Lycosura.|| Ornaments and figures in relief in this process would have been beaten up from behind with a blunt instrument, and finished by engraving the details with a sharp instrument in front (a combination of the two processes iparaLCTTiKr) and ropevTi/oj). The method described above is to be seen on the Polledrara bust (No. 434) ; another early Etruscan statuette, the Aphrodite from Sessa (No. 447), is cast with an iron core.
The next process that we have to discuss is that which Hollow-easting held the field throughout the whole history of Greek art, and
in bronze. in a modified form has continued in use down to the present
" Cire perdu:' day. The method universally employed was that known as
cire perdu, the name referring to the manner in which the
* Od. iv. 72, vii. 86.
t Op. tit., p. 436.
% On the date of Clearchos, see Studniczka in Romische Mittheil. ii. (1887), p. 108 ; E. A. Gardner, Handbook of Gk. Sculpture, pp. 102, 154. Probably it was for religious reasons that this statue was executed in the more primitive method which had fallen into disuse, and hence the origin of the tradition connecting him with Daedalos.
§ Murray, Hist, of Gk. Sculpt.2 i. p. 38; Frazer, Fausamas, iii. p. 345.
|| Cavvadias, Fouilles de Lycos ur a, pi. 4.
XXX11 CATALOGUE OF BRONZES.
wax model was disposed of and replaced by the bronze, as the epigram in the Anthology puts it (Antk. Plan. 107, ed. Jacobs, ii. p. 657) :
I/cape, /cr/pos p,ev ere SccoXecre ' vvv Be ere Krjpat tfyayev els p^opeprjv av0L<i 6 ■^aKKorvTro^.*
The first proceeding is to make a clay or plaster model, roughly reproducing the whole conception, but on a slightly smaller scale. This model was known as TrpoirXacrpia, argilla ; it was built on a skeleton of iron, with a core of soft clay carefully beaten up and mixed with pounded pottery. Over this model was laid a thin coating of wax in sufficient thickness to give a perfect modelling of the future statue, the smaller details being touched up with tools of wood, ivory, or bone. The wax was pierced at many points with bronze rods half an inch square in section, which were left projecting to some distance. In other places holes (Tpv7r)]p,ara) were left, and small tubes inserted. The production of the outer mould required very great care, as it had to stand the action of fire. It was made of pottery pounded extremely fine and mixed with clay and water to the consistency of cream, which mixture (d\oi(f»]) was applied in several coats or "slips" over the inner mould until it was reduced to a shapeless lump. It was then bound round with hoops of bronze or iron and was gently lowered to a horizontal position and tilted up over the furnace, or, in the case of a large statue, lowered head downwards into a pit with a fire at the bottom. The inner surface of the mould had now received the impress of the modelling, and the wax could be removed by means of the tubes mentioned above, while the bronze rods held the core firm and prevented it from rattling inside the mould. A hole was made in each foot of the statue, and molten bronze was poured in in place of the wax which had been extracted by the heat. It was a matter of some difficulty to get the metal to run into all the cavities, owing to its liability to cool rapidly, and fires would have to be constantly kept up at a great heat. The statue was now left to cool for some days, at the end of which the outer mould was carefully chipped off, and the ends of the bronze rods were cut smooth. The core was extracted by means of iron rakes through the sole of the foot, being shaken out in little bits. Cracks or raised lines caused by defects in the mould, or " honey-combing " caused by air-bubbles, had to be carefully made good, and it was often necessary to touch up the hair to make it stand out more sharply. The surface was then prepared by colouring, lacquering, or gilding, of which processes we shall speak later on. The great advantage of this method of casting bronze over work in marble is that the result gives the direct rapid work of the artist in the wax, instead of a laborious accomplishment of his conception. f
* There is a passage of similar purport in Diog. Laert. v. I, 33 : cos iu rep Ki\p<$ 6 ''Epfj.'is eirnri8ei6TyiTa. (■)(ovti imSt^aaOat rovs xaP°"CT^Pas! Ka^ & *v rV Xa*-KV "''Spicis ' k.i#' i^if 8e Keytrcu ^vreAf'xeia ?j rov ovvTiTthr (Tfiivov 'Epfj-ov 7) avSpidvTOS.
t This account of the process is that of the modern are ferdu, but it is in the main klent'cal with the ancient method, as far as it is known to us. A very vivid and instructive account of casting a statue is given by Benvenuto Cellini in his Life {ed. Symonds, 1896), p. 360 ff. See also Blumner, Technologies iv. pp. 286, 325, note 2.
INTRODUCTION. XXX111
The allusions to this process in ancient authors are for the most part isolated and uninstructive. But we arc acquainted from the lexicographers with some of the technical terms employed, as from the passage in Pollux (x. 189)* : aurb he to 7ri]\,wov, b TrepceiXi-j^e tcl irXaaOevra K/jpiva, a Kara rijv rod 7rvpb$ irpoafpopdv rijKerac, kcu iroXXa iiceivw rpv7r>]p,ara evaTToXeiirerai pui'XiySos (v./. XlyBo^) KaXeirai. From this we learn that fi'iXiySos or XiyBos was the term for the outer mould of clay ; it is defined by Phot i us (s.v. XiySo<i) as ^wfo? rpijpiaTa e^wv avi'e-^rj jeaaapa izapcnrX^o-ia, Be &v 6 ^aXKos rjOeiTai. The core within the wax appears to have been called icdvafios (Pollux, ibid.).
But if literary information is somewhat scanty, art supplies us with some very valuable information in the shape of a vase-painting,f representing the interior of a bronze foundry with statues in process of completion. The vase has been frequently illustrated and described, and does not require more than a passing allusion here, but it is more instructive to us than any descriptions by lexicographers or writers on art could be. One of the chief points on which it throws a light is that casting appears to have been generally done in separate pieces, the parts being afterwards welded together ; the head of one of the two statues represented lies on the ground beside it, while a foot and a hand are suspended from the wall of the foundry. This is of a piece with the evidence of Philo Byz. de sept. sped. 4 : real Sea tovto toi"? aXXovs di>Bpidpra<; 01 re^vlrac 7rXdcraouo-L irpoiTOv, elra Kara p,eXrj BieXovres -^(ovevovai kuX TeA.09 6'A.ot<? crvvdevre^ earvcrav ; evidence supported by Quintilian (ii. 1, 12) : "is ne statuam quidem inchoari credet, cum eius membra fundentur " ; and id. vii. pr. 2 : " neque enim quamquam fusis omnibus membris statua sit, nisi collocetur." And Lechat has published in the Bull, de Corr. Hell. xv. (1891), pis. 9, 10, p. 461, a statuette of Aphrodite from Dodona composed of two separate pieces, with a base, the point of division being the waist. The two parts were joined by rivets, while a piece was attached under each foot for insertion in a slit in the base.
One notable feature in ancient bronzes is that they were cast extraordinarily light. For instance, the statue of the Praying Boy in Berlin can be carried by a man, while a life-size statue of a woman in Munich only weighs no pounds.
A question has been raised in reference to the word o-ro/xweri? used by Plutarch {de Pyth. orac. 2, p. 395 B) : 1) Xeyopcevrj rcov £i(f)cbv crTo/zctXTts", ^5 itcXnrovo-r)<; eKe-^etpiav eo-ye TroXepuicwv epywv 6 £/(£o<?4 This seems to refer to a process of hardening or tempering bronze like steel, especially for weapons, which was supposed to have fallen into disuse, and to have become a lost art. With this passage we may compare such phrases as -^oXkov ficupds (Aesch. Ag. 612) and the passage in Pausanias (ii. 3, 3) about dipping the Corinthian bronze in the water of Peirene. On the whole, the testimony seems to weigh against the ancients having had any chemical or mechanical knowledge of a tempering
* See Blumner, Technotogie, iv. p. 286, note 2 ; also Murray, Handbook of Gk. Archaeology, p. 319. t Berlin Cat. 2294 ; Murray, Hist, of Gk. Sculpt."1 i. frontispiece ; B'iimner, Technologie, iv„
pl- 5- P- 330.
% See a passage to the same effect in Procl. ad Hes. Op. et Di. 142.
XXXIV CATALOGUE OF BRONZES.
process, but they ma)' have been in the habit of dipping bronze into water to cool it, and in a measure increase its hardness.
The ancients had many devices for embellishing the Patina and surface and enhancing the effect of their bronze statues.
Artificial Much, however, that we read in Pliny and other writers on
Embellishments. this subject is utterly untrustworthy and mere romance, as, for instance, the story of Seilanion's statue (Plut. Qu. ConviV. v. I, 2, p. 674 A) : ri]v 7T€7r\a(T/LievT)v 'loicdcrTTjv, rjs <$>a<jiv ei<? to Trpoaunrov (ipyvpov ti aufx/xl^ac rbv re^yii^v, 07r&)<? eickhirovTos dvdpdywov real /xapaivo/xevov \d/3>j irepupdveiav 6 ^aX/co?. Or, again, Pliny's story of a statue of Athamas by Aristonidas {H.N. xxxiv. 140) : "cum exprimere vellet Athamantis furorem . . . aes ferrumque miscuit, ut robigine eius per nitorem aeris relucente exprimeretur verecundiae rubor." It is hardly necessary to remark that such results are scientifically and technically impossible, for even if iron had been mixed with the copper, it could not have been arranged in the casting that the blush should appear in the right place ; and with regard to the silver producing paleness, the same argument applies. These stories probably arose from some accidental colouring of the bronze from an external source. There is no doubt that the Greeks had a fondness for polychromy in bronze as in other statues, and did endeavour to obtain effects by artificial means. We have already alluded to the color Graecanicus produced by an admixture of lead and plumbum argentarium, and the results obtained by combining lead with Cyprian bronze (Pliny, xxxiv. 98). Dio Chrysostom tells us that for statues of athletes a kind of bronze was employed which reproduced the sunburnt effect of their skin : el^e 8e to ^po)[xa ofxoiov ^aX/co3 KeKpa/xevo) (cf. the Jupatizou of Pliny, xxxiv. 8). Plutarch again in a very interesting and important passage {de Pyth. orac. 2, p. 395 B) speaks of the statues of the sea-captains in the great Spartan dedi- cation at Delphi as being of a blue colour, to indicate their association with the sea : idav/xa^e 8e tov %a\fcov to dvdripbv, ti)? ov irivto irpoaeoiKo^ ovSe t<p, fiacpfj 8e Kvavov aTt\(3ovTo<i, coare teal irefx^rai, ti 7rpo<f tovs vedp%ov<;, drr' eKeivoov yap rjp/cTai Trjs deas, olov aTe^voyi 0a\arriov<i ry %pba iced ftvOiovs k&ronas.
In connection with this passage and the others quoted above, the question has lately been raised whether the Greeks did not apply an artificial patina of some kind to their statues in order to give them a somewhat similar appearance to that which they present to us when coated with a natural patina after burial in the earth. In the last-named passage Plutarch goes on to enquire : rA/?' ovv KpaGis Tt<? r)v koI (j)dpp,a^i>i roiv irdXat Teyyirwv nrepl rbv yaknov ; If so, Pliny's and Plutarch's stories may be susceptible of some such explanation. The latter, however, in the passage just quoted, proceeds to give various quasi-scientific explanations which cannot be regarded nowadays as serious. In the first place, he refers to the absurd story about the appearance of the Corinthian bronze (see above, p. xxvii.) ; secondly, he explains it by the effect of corrosion on this particular bronze : \eTn<?) <ydp ovri koI KuOapco koX hiavyel TTpOGirlinMV 6 M)9, eK^ai'iaraTcm (cttiv, ev he roU dWois vypoU dcfxtvi^Tai, k.t.X. Lastly, he attributes it to the
INTRODUCTION. XXXV
climate of Delphi and the effect of the atmosphere, which explanation M. Lechat has paraphrased in modern scientific terms as follows : "The climate of Delphi has all the characteristics of a mountain climate ; from one season to the other the differences of temperature arc considerable, and it becomes moist after having been very dry ; moreover, the air is particularly rich in ozone, and these circumstances are the most favourable to the oxydisation of bronze."
The first to call attention to the possibility of an artificial patina was Heuzey (apud Carapanos, Dcdone, p. 217), and this idea has been strongly taken up by Lechat {Bull, dc Corr. Hell. xv. (1891), p. 473 ff. ; and again in Revue ArcJieol. xxviii. (1S96), p. 331). The latter comes to the following conclusion : That all patina is deliberately produced by the artist, but in two ways : (1) naturally, i.e. " exhaled " by the bronze, owing to the particular formula of the alloy calculated with a view to the production of patina ; (2) artificially, i.e. produced by a coloured varnish which supplies immediately a patina similar to the natural one. But he would leave further investigations to the decision of chemists.
De Villenoisy {Revue Archiol. xxix. (1896), pp. 67, 194) combats the theories of Lechat, and maintains that patina is natural and chemical, and due to the action of air and earth. Certainly Lechat's assertion seems far too sweeping, especially when it is considered that bronzes from the same locality often have the same patina, and that it is almost possible to tell what part of Europe a bronze has come from by its appearance. For instance, the Graeco-Italian bronzes in this collection, acquired from Sir W. Temple and Sig. Castellani, generally have a bright apple-green colour ; these all come from Campania. Again, the Etruscan bronzes from the Lake of Falterona are all covered with a very beautiful brownish-green patina ; and the Gallo-Roman bronzes from the Comarmond collection are nearly all of a yellowish colour. These may be isolated instances, but it is only fair to suppose that in these cases the colour of the patina must be due to the nature of the soil.
There is, however, sufficient evidence that the Greeks were acquainted with some kind of artificial patina which they could use upon occasion. This was probably done by combining a basis of sulphur with silver, iron, or lead, according to the colour required ; this was mixed into a paste and spread over the bronze, and heated, producing a patinated surface of sulphurate of bronze. Pliny (H.N.xxxW. 1 5) appears to allude to this process : " Bitumine antiqui tinguebant (hominum statuas), quo magis mirum est placuisse auro integere. Hoc nescio an Romanum fuerit inventum ; certe etiam Romae nomen habet vetustum " (see also xxxiii. 131).
The final stages in the completion of a bronze statue were all with a view to giving it as far as possible a polychrome appearance. They include inlaid and plated work, gilding and silvering, and enamelling.
As regards the gilding and silvering of statues, we have already quoted several passages in allusion to it. It was a fairly universal practice, and among the smaller statuettes and other objects in our collections a considerable number of gilt and silvered specimens exist. Pliny mentions a statue by Lysippos that
c 2
XXXYl CATALOGUE OF BRONZES.
Nero ordered to be gilt over (xxxiv. 6$) ; and Pausanias refers to a gilt statue of Gorgias of Leontini (x. i8, 7), which Pliny (xxxiii. 83) states to be of solid gold. The Phryne of Praxiteles was also gilt (Paus. x. 14, /).* Mirror-cases were frequently plated with silver on the flat side, and were highly polished for purposes of reflection by dipping the mirror into a bath of melted silver. In order to gild the surface of a bronze statue mercury was employed, on which the gold leaf was laid, and fired on in a furnace, the heat driving away the mrrcury and leaving the gold secure. When cold it was polished with burnishers. The same process was employed for fixing silver.
Inlaid work appears in two forms : damascening and niello. The former process was employed for necklaces, bracelets, and patterns of dresses, either silver or gold being used Among the best examples in the Museum collection are the fragments of drapery belonging to the bronze leg from the Piot collec- tion (No. 265). Silver was also u=ed by this process for the lips and nails of statues. The pattern was cut very deeply into the metal with a sharp tool, the bottom of the groove being rather wider than the top ; gold or silver wire was laid in the grooves and beaten in carefully with a hammer.
Niello work (Lat. nigellum) required a somewhat more elaborate process. The material was prepared by mixing certain proportions of silver, lead, and copper, into which alloy, while melted, a certain proportion of sulphur was infused, forming a sulphurate of those metals, of a dark grey colour. This was o-round up into a fine powder and shaken out of a quill on to the lines of the pattern cut deeply in the metal, which had been previously heated over a brazier so that the niello might melt in the pattern and cool to the right consistency.
Enamels were obtained from coloured glass, oxide of tin being added to produce opacity and oxides of other metals for various colours. They were chiefly used for the eyes of statues, which required special workmen, as we learn from inscriptions which give the name of fader ocularius (C. I. L. vi. 9402, 9403). Other materials were also used for the eyes of statues, such as diamonds (No. 192), garnets (No. 834), silver and ivory. Enamelling on bronze has been supposed to be an invention of the Celts, and only known in later times to classical nations, on the authority of a passage in Philostratus {hnagg. i. 28 : ravTci <$>aai ra xP(^riara T0^"? e'w '^eavm fiapfidpov? eyx^ tcS %aX/cw hiairvpw, rd he avviaraaOai koX \i0ovcrdtu koX adifytv a iypafii]). No doubt the process is very common in the art of the Gaulish nations.f
Next to the process of hollow casting in bronze, the most Repousse work. important and the most generally employed is repousse work. It plays a very large part in ancient bronze work, and a thorough knowledge of it was necessary to the statuary for the final details and polishing of his statues after the cire perdu process. This process was known to the ancients as efnraujTiKtj, and closely connected with it was the
* Sec also Bliimner, Technologic, iv. \\ 309 ff.
f See Murray, Handbook of Gk. Archaeology, p. 30S.
INTRODUCTION. XXXvii
process of ropevTiKi) (caelatura) or chasing, which was, in fact, a necessary- complement of the other. The method is one that dates back to the earliest times, and is employed for other metals, silver and gold, as well as bronze. The a(j)upi']\arov, which has been discussed above, is only an early variety of the process ; it was also employed for spear-heads, which were beaten out of a flat plate and bent up into the necessary form. The method generally employed was as follows : A plate of thin metal was heated and pressed down on to a tray full of pitch, to which it of course adhered. The pattern was drawn on the plate and blocked out roughly with a punch and hammer, the metal being embossed in the soft pitch, which, however, is hard enough to prevent the tool going through. The plate is then heated again, removed, heated a third time, and put in the reverse way, and the other side is first hammered and then worked up with a sharp graving-tool. The finest instances of repousse work known are the Siris bronzes (PI. VIII.) ; many of the designs {emblematd) on the Greek mirror-cases are also exceedingly beautiful, and of most elaborate technique.
The process of incised or engraved work was not much practised by the Greeks (though we possess two fine examples on the mirrors Nos. 288, 289, and an archaic specimen in the diskos, No. 248), but was brought to a pitch of per- fection by the Etruscans in their cistae and mirrors. To an Etruscan a mirror was what a kylix was to a Greek vase-painter of the fifth century, an object which afforded him the opportunity of shewing unlimited skill in drawing and genius of conception, and the great engraved friezes round the cistae are of no less merit than the mirror-designs.
III. GREEK BRONZE WORK.
The first section of this Catalogue (A. Nos. 1-336) is
Sculpture in occupied with the description of bronzes found on Greek soil,
bronze in Greece, or which, for reasons of style or from the inscriptions they
1. The arehaie bear, may be attributed directly to a Hellenic origin. A
period. history of Greek bronzes must necessarily be in a measure a
history of Greek sculpture, and therefore beyond the scope
of a work of this kind, but there are many features peculiar to Greek bronze
work as opposed to marble which call for special remark, and for illustration
from the examples hereafter to be described. Until recently the number of genuine
Greek bronzes in existence afforded little material for classification, especially
in the archaic period ; but recent excavations have done much to extend our
knowledge in this respect, and moreover the chronological data that have been
derived from pottery-finds can be applied to such bronzes as have been found
with the various classes of pottery, as at Cameiros, with a view to a more
accurate estimation of their place in the history of art.
We have made some allusion to the bronze remains of the Mycenaean period, chiefly from a technical point of view ; the artistic side can as yet hardly be said to be represented. But even among Mycenaean remains there occur
XXXV111 CATALOGUE OF BRONZES.
here and there specimens of sculpture in bronze, rude and primitive, no doubt, but yet showing signs of the innate Greek genius, and standing at the threshold of the long course of development which can be traced up to Pheidias and Polycleitos. Among these may be mentioned a remarkable specimen found by the British School in Melos,* which appears from the circumstances of discovery to be even anterior to the actually Mycenaean remains, but is yet quite Greek in character. Two small bronze figures of animals of exceptional merit have been found on Mycenaean sites (No. 42 at Ialysos, and No. 3195 at Maroni in Cyprus). Other bronze statuettes of this period and of a similar type are illustrated by Perrot and Chipiez, Hist, de /'Art, vi. figs. 349, 353, 354. In Cyprus and Sardinia again are found rude primitive bronze figures which owe something primarily to Greek influence, but bear the unmistakable impress of local handiwork (see Nos. 179-185, 337, 338).
Conversely in the earlier statuettes of Hellenic workmanship we can trace Mycenaean affinities, not without a considerable share of Oriental influence. This is seen in the small figures from Cameiros (Nos. 132-178), and again in the votive bronze figures from Olympia, all of which belong to a period when repre- sentations of animals had become common enough, but those of human beings were as yet comparatively rare, and tentative at best. The period is that represented in vase-painting by the Geometrical or Dipylon pottery. All the Olympian bronzes of this type were found at the same level and in one part of the Altis at Olympia, near the Pelopion and Heraion. The circumstances of their discovery as well as their style point to their belonging to one period, and that the oldest represented at Olympia. If the date given by tradition for the foundation of the Olympic games (776 B.C.) be correct, we may fairly date these objects in the eighth century B.C. Another point which indicates an early date is that they are ascertained by analysis to be virtually of pure copper ; and further, they are all cast solid. These figures mostly represent oxen or horses, many of the latter closely resembling the types on the Geometrical vases. The human figures are nearly all sexless. These figures find a close parallel in the series of early bronzes from Italy represented in this Catalogue by Nos. 339-360 and 394-428. Among other objects in bronze found in large quantities at Olympia, the commonest are fibulae, diadems, vases, and tripods.
We may then regard the eighth century B.C. as the threshold of the history of bronze-work in classical Greece, this being roughly contemporaneous with the advent of the Iron Age. Bronze still retains its popularity as the material for most of the smaller objects, such as implements and weapons ; but it is devoted for the most part to the requirements of ordinary life, and except for merely decorative purposes, or for the production of large numbers of small votive objects and amulets, as at Olympia, it is not employed for purely artistic productions. Statuary in fact as an art had not yet come into being.
As at Olympia, so at Cameiros in Rhodes, at Thebes, and on the Acropolis
* Annual, iii. (1896-7), pi, 3.
INTRODUCTION'. XXXIX
of Athens, excavations have yielded a fruitful return of personal ornaments and objects in daily use, such as fibulae, weapons, and vessels of bronze. These objects are in most cases found in the same tombs with Geometrical pottery, and to some extent follow the same stages of development. It has been proposed to distinguish three periods into which these vases may be divided,* marking in their decoration three distinct stages of artistic development: (i) merely geometrical patterns ; (2) figures of quadrupeds, birds, and fishes ; (3) scenes from daily life, with human figures, such as funeral processions and sea-fights. Now Thebes of late years has yielded a number of fibulae with a sail-shaped foot on which are incised designs closely corresponding in character to the three periods of the vases. Some, as Nos. 122, 123. 129 of this Catalogue, have only patterns; others, as Nos. 119 and 120, have figures of animals: horses, deer, lions, and swans ; while thirdly Nos. 121 and 3204 bear figures of ships, with in- teresting details, and may be ranked with the vases of the third period. No. 3205 is exceptionally interesting as a unique instance (for this period) of a mytho- logical subject ; it represents the combat of Heracles with the Hydra and the crab sent by Hera. The type of fibula is one of some interest, and appears to be confined to this period ; it also occurs in considerable numbers at Olympia.f The next stage of development is represented by the Early Greek early Greek reliefs, which are in fact the first specimens of true reliefs. Hellenic art in bronze, though it cannot be denied that
decorative bronze-work of this kind occurs among the remains of the Mycenaean period, and was known to Homer. But no work of the earlier period was quite free from external and Oriental influences ; these reliefs on the other hand are purely Hellenic, and only in a measure indebted to Mycenaean art. Of this indebtedness an interesting example is a relief found at Olympia representing the ciXios jepcov, which preserves a type already familiar to us on an " island-gem " in the British Museum (Cat. of Gems, No. 82). Two kinds of bronze are used for these reliefs, one harder and more brittle used for ornamen- tation in the Geometrical style, the other softer and more malleable for the so-called Argive-Corinthian reliefs with subjects. The Museum possesses five small specimens of the latter variety from Eleutherae on the borders of Attica and Boeotia (i87,_5), one of which bears a row of heads wearing a headdress which is reproduced on Corinthian vases.
In regard to these reliefs, a controversy has recently arisen. Those found at Olympia, at Eleutherae, and on the Acropolis of Athens were supposed to owe their origin to the bronze- workers of Corinth, or at any rate to a Peloponnesian school of art.| Not only did such small details as the headdress just referred to, or the plait-band which occurs on No. 1875 and elsewhere, betoken a con-
* Sec Kroker mjahrbuch, i. (1S86), p. 95 (f.
f The chronological sequence and development of these objects is discussed later (p. lix. ). On the Geometrical fibulae see Ann. deW Inst. 1S80, p. 122; Olympia, iv. Nos. 362-366 (Furtwaengler) ; De Kidder, Bronzes de la Soc. Arch, d' 'Alliines, p. 56; Perrot and Chipiez, Hist, de F Art, vii. p. 24811".
; Furtwaengler, Bronze/, aits Oly/u/ia, pp. 80, 93 ; fount. Hell. Stud. xiii. p. 249.
xl CATALOGUE OF BRONZES.
nection with Corinth or Argos, but the inscription on the aXios ye'pwv relief was in undoubted Argive characters. But many cogent arguments have been brought forward by M. de Ridder * for the existence of an Ionic, perhaps Chalcidian, school to which they owe their origin.
It is de Ridder's main contention that the influence of Introduction of a Peloponnesian school is not to be traced at Athens before hollow-easting. 500 B.C., and that there are grave reasons for doubting whether any such schools existed at all. It has also been maintained by Studniczka (Romische Mittheil. ii. (1887), p. 107) f that hollow-casting of bronze statues was not introduced into the Peloponnese before 500 B.C., and that this betokens a late development of art in this part of Greece. It is undeniable that we should expect Athens to be subject to the influence of Ionian rather than Dorian schools, and that Chalcis was in close communication with the Ionian civilisation of Asia Minor, as was also Boeotia through Chalcis, where the greater number of early reliefs has been found. Chalcis again was the only town in Greece possessing copper-mines of any importance, and it was a great commercial centre from the eighth to the fifth century. Not only in bronze- work but in pottery we can trace a close connection between Chalcis and Corinth ; for the so-called Proto-Corinthian ware is found in Boeotia as well as at Corinth, and at the Chalcidian Cumae and the Corinthian Syracuse ; and even at a later period it is very difficult to draw a line of demarcation between Corin- thian and Chalcidian vase-paintings. The most probable conclusion therefore at which we can arrive is that a school of bronze-work was first set up at Chalcis about the eighth century, and that the close connection of that city with Corinth led to the formation of a similar school at the latter centre ; the same may also be true with regard to the pottery.
In the history of Greek sculpture no advance was made either in technical or artistic development for a considerable period. The rise of the art dates from about 600 B.C. The story of the invention of bronze-casting by Rhoecos and Theodoros is not without a germ of truth. They probably learnt their craft in Egypt and introduced it into Greece, or improved processes hitherto employed. The tradition concerning them is preserved by Pausanias in two interesting passages: (1) viii. 14, 7 : to Be ayaX/xa (of Poseidon Hippios at Pheneus in Arcadia) 'OBvaaea dvadelvat ro %a\tcovv ovk ej(u> TreWeadat crcpiaiv ' ov yap tto) rore rov yakicov ra aydXpara Bed irdvro^ rjirlaravro ipyd^eadai KaOairep eadijra e^v^aivovre^ ' rporrov Be ocrris r\v a\jroi\ e\ ra yaKxa epyacrias, eBei^ev ijBt] p,oi rov e's: %7rapridra<i \6yov ra eirl rov dydXparo^ rov v^iarov Ato? (iii. 17, 6). Bie^eav Be %a\fcbv rrponoi teal dydXpara eywvevaavro 'Pot^o? re
* Braizes de V Acropcle, p. xv. ; de ectypis aeneis, pessim ; see also Joitrn. Hell, Stud. xvi. pp. 325, 334.
t Eurtwaengler (in Sitzungsbcr. d. bayer. Akad. d. PViss. 1897 = Nate Denkm. d. ant. Kunst, p. 113) combats Stuclniczka's views, in publishing a bronze head from Sparta, for which he claims a date as early as 550 B.C. This accords better with the tradition that Rhoecos and Theodoros, who belong to the seventh century, introduced hollow-casting into the Peloponnese from Samos (see following page, and Paus, iii. 12. jo).
INTRODUCTION.
xli
<J>t\awf tcai QeoScopos TrfXe/ckiovs "Zdfitot. (2) x. 38, 6 : iSijXcoaa Be iv toi? TrpoTepois tou \6you ^La/xiou? 'VoIkov <t>i\alov kcil (~)c68a)pov T?;Xe/cXeou9 eivat tou? evpovras ^oXkov e? to d/cpiftearaTov rfj^at ' kcil ^(ovevaav ovtol irponoL, k.t.X. Pausanias is here speaking of a statue of Night at Ephesus by Rhoecos, the oldest known hollow-cast statue.
There appears here to be a distinction between the words Siexeav and rf]%ai on the one hand, which denote the fusing or melting of metal, and i^wvevaavTo, which refers to the casting in the mould (^wi/09). From Pliny is derived another tradition concerning Rhoecos and Theodoros, that they were the first modellers in clay (xxxv. 152): "Sunt qui in Samo primos omnium plasticen invenisse Rhotcum et Theodorum tradant multo ante Bacchiadas Corintho pulsos." Probably this indicates a connection with the tire perdu process. Theodoros and Rhoecos being chiefly workers in bronze may have introduced the practice of making preliminary models in clay. Pliny has indeed recorded a rival tradition (xxxv. 151) to the effect that Butades of Corinth invented the art of modelling, but on the other hand we do not know that he was a sculptor as well as a potter, and the first-quoted passage may have no further meaning beyond its reference to models for bronze statues and the tire perdu process. The date of these two sculptors must be the latter half of the seventh century B.C., as Herodotos (iv. 152) tells us that in B.C. 630 the Samians set up in the temple of Hera a large bronze vase supported by colossal figures, which must have been cast, and was therefore subsequent to the date of their invention.
Most of the archaic bronzes in the British Museum belong to the end of the period, about 520-460 B.C., leaving a gap after the Geometrical period, which for Athens is represented by a series of bronzes found on the Acropolis, and in Italy by the more primitive Etruscan statuettes and the objects from the Polledrara tomb. This gap also corresponds to the period of the Proto- Corinthian and Phaleron vases in pottery ; while the later archaic period, to which these bronzes belong, is that of the Corinthian and Athenian black- figured vases.
Our bronzes do not all come from Greece ; several fine specimens were found in Italy, and it is possible that even among the statuettes classed as archaic Etruscan there may be some which are really of genuine Greek workmanship. Many of the inscribed objects can be roughly dated, but all seem to fall between the years 560 and 450. The oldest inscription is on the Corfu tablet (261), which is certainly not later than 550 ; the latest, the two tablets with inscriptions in the alphabet of Ozolian Locri (262 and 263), cf which the first falls between 480 and 455, the second about 450 B.C. The helmet of Hiero (250) can be dated with absolute certainty by the event alluded to in the inscription, which took place in B.C. 474 ; but the battle from which the other helmet (251) came is unknown. The inscribed disc from Kephallenia (No. 3207) should also be mentioned here.
From an artistic point of view, the most interesting of this group is No. 209, the copy of the Apollo by Canachos ; strictly speaking, it is more an imitation
xlii CATALOGUE OF BRONZES.
or reminiscence than a copy, but it cannot be very much later in date than the original, which was carried off to Persia in B.C. 494.* The style may be justly said to bear out the criticism of Cicero {Brut, xviii. 70) that the statues of Canachos were rigidiora quam ut veritatem imiteutur. Another statuette that can be connected with a known work of art is No. 190, which Furtwaengler (Meistenv. d. gr. Plastik, pp. 26, 3S) regards as a prototype of the Lemnian Athene of Pheidias. No. 191 recalls the Athene Promachos of the same artist. No. 212, a figure of an athlete, closely resembles the Harmodios in the famous group of the Tyrant-slayers at Naples, though it cannot be regarded as an actual copy ; but the style shows it to belong to the time of Critios and Nesiotes, the first half of the fifth century B.C. A companion figure, No. 213, which came with this from Corfu, also represents an athlete, but this statuette is more in the style of Myron, and may be rather later in date. Here should also be mentioned the series of statuettes which are associated with the early type of the draped Aphrodite holding a flower (Nos. 188, 192-200). The type was created by Canachos (Paus. ii. 10, 5), and further developed by Calamis (Lucian, Imagg. 6) and Alcamenes (Paus. i. 19, 2). The type of Aphrodite is not markedly differ- entiated at this period, and in many cases there may be no mythological significance in the figures, but the probability is in favour of this goddess being intended.! In Etruscan and Italian bronzes this type reappears, firstly as Venus- Proserpina (Gerhard, Hyperb.-rom. Stud. ii. p. 121 ff), secondly as Spes, with the characteristic motive of holding up the drapery with the left hand, which also occurs in Greek examples, such as Nos. 192, 193. More certainly to be identified are the Aphroditae that form the supports of mirrors, who are generally attended by Erctes, winged or unwinged, as Plate I V. and No. 3209 ; the same type occurs on several Etruscan examples, which, if not Greek importations, are ceitainly close imitations of Greek work, such as Nos. 547-552. Two more archaic bronzes which deserve notice as specimens of Greek engraving are the disc from Sicily (No. 248). and the mirror No. 244, which, though Etruscan in feeling, seems to be the work of a Greek artist.
The " finest " period of Greek art extends from about 2. Greek bronzes B.C. 460 down to B.C. 300. During that period several of the of the finest great sculptors, such as Polycleitos and Lysippos, worked
period. entirely or almost entirely in bronze ; but it is hardly sur-
prising that we should possess no copies of their works in bronze, having regard to the perishable nature and intrinsic value of this material. Life-size Greek statues in bronze are almost unknown, with the exception of the recently-discovered charioteer at Delphi,} the Praying Boy at Berlin, and a few
* See Murray, Greek Bronzes, p. 10.
f See Bernoulli, Aphrodite, p. 38 fif.
% This statue, it may be remarked, lias been attributed on plausible grounds to Calamis, but PJiny (//. N. xxxiv. 71) implies that this sculptor was not successful in human figures. Compare, however, the offering of Hiero (Pans. \i. 12, 1), for which Calamis made horses and riders. Besides, unless the existence of an earlier Praxiteles is recognised, the dimrence of dates forces us to doubt the truth of Pliny's remarks.
INTRODUCTION. xliii
others ; the rest are all Graeco-Roman copies or later originals. We are the more grateful, therefore, when fortune has spared us even such fragments as Nos. 265-267 in our collection, as specimens of Greek bronze work of the fifth and fourth centuries. Of these, Nos. 266 and 267 reflect in their artistic qualities the work of the two chief sculptors of the fourth century, Scopas and Praxiteles. The heads of Scopas have all a strong individuality of their own, in which the most notable features are the low, broad forehead, the intensely-gazing, deep- set eyes, and the large heavy nose. It is true that reasons have been given for regarding the head No. 266 as from a copy of the Cnidian Aphrodite of Praxiteles ; but this view is grounded chiefly on the hand holding drapery that was found along with it, and it is not absolutely certain that the head is that of Aphrodite at all.
No. 267, on the other hand, is undoubtedly Praxitelean. It bears a most striking likeness to the head of the Apollo Sauroctonos, and the treatment of the hair, the soft beauty of the head, and the whole artistic conception point to its being, if not by Praxiteles, at any rate taken from an original by him. No. 271 also by its attitude suggests Praxiteles ; the S-shaped curve of the loosely-posed body is seen in most of his productions, such as the Hermes, the Satyr, and the Apollo Sauroctonos.
In No. 269 we have a figure which rather in its conception than in its treatment recalls Myron ; it is a copy of his Marsyas, and appears to date about 150 years later. The rendering of the hair, for instance, is more characteristic of the Pergamene school, with its rough and strongly accentuated masses of locks ; but we read that Myron, though advanced in other respects, in his treatment of the hair adhered to the conventions of the archaic period (Pliny, H. N. xxxiv. 58). No. 26S is an interesting example of early portrait sculpture, and probably belongs to the period of Lysippos. Other Lysippian bronzes are the Poseidon, No. 274, which, both in proportions and in conception, recalls the type created by that artist, and the heroic figure, No. 286.
With regard to copies of Greek statues, it may be remarked that in many cases they rather conform to a recognised and familiar type than imitate any particular statue. This is seen in the many reproductions of the Athene Promachos (as Nos. 191, 1037), or of the Cnidian Aphrodite (as Nos. 1079, 1097- 11C9). Or again we find a transference of types, as in No. 918, which, though a Zeus, is yet in attitude and feeling wholly akin to the Doryphoros of Polycleitos.
The second section of this period in the Catalogue is devoted to reliefs on mirror-cases, vases, or elsewhere (Nos. 285-311). Most of these have been found in Greece itself, and furthermore we can be certain that they are all genuine Greek originals, and not copies, so that the actual work can be dated with more certainty than in the case of statuettes. The Siris bronzes (285) have been so often and so fully discussed that it is not necessary to say more about them here ; the heroic figure from Lake Bracciano (286) is a worthy rival in style and beauty of execution, and also, as pointed out above, dates from the time of Lysippos.
xliv CATALOGUE OF BRONZES.
Greek mirrors are far less common than Etruscan, and have, in fact, only become known during the last thirty years by excavations. They have been found chiefly at Corinth, where they were no doubt largely made, and also at Athens, Eretria, and Tanagra, and in Crete. Archaic mirrors are generally in the form of circular discs with a support in the form of a figure of Aphrodite ; these appear to have continued in favour up to the end of the fifth century B.C., when they were supplanted by the mirror-cases decorated with reliefs, which last into the Hellenistic period. Sometimes they merely consist of a case and cover, with or without a hinge, the inner surfaces being polished for reflection, and the top of the cover adorned with a relief; other examples have a detached polished disc inside the case. Occasionally we find an incised design on the detached disc or on the inside of the cover (see Nos. 288, 289). The style of the reliefs varies very greatly ; Nos. 288 and 289 are in the finest style of the fourth century ; 293 and 294 are coarse and late. The subjects on these mirrors are generally Erotic or Dionysiac (as 288 and 295), but there are several instances of mythological scenes on the Museum examples alone, such as 289, 291, 293, 294. No. 3210 bears a unique subject in the shape of a horseman. Among the finer reliefs, though not from mirrors, are Nos. 304, 305, 308, 309, 310, 31 1, none of which are later than the fourth century B.C.*
IV. ETRUSCAN BRONZES.
Next in importance to the remains of Greek bronze-work History of bronze- are those of Italy, especia'ly Etruria. The history of the early working" in Italy, civilisations of Italy is somewhat confused, and has not been Early civilisations, elucidated or even studied to the same extent as that of Greece ; but it is still in a measure possible to distinguish the various stages and trace their developments. The earliest civilisation of which any traces have been found is that known as the Terramare, in the region of the Po. The people were lake-dwellers, living on piles in the water or in the marshy lagoons of the Po valley, chiefly between Piacenza and Bologna. It is in this stage that we find the earliest examples of bronze remains in Italy, at first contemporaneously with stone axes, spear-heads, and tools, survivals of the Neolithic Age. The bronze remains fall under the headings of weapons, tools, and objects of toilet, including spear-heads, axes, celts, knives, combs, crescent- shaped razors (rf. Nos. 2420-2423), and pins. In several lake-settlements actual moulds have been found.f On the other hand fibulae, rings, and bracelets do not yet occur ; nor are iron, glass, or silver known, and gold is only represented by a doubtful specimen. Traces of a contemporary civilisation have been found
* It may be noted heie that a hydria with a replica of the relief No. 310 has recently been found in Rhodes; it is probable that the whole series of which Nos. 310-313 are specimens was manufactured in that island, all having been found in the same region.
t Helbig, Die Italiker in der Poele/ie, p. 19.
INTRODUCTION.
xlv
in Latium, and this is represented by the funerary hut-urns found at Alba Longa, of which a fine example is to be seen in the British Museum (Etruscan Saloon, H i). The remains of the Neolithic Age are sufficient to indicate an early date for these civilisations, and they are probably contemporary with the earliest remains from Hissarlik and Cyprus.
To the Terramare succeeds (longo intervallo) the period known as the Villanova (from the site of that name at Bologna), extending over the Po valley and Etruria, especially the neighbourhood of Corneto. In every respect it shows a higher development than the preceding stage. Iron is already known, and a great advance has been made in the working of bronze, which is now not only cast, but hammered and worked in repousse. The tombs of this period are of the form known as a pozzo, that is, like wells or pits, and frequently contain jars or ossuaria in bronze and clay, in which the bones were placed. The beginning of this civilisation must date about iooo B.C., and it can be traced down to the fifth century in the cemeteries of the Certosa near Bologna, but for the most part was superseded by other and external influences from the seventh century onwards.
The bronze remains are of considerable interest. Sculpture, or at least the representation of the human form, is as yet practically unknown, but models of animals, of a rude and primitive kind, are very common as votive objects. These, as has been indicated above (p. xxxviii.), fall into line with the finds at Olympia, to which they are closely parallel. Large bronze urns and buckets, and tripods, are of frequent occurrence, and often decorated in friezes. Among the weapons and armour Occur swords of the " Ronzano" type,* some with semi- circular heads, others with head surmounted by a recurved cross-piece. Dome- shaped helmets surmounted by knobs are found (cf. Nos. 2725-2728). The celts are of the second and third varieties (see Nos. 2912-2937) : palstaves, and winged celts without a stop-ridge. More specially interesting, however, are the fibulae, which include most of the earlier types, from the Hallstatt-type onwards (see No. 1929 ff., and p. lix.) : "boat "-types, " leech "-types, " snake "- types, " tail-piece "-types, and fibulae with elliptical bows decorated with pieces of amber, bone, and glass. In the later tombs : " kite "-types, " horned-snake "- types, and zoomorphic fibulae in the form of horses.
The Museum possesses a number of early Italian bronzes attributable to this period (345-433), which have come from Etruria and other parts of Italy, together with several statuettes (337-344) which are not easily classified, except the first two, which appear from their resemblance to published specimens to emanate from Sardinia, where they probably owe their origin to a Syrian source. Nos. 345-346 are curious objects which appear to have some primitive religious signification, and have been referred to some old Italian form of worship, such as the Ambarvalia or the cult of Faunus Lupercus, from which the ceremonies of the Roman Lupercalia were derived. t They seem to represent scenes from
* See Gozzadini, Mors de ckeval italiques, pi. 4.
t Garrucci, A bronze object from Lvcera, in Arehaeologia, xli. p. 275 ff. ; Rom. Mittheil. xii. (1S97), p. 3 ff.
xlvi CATALOGUE OF BRONZES.
daily and rural life, such as ploughing, but it is quite impossible to determine the use to which these objects were put. The duck which occurs so frequently in this series of objects (Nos. 345-358) is characteristic not only of early Italian, but of early Greek bronze work.* It occurs as a decorative motive on the fibulae from Cameiros (No. 150), and again on vases of the Geometrical style ; as also on numerous objects from the Hallstatt civilisation. It is noteworthy that these bronzes are almost entirely free from Oriental fantasies or influence of any kind, which indeed can hardly be traced in Italy before the sixth century B.C. ; but there are parallels in the early art of Crete, and the frequent appearance of the ape seems to suggest a connection (through Crete) with the north coast of Africa.f A jar containing about fourteen thousand objects of similar character from a bronze-founder's hoard was found at Bologna, and has been shown to date from the end of the Bronze Age in Italy, about the ninth century B.C. Similar extensive finds have been recently made at Vetulonia (Notizie degli Scavi, 1887, p. 471 ff., and Falchi, Vetulcnia, 1891). An inclusive date for these objects may be given as 800-500 B.C.
We have now arrive J at the stage of the earliest Etruscan
Oriental and civilisation, which is marked by the contents of the Hellenic Polledrara tomb at Vulci. Such remains from Etruscan
influences in territory as can be attributed to an earlier date than this Etruria. (620 B.C.) have nothing specially Etruscan about them, and in
fact present the same features as objects found elsewhere in Italy. The traditions of the people themselves indeed predicate for them a much remoter origin. According to their own beliefs, they settled in Italy about the eleventh century B.C., and there is no doubt that the confederation of the twelve cities was formed about the tenth century. The tradition of an immigration from Lydia has very strong support,! and may well be founded on fact. The early tombs for instance closely resemble in style those of Asia Minor, with their facades and vaulted roofs and the tumuli erected over them. These tombs in Italy are known as a fossa, or "trench-tombs," as opposed to the "well-tombs " of the Villanova period.
As already indicated, it is in the Polledrara objects that we find the first traces of Oriental influence^ Among them are ostrich-eggs, which can only have been brought from Africa by way of Egypt, and thence either by Phoenicians or by Greeks from Naucratis. This tomb also contained a porcelain scarab with a cartouche of Psammetichos I. (B.C. 656-61 1), and five porcelain aryballi with hieroglyphic inscriptions. Similar porcelain vases have been found at Cameiros in Rhodes,! and are supposed to belong to the seventh
* Joicrti. Hell. Stud. xiii. p. 206.
t See Bull, di paletnol. Ital. xxiv. (1898), p. 161, and Reinach, Sculpt, en Europe, pp. 77-128.
% Ildt. i 94. ; Verg. Aen. viii. 479 ; Hor. Sat. i. 6, I ff.
§ The Polledrara tomb, otherwise known as the Grotta d'Iside, was found on the estate of that name at Vulci in 1839. Most of the contents are now in the British Muieum ; see above, p. xv. Lord Northampton once possessed a Corinthian vase fiom this tomb.
|| First Vase Room, A 1184, 1188-1191, etc.
[NTRODUCTION. xlvii
century B.C. Commercial relations with the Phoenicians were probably by way of Carthage, which by this time was a state of some importance. Many Phoenici in objects of considerable merit have been found at Palestrina (Praeneste), including silver and bronze bowls of a kind also found in Cyprus ; this city, as the cistae and mirrors found there seem to show, was apparently dependent on the neighbouring Etruscans for its art.
But the recent investigations of many scholars * and a more extended acquaintance with archaic Greek art tend to show that early Etruscan art owes more to Hellenic, and more particularly to Ionic, influences than to those of Phoenicia and Egypt. f As early as the eighth century B.C. a connection can be traced between Greece and Italy in the founding of the colonies of Magna Graecia. Of especial importance among these is Cumae, which was an off-shoot of Chalcis, and therefore directly subject to Ionian influences. Now we know that Etruscan influence in Campania must have been of considerable extent, and that Capua was founded by the Etruscans about 600 B.C. It is easy then to see how they can have come in contact with the productions of Ionian art, and the reputation of Chalcis for bronze work justifies the supposition that many fine specimens of it found their way through Cumae into Italy.} A similar tendency is to be noticed among the vases found in Italy, which belong to the sixth century B.C. The so-called Caeretan hydriae {e.g. Brit. Mas. Cat. of Vases, ii. B 59), which have been mostly found at Cervctri, are now generally held to be of Ionian fabric, or at least direct imitations of the same, and numerous Etruscan vases exist which are directly imitated from this group (Cat. of Vases, ii. B 60-73). It has been pointed out § that they have certain features which suggest a familiarity with Asiatic and African countries, and which they can only have acquired through the medium of Ionians in Asia Minor or Naucratis.
Etruria also appears to have been subject to another influence, that of Corinth. In this connection we may note the tradition recorded by Pliny (xxxv. 152), who tells us that when Demaratus was expelled from Corinth, he took with him to Etruria three modellers in clay, Eucheir, Eugrammos, and Dropos, who established their art in Italy. The date of this event was B.C. 665. The influence of Corinthian art was probably centred in Caere, but not confined thereto, and is to be observed during the seventh and sixth centuries B.C. At Vulci two Corinthian vases (now lost) were found in the Polledrara tomb. The well-known hydria from this tomb (fourn. Hell. Stud. xiv. pis. 6, 7) seems
* Journ. He!l. Stud. xvi. p. 140, note ; Mon. Ant. del Lincei, vii. p. 289, note 1 ; Korte in Arch. Studien H. Brunn dargebr. p. I ff. ; Rom. Mitthtil. ix. (1894), p. 253 ff.
t A small point which see.v.s to imply a still earlier link with Greek art is the motive of a lion with a human leg in its mouth on the bronze fragments, No. 600. This ojcurs on two fibulae of the Geometrical period {Zeitschr. fur Ethnol. 1889, p. 222, fig. 32, and No. 3205), and there is a similar motive on a Geometrical vase in Copenhagen {Arch. Zeit. 1885, pi. 8, fig. 2).
X A number of Ionian Greek bronzes were recently found at Sala Consilina, near Paestum {Bull, de Corr. Hell. xx. (1896), p. 421).
§ Duemmler in Rom. Mitihal. iii, (1888), p. 171.
xlviii CATALOGUE OF BRONZES.
to be of a local Italian fabric under both Ionian and Corinthian influences. This leads us to speak of the bronze bust from this tomb (No. 434), the upper part of which is undoubtedly of local make, but the bands of figures round the lower part are Greek in feeling and style, if not in actual execution. They afford points of comparison with both early Corinthian and Ionic works of art, such as the gold reliefs published in Arch. Zeit. 1884, pi. 8, figs. 3, 4, 7. Other Etruscan products in this collection which owe their origin to Ionic sources are some fragments of repousse relief-work (No. 600) and the two bronze tripods, Nos. 587, 588. The latter call for some further remarks. They belong to a series, all found at Vulci, in which a development of type and style can be traced, through an example found at Metapontum (Man. Ant. del Lincei, vii. pi. 8), from an original Greek type, which is best represented by a specimen found on the Acropolis of Athens.* This at first sight might be taken for one of the Etruscan series, but that no Etruscan importations into Greece can be traced further back than the fifth century B.C., while the Acropolis bronze cannct be later than 550 B.C. In style these tripods compare with the archaic bronzes of Perugia and Campania, as well as with their Greek prototypes ; they cannot be later in date than 500 B.C. It is worth while here to mention the descriptions given by Pausanias (x. 16, 1) and Athenaeus (v. 210 B, C) of the stand dedicated at Delphi by Alyattes, the work of Glaucos of Chios. From the details supplied by the former, the general type seems to have been approximately that of our tripods ; the latter alludes to the representations of animals and plants with which it was decorated.
It is a moot question whether the Etruscans were
Characteristics entirely devoid of originality and were imitators of the
of Etruscan Greeks in everything, or, while endowed with some artistic
bronzes. genius of their own, were yet susceptible to external
influences. Literary evidence can be cited to show that
they were held in great estimation in antiquity as bronze-workers, as for
instance two passages quoted by Athenaeus :
i. 28 B : Tvpcnjvr) 8e Kparel ^pvaoTviros cpuiXri
Kal 7ra9 ^aX/co9 oris Kocr/ubel 86/jlov ev tivl %peiq.
xv. 700 C : A. ti'<? roiv Xv^velwv 7) 'pyacrLa ; B. Tvppr)vi/cij.
Trouc'Ckai yap -qaav al irapa tois Tvpprjvol? ipyacrlai, cpiXoTexywv ovrcov tosv 'Yvpprjvoyv.
At the same time both passages rather suggest that this reputation was confined to household furniture and objects in daily use ; on the other hand, we have a statement of Pliny's (//. N. xxxiv. 33) relating to the subject : signa 1 uscanica per terras dispersa quin in Etruria factitata sint lion est dubium. Our museums afford ample evidence that the Etruscans excelled in the production of ornamental vases, candelabra, or tripods, and that they made the art of
Dc Ridder in Bull. i/<- Coir. Hell. xx. (1896), pi. I, p. 401 tt. ; Moil. .Int. da Lined, vii. p. 277 It'.
INTRODUCTION. xllX
engraving on bronze in their cistae and mirrors peculiarly their own. The evidence for the importation of Etruscan bronzes into Greece is slight, but it was undoubtedly carried on, and a well-authenticated instance is the mirror published in the Monuments Grecs, 1873, pi. 3. As a rule the statuettes found in Etruria do not display much individual style or originality of conception ; but there are exceptions, such as the Falterona bronzes (Nos. 450, 463) and others, which have a strong individuality of their own, if marred by local mannerisms. Otherwise the best seem to be direct copies of Greek bronzes.*
The earliest Etruscan decorative motives and mythological types are in the main Oriental ; the next stage is that of the %6ava or primitive sculpture in the round, illustrated by the tufa figure from the Polledrara tomb, or by Nos. 440, 441, 496 ; thirdly, parallel to the development of Greek sculpture, figures of the type of the Apollo of Tenea, such as No. 510. With the latter class may be ranked the peculiar elongated figures of warriors (Nos. 442-446), the proportions of which are probably due to an expedient for making ex-voto figures of con- siderable size at small cost. The technique of the bust No. 434 seems to suggest that pieces of worked bronze were imported into Etruria and used up by native workmen ; but if we reflect on the difficulty which the Assyrians had in pro- ducing sculptures in the round, in spite of their long experience of relief-work, we may well believe that the same was the case in Etruria. A parallel example is the archaic sarcophagus from Caere {Terracotta Sarcophagi in Brit. Mns. pis. 9-1 1), where well-executed reliefs are combined with inferior work in the round. The rudeness and rigidity of the bronze bust display an elementary technique, contrasting with the fine execution and command of tools shown in the more Hellenic bands of relief below.
A curious parallel to the failure of the Etruscans in sculpture is given by their total failure in the art of vase-painting, not indeed due to a lack of ability to draw, as their mirrors and cistae show, but the more inexplicable, because in this branch of art they do not even seem to have had the same capacity for imitation as in sculpture. Another point to be noticed is the almost entire absence of sculpture in stone, except for the figures on the sepulchral urns and a few isolated statues. All their best work is in bronze. Poorly and incorrectly modelled as these bronze statuettes are, they often have fine details of hair or patterns on dresses, and some reach the height of refinement and elaboration in this respect (e.g. Nos. 509, 533). Quintilian (xii. 10, 1-7) alludes to the differences between Greek and Etruscan statuettes : " nee solum specie ut signum signo sed genere ipso ut Graecis Tuscanicae statuae . . . duriora et Tuscanicis proxima Callon atque Hegesias."
The use to which these bronzes were put appears to have been generally accidental. They were turned out by the workman without his having any definite purpose for each article, and some were fitted to candelabra, others
* As instances may be named Nos. 514, 5 1 5, 555, 603 ; cf. also the head No. 3212, which is Greek in feeling and style.
d
1 CATALOGUE OF BRONZES.
bought up for shrines or for votive offerings, and so on, according to chance. The collections of bronze statuettes found in the Lake of Falterona (see Nos. 450, 459, 463, 614-616, and 679) and at San Mariano were no doubt all ex voto, as the circumstances of their finding seem to shew.
With regard to their subjects, the Etruscan statuettes seem to fall into three groups, which we may roughly apportion as follows :
1. Mythological types : among which the principal are : (a) Apollo (see Reinach, Repertoire de la Statuaire Gr. et Rom. ii. pp. 78-91) ; (J?) Aphrodite (generally in the " Spes " attitude, holding up her drapery in 1, hand) ; (r) Mars or a warrior, a type which appears to be derived from Greece (cf. the warrior from Laconia published in Ath. Mittheil. iii. (1878), pi. 1, fig. 2).
2. Votive figures of no mythological character : children, athletes, suppliant figures (as PI. XIV.), etc.
3. Decorative bronzes and genre subjects : dancers, acrobats, monsters, and animals. These often form the supports of mirrors, handles of cistae, or parts of candelabra.
The luxury of the Etruscans in regard to vessels and Decorative bronze- household furniture was, as we have already pointed out,
' proverbial in antiquity. This has been amply confirmed by
bra, mirrors, and , ,. • u- u u • u j 1 u r
. t modern discoveries, which have yielded large numbers of
bronze objects covering a period of about four centuries,
from 600 to 200 B.C. The ornamental decoration generally takes the form of
relief-work and applique ornament, as applied to vases, cistae, or mirror-cases.
The types and decoration of tripods we have already discussed ; but the
candelabra present certain features of interest. The various types may be
roughly dated. The earliest examples (of the 6th century B.C.) have cross-bars
at intervals, each ending in two small branches.* In the fifth century the stem
has a small basin on the top for the lamp, and is supported by a tripod formed
of three human or animal's feet. The stem is often ornamented with animals
climbing up it. In the fourth-century types the feet are as before, but the stem
ends in four branches terminating in buds and a central figure or group of two
figures. Finally in the third century the base takes the form of a pyramidal
pedestal with a moulded stem surmounted by a bowl. The examples in the
British Museum (589-599, 667-669, 771-781) are mostly of the second and
third types.
The bronze mirrors which have been found in such numbers in Etruscan
tombs fall into two main classes. By far the larger is that of the simple disc
with a handle, bearing incised designs. The other class, in which the mirror
is placed in a case with a cover, the latter being decorated with an emblema or
relief, belongs exclusively to the later period of Etruscan art (third century B.C.),
and is obviously an imitation of the Greek mirror-cases with reliefs. The
subjects on these mirror-cases form a close parallel with those on the Italian
* Cf. Milani, Musco topogr. delPJBtruria, p. 27.
INTRODUCTION. li
vases of the same period, especially the bowls with interior reliefs (compare for instance Nos. 729, 730, with G 129 in the Fourth Vase Room).
The mirrors with incised designs also have their Hellenic prototypes, but these are to be sought, not so much in bronze works, for Greek engraving on bronze is, as we have seen, practically non-existent, but in the red-figured vases which were imported into Etruria in such enormous quantities during the fifth century. The Etruscan artists apparently shrank from the task so successfully achieved by Greek painters of suitably decorating the curved surfaces of a vase, for which their powers of drawing might have fitted them, and devoted them- selves instead to adorning the flat even surfaces supplied by the mirror-discs and the sides of their cistae. In the subjects depicted on the vases they had an extensive mythological repertory ready to their hand. Moreover, the interior designs of the kylikes, the treatment of which had been perfected by Epictetos, Euphronios, and their contemporaries, served as obvious models for disposing a design in a circular space. Some of these mirrors, which go back to the archaic period, provoke an even closer comparison with the Greek vase-designs : compare for instance PI. XVIII. with the Peithinos vase in Berlin (No. 2279), or No. 544 with the Geryon vase of Euphronios (Klein, Eup/ironios2, p. 54).
The majority of these mirrors belong to the fourth and third centuries B.C. Among these a distinction can be drawn between productions of the best period of Etruscan art, when the conceptions were carefully thought out and thoroughly Hellenic in spirit, the drawing refined and masterly, and those of the decadence, where, as in the contemporary vases of Apulia and Campania, the drawing is free and careless, and the subjects are for the most part monotonous repetitions of certain types. In No. 627 we possess one of the very finest of existing examples, representing the meeting of Menelaos and Helen after the taking of Troy ; this is only rivalled by the Berlin mirror with Dionysos and Semele (Gerhard, Etr. Spiegel, pi. 83), and another in the Cabinet des Medailles at Paris representing the apotheosis of Heracles (Gerhard, op. cit. pi. 181).
The subjects are almost entirely drawn from Greek mythology, especially in the best period. The Trojan legends are the most popular (see Nos. 623-627, 712-715), and many subjects occur which are familiar on vase-paintings, such as the Birth of Athene (Nos. 617, 696), the labours of Heracles (Pis. xvn, XIX.), or the story of Perseus (No. 620). Numerous mirrors represent deities wearing Phrygian caps, which are traditionally interpreted as the Cabeiri, and one fine specimen in the Museum (No. 618; is supposed to represent the birth of these Cabeiri, though the names attached to them have no meaning for us. Among the Etruscan deities which appear on the mirrors, the Lasse or Fates occur most frequently, represented as winged women. Winged deities, indeed, are universal conceptions in Etruscan art, and do not always admit of exact identification ; even Athene and Aphrodite are sometimes provided with wings (as Nos. 543, 544.). Occasionally a subject is supplied from early Roman legend, as on the mirror with Cacus and the Vibcnnas (No. 633), or another with Romulus and Remus suckled by the wolf {Man. dell" lust. xi. pi. 3) ; on the latter, as on some
d 2
lil CATALOGUE OF BRONZES.
other examples (such as No. 695), the inscriptions are actually in Latin. One noteworthy feature of the mirrors with Greek subjects is that the most incon- gruous figures appear together, as, for instance, No. 622 with Ajax and Amphiaraos, or No. 719, on which Ajax, Alcmena, Thetis, and a Seilenos are all united in one scene. This is due either to confused ideas or to carelessness on the part of the artist, who has selected certain types from his stock and combined them at haphazard.
The inscriptions which Etruscan mirrors generally bear form a very important feature. This idea again was no doubt suggested by the vases. But, curiously enough, the Etruscans, while adopting the Greek myths and legends wholesale, have transformed the names of the deities and persons represented into their own language and alphabet. So, for instance, Athene appears as Menerfa, Aphrodite as Turan, Hermes as Turms, Dionysos as Phuphluns ; while the names of heroes are only a degree less transformed : Achle for Achilles, Elchsentre for Alexandras (Paris), Evticle and Plvilnike for Eteocles and Polyneikes. On one mirror (Mo. 695) a corrupt Latin form occurs in Melerpanta for Bellerophon ; and another (No. 3213) has interesting inscriptions in Latin.
The handles of these mirrors in many cases have been broken off or lost ; one example (No. 620) retains an original handle of bone, into which the mirror is inserted by a spiked termination of bronze ; others, again, terminate in the head of a stag, horse, or other animal, or even in the figure of a man (as No. 711). This latter type is derived from another class of mirrors, of which examples are known both from Greece (as Plate IV.)* and Etruria (Nos. 547-553). The mirror itself is devoid of all decoration except a bead-moulding round the edge, and the artist has devoted his chief energies to the standing figure that supports it. These figures form a continuous series from the early archaic period to the limits of the free and fine styles, the richest period being that of the transition at the beginning of the fifth century. Almost every figure has an individuality of its own, though there are certain main types, of which the most popular is the Aphrodite attended by Erotes of Plate IV. Originally these mirror-supports appear to have been derived from Egypt ; f it was probably through the Ionic Greeks of Naucratis that the idea of a nude female figure architecturally applied in this manner was brought from Egypt, and this type, at first exclusively Ionic, was also adopted in the Peloponnese. The original idea was simply that of a figure supporting the mirror with its arms, but in its developed form the figure with its base becomes an architectural support for the entablature-like member on which the mirror rests. %
Of no less interest and artistic merit than the mirrors, though of much rarer occurrence, are the cistae, found almost exclusively at Praeneste. While the
* See above, p. xlii.
t A late and Hellenizing instance of an Egyptian mirror supported by a nude female figure is No. 88o.
X Monuments Grecs, 1891-1892, Ncs. 19, 20; Berliner Phil. Wochenschr. 1894, p. 79; De Ridder, Brotizcs de la Soc. Arch. cTAthenes, p. 36.
INTRODUCTION.
liii
number of mirrors now known cannot be far short of one thousand, only about eighty cistae have been found, and only a small proportion of these have decoration of any consequence. The designs are often of unequal merit, but the majority appear to belong to the third century B.C. The most beautiful existing example is the famous Ficoroni cista in the Kircherian Museum at Rome, which bears on its lid a Latin inscription dating about 200 B.C. One of the Museum specimens, however (No. 554), must go back to a considerably earlier period, owing to the very archaic character of its design, which consists of a frieze of Gorgons in relief. Among the examples with incised designs in the Museum (Nos. 637-641 and 741-746), unquestionably the finest is No. 638 (PL XXXI.), a worthy rival of the Ficoroni cista. The subject represented is the sacrifice of Trojan prisoners at the pyre of Patroclos ; most of the other cistae are also decorated with Trojan legends, as, for instance, No. 743 with the sacrifice of Polyxena, No. 745 with the Judgment of Paris, and No. 746 with Achilles and Penthesileia.
Three distinct processes appear to have been necessary in the production of these cistae. In the first place, the bronze plates were cut into squares, and received their engraved decoration ; the plates were then clipped and bent to a cylindrical form, the edges soldered and the bottom and cover attached ; and finally the handles, feet, and a row of rings, with chains suspended from them, were put on, in some cases partially obscuring the incised designs. Certain types appear to have found preference for the ornamentation of the handles and feet ; for the former, a group of two men fighting, or of Peleus wrestling with Atalanta, two warriors carrying a dead body, or even a single figure, such as Hermes. The feet are invariably in the form of lions' claws, with a figure of Eros or a Satyr in relief at the point of attachment to the body. Several detached bronze figures in the Museum collection afford evidence of having once formed the handles of cistae, such as Nos. 555, 556, 642, 643, 645, 748 ; others which have formed the feet of cistae are Nos. 644, 646-649, 749-752.
V. GAULISH AND GRAECO-ROMAN BRONZES.
The next section of the catalogue (Nos. 786-824) is Gaulish bronzes, devoted to the bronzes found in Gaul, which appear to be for the most part of local origin, and of which some are of exceptional interest
Caesar, at the time of his conquest of Gaul, found there
Art in Gaul and no traces of native art, which was in fact forbidden by the
its influences. religion of the people.* At the same time, the Gauls appear
to have been possessed of great technical skill and industry,
like the other nations of Northern Europe. We have quoted above (p. xxxvi.) a
* His allusions to the Mercurii simulacra {Bell. Gall. vi. 17) appear to be inaccurate; see Bertrand, Religion des Gaulois, p. 319.
liv CATALOGUE OF BRONZES.
passage from Philostratus, which refers to them the practice of enamelling on bronze, and this is further attested by Pliny (H. N. xxxiv. 162), who says: "Album [plumbum] incoquitur aereis operibus Galliarum invento ita ut vix discerni possit ab argento, eaque incoctilia appellant. Deinde et argentum incoquere simili modo coepere equorum maxume ornamentis iumentorumque ac iugorum Alesia oppido ; reliqua gloria Biturigum fuit." Many specimens of bronze vases, fibulae, and other objects have been found with rich but somewhat crude enamelled decoration. The chief characteristics of this art are a tendency to geometrical decoration, and a preference for symmetry rather than living forms ; a fondness for bright colours and for open relief work ; and finally a tendency to conventionalise human and animal forms into decorative motives. The latter characteristics are manifested in the series of zoomorphic fibulae, largely found in Belgium, but not confined to any part of Central Europe ; they also find illustration in the civilisation known as that of La Tene (a settle- ment on Lake Neuchatel).
It is a well-known fact that many genuine Greek works (or close copies of the same) have been found on Gallic soil, such as the Vaison Diadumenos, in the British Museum, the Venus of Aries, and the warrior of Autun, to say nothing of the bronze Hermes (PI. xxiv.),and other small works of true Hellenic character. Their presence in Gaul was of course due to accidental transportation, and they have nothing in common with the art of the country. On the other hand, many types which were spread by the Romans all over the ancient world became, as it were, common property, only modified by local conditions and taste. Such are the bronzes with which we have here to deal. Either they are Hellenic types, as Nos. 786, 792-795, shewing by certain alterations or barbarisms that local influence has been at work, or else the conceptions are native, such as the Dispater, No. 788, or the Ares (PI. XXIII.), but certain small details {e.g. the helmet of Ares) indicate that the native artist has gone to some Greek original for assistance in the production of his work, or has reproduced some reminiscence of what he has seen.
It may be that the influence of Greece upon Gaul dates from an even earlier period than the Roman conquest.. As early as the sixth century B.C. the Phocaeans had established a Greek colony at Massilia, which was then, as it now is, the outlet for the commerce of the Rhone valley. Greek merchants in search of copper and tin must have penetrated as far as Spain and even Britain ; while even Central Europe has yielded objects of archaic Greek work, such as the gold treasure of Vettersfelde, to say nothing of the helmet of Berru which is ornamented with a Mycenaean pattern. Again, the incursions of the Gauls into Greece in 279 B.C. and the sack of Delphi must have brought before their eyes Greek art of the finest period, specimens of which they may actually have carried away with them.
For the most part, however, artistic influence reached Gaul in another way. About the first century of the empire Graeco-Egyptian art was dominating Italy, as is evidenced by the column of Trajan and the general style of the
INTRODUCTION. lv
Pompeian remains. The influence of Italy and the constant commerce between Alexandria and Marseilles would naturaljy foster this tendency in Gaul. Pliny (U.N. xxxiv. 45) speaks of Zenodorus of Alexandria, who made a Mercury for the Arverni, and imitations of cups by Calamis, which were specimens of the chased work in silver so popular at Alexandria. The mosaic of Lillebonne (Gazette Archiol. 1885, pis. 13, 14) is the work of a Carthaginian and a native of Pozzuoli, but is altogether Egyptian in inspiration. Among the Gallo-Roman bronzes Alexandrine motives are constantly to be found, such as figures of negroes ; or the type of Aphrodite Anadyomene, which is found not only in the Fayum and on the coast of Syria, but in the white terra-cottas of Gaul. Still more strongly is this connection manifested in the religious cults. Coins of Postumus issued in Gaul which illustrate the cult of Serapis, may indeed be purely Roman, but one of the commonest types of Gaulish divinities, the Dispater, is taken directly from that god. In the same way the Dea Mater becomes the representative of Isis, and another type, that of the crouching god, is derived from Imhotep.
In the Gaulish cult-system * by far the most interesting figure is that of Dispater, the Gaulish Jupiter, who is characterised as an infernal deity by the wearing of the modius or polos. He generally holds an olla in one hand, and the type of his head roughly corresponds with the Greek Zeus ; but in some museums there exist some very remarkable varieties of the type, in which the figure is accompanied by a barrel surrounded by a series of hammers.f This type is confined to Southern Gaul, and presents striking analogies to the Syrian Jupiter Dolichenus ; we may also find points of comparison with the Scandinavian Thor, the Etruscan Charun, and the Carian Zeus Labrandeus. Caesar (Bell. Gall. vi. 18) refers to Dispater as the common father of the Gallic peoples.
Another favourite deity of the Gauls was Heracles. He was their nearest conception of the Supreme Deity, and was known by them as Ogmios, as we learn from Lucian (Hercules, 1) : Top 'WpaKkia 01 KcXtoi "Oyfiiov 610/j.d^ovac <f)cc>i>f} rrj eWyw/Hft). He was conceived, according to Lucian's description, as an old man, bald, wrinkled, and sunburnt, with the usual attributes of Heracles. This type as represented in art seems to approximate to that of Dispater ; but other examples of more Hellenic conceptions exist, such as No. 787, or the fine archaistic Heracles from Cumberland in the Romano-British Room.
Among the other bronzes from Gaul in this collection may be noted the Zeus with head of Otricoli type (PI. XXVII.), the Dionysos (PI. XXII.), which seems to be an echo of the style of Praxiteles, and three figures of Aphrodite (793-795) of the type known as Venus Pudica, all of which suggest a Hellenic origin. Otherwise interesting are No. 822, representing a barbarian warrior in the national costume, and a series of figures of Gauls (Nos. 814-819), which recall the description of the figures of the monument set up by Attalus on the Acropolis of Athens, and also their imitations now existing in Naples.
* On the religion of Gaul generally see Bertrand, Re'igion des Caulois, especially chs. xxii., xxiii. t Reinach, Musee de St. Germain-en-Laye, p. 175 ft". ; Murray, Gretk Bronzes, p. 97 ; Bertrand, op. cit. p. 318.
lvi CATALOGUE OF BRONZES.
We have now to deal with Greek art in Rome and Italy
Graeco-Roman from the middle of the second century B.C. down to the times
bronzes. of the Empire. It is a truism that of Roman art, properly
speaking, little exists ; all the productions of this period are
by Greek artists with Greek names, or at least by Romans who have learnt the
whole alphabet of their art from Greek teachers and Greek models. Roman
art seems to have found its outlet in a direction as yet little pursued by the
Greeks, namely in portraiture. In this branch indeed it may claim to have
attained to individuality and even excellence.
Previously to the second century B.C., Rome had been indebted to Etruria in the same way as to Greece, as instanced by the decoration of the temple of Capitoline Jupiter and such works of art as the wolf of the Capitol. Many of the bronzes described in this section undoubtedly belong to the Roman period, but are by Hellenic artists, and can only be classed as Graeco-Roman. They fall more naturally into a classification by subject, and therefore, while a selection has been made of statuettes of special merit (825-855), or objects which do not admit of such arrangement, e.g. reliefs, vases, and miscellaneous objects (856- 884), or objects with Latin inscriptions (885-908), the majority are relegated to subject-headings under Nos. 909-1928. These statuettes are, as a rule, devoid of artistic merit, and only of mythological or typological interest, except where a relation can be traced to some known Greek statue, either as the prototype of a class (e.g. the Venus Pudica series, 1097-UC9) or of one particular instance, such as Nos. 960, 961, 1037, 1292, 1388, etc.
Some of the select objects have a special historical interest, such as the so- called sword of Tiberius (No. 867), the inscription relating to the Mystae (887), or the series of portrait-busts (831-846) ; or are interesting in relation to Roman worship, such as the inscriptions to Mithras (904) and Jupiter Penninus (895), and the pantheistic and symbolical objects (829, 873-876). Of the inscriptions, Nos. 888 and 889 have a special palaeographical interest.
Allusion has just been made to the influence of Graeco-
Egyptian and Egyptian art upon Italy at this period. This is due in the
Asiatic in- first place to the growing popularity at Rome of certain
fluenees. Egyptian cults, and secondly, to the fact that Greek art
found its way to Italy, as to Gaul, through the medium of
Alexandria, the centre of Greek art and civilisation generally in the third and
second centuries BC. Several of the bronzes now under discussion (Nos. 828,
836, 853, 880, etc.) were found in Egypt, and others, more especially the figures
of Serapis (939-946), Isis (1456-1472), and Harpocrates (1473-1508), shew
clearly the hold that the new Egyptian cults bad upon the art of the period.
The origin of these cults * is to be sought in the tendency, which arose in the fifth century, to identify the Egyptian triad, Osiris, Isis, and Horus, with
* See generally I .a Faye, Culte des Divinizes <T Aiexandrie ; for Serapis, Michael's in fount. Hell. Stud. vi. p. aSgff., and Poole, Brit. Mus. Cat. of Coins of Alexandria, p. Ix. ft".
INTRODUCTION. lvii
Dionysos, Demeter and Apollo.* Under the influences of Orphism the Greeks had taken up the study of Egyptian religions, and Hellanicos of Lesbos in the same century discusses these questions in his AlyvTrTia/cd in this spirit.! In B.C. 350 a sanctuary of Isis was actually erected at the Peiraeus, and this gave rise to Athenian legislation about strange cults. Then a new impetus was given to their study by the foundation of Alexandria and the works of Manetho, Timotheus the Eumolpid and others. A definite Alexandrine triad came into being, consisting of Serapis, Isis, and Harpocrates, the first-named being a com- pound of Apis and Osiris ; the name is a Hellenised form of Osor-Hapi. This tendency to syncretism in religion was due to the notion that a triad was the distinguishing feature of both Greek and Egyptian religions, and that these triads were necessarily identical. It received warm support from the Ptolemies, and the third century saw a great extension of the cults in Egypt, a Serapeum being founded at Memphis.
The first relations of Egypt with Italy date from the embassy of Ptolemy Philadelphus to Rome in 273 B.C., which opened the door to Hellenistic institutions and manners. The Alexandrine cults found a footing by degrees in Southern Italy, and in the second century an Iseum was in existence at Pompeii, and a temple of Serapis at Puteoli4 Under Sulla an Isiac college was founded in Rome, and a few years later honours were paid to Serapis and Isis on the Capitol. The triumvirs erected temples to them in B.C. 43, and the cult appears to have appealed strongly to the Roman plebs. Under Augustus there was a reaction, and the votaries of these deities were banished and persecuted, but they were indulged by Caligula and Claudius and welcomed by Nero. The cults were officially recognised by the Flavian Emperors, and reached their apogee under Antoninus Pius and Septimius Severus.
With the exception of the Paramythia bronzes (No. 276, and perhaps the Dione, No. 279), and similar figures, no very early types of these deities in art can be traced. Under the Empire there seems to have been a reaction to the ancient Egyptian types, the result of a study of Egyptology by Romans,§ and figures of Emperors and Imperial ladies in Egyptian dress begin to appear (cf. Nos. 1467, 1470, 1494). Harpocrates is to be regarded as a combination of the infant Horus, with finger placed in childish fashion on his mouth, and the Greek Eros with his childish form and wings. The treatment of the hair is common to the figures both of Eros and Harpocrates, and some of the figures cannot be easily differentiated. Those of Harpocrates are mostly very diminutive, and were doubtless used as amulets.
Egypt was not the only part of the world from which extraneous religious influences found their way to Rome, amid the cosmopolitan ideas which her extending empire fostered ; all religions were welcomed at Rome, and new cults
* Herodotus (ii. 42, 59, 144, 156) alludes to this identification in unmistakable terms.
t Cf. Hist. G>: Frag. ed. Didot, i. p. xxiii. ff., and p. 66.
\ Nissen, Pompeianische Studien, p. 174; C.I.L. i. 577 ; see La Faye, op. cit. p. 40.
§ We may recall the journey of Germanicus to Egypt cognosceitdac antiquitatis (Tac. Ann. ii. 59),
lvili CATALOGUE OF BRONZES.
became fashionable according to the taste of Emperor and people. Most of these new systems came from Asia Minor and especially from Phrygia, where the wild orgiastic rites of the Great Mother and Attis prevailed. Kybele is of course a not uncommon figure in Greek or Roman art, and as early as the time of the Second Punic War the Megalesia, a feast in her honour, were estab- lished in Rome. Catullus has made us familiar with Attis and his story, and he too was included in the festival of the Great Mother of Pessinus.* A more popular festival was that of the Mithras mysteries, of Persian origin, Mithras being, like most of the Oriental male deities, a sun-god or god of light. It was introduced into Rome about the time of Hadrian, and flourished for several centuries, spreading all over the empire. A large number of Mithras monu- ments exist (collected by Cumont, Les Mysteres de Mithras), mostly in the form of a figure in a Phrygian cap sacrificing a bull (see No. 1017). The meaning of this sacrifice has not hitherto been explained, unless it denotes the triumph of light over earth and darkness. Mithras is often known as Sol Invictus (cf. the inscription No. 904). A kindred conception is that of Deus Lunus, the male Moon-god, who may be represented in No. 1016, chiefly worshipped in Mesopo- tamia, and under the name of Men in Phrygia (Bull, de Ccrr. Hell. xx. p. 55 ff). The Roman fondness for personifications of natural objects and abstract ideas is well known, and can be amply illustrated from the statuettes in this collection. Some of these personifications represent natural phenomena, such as months or seasons (Autumn, Nos. 1514-1519; Spring (?), No. 1520; Winter, Nos. 1 52 1, 1522, and No. 813). Countries are represented by the Africa, No. 1524. But the majority are personifications of abstract ideas, to be identified by attitudes or attributes, such as Providentia (No. 986), Spes (No. 1547), Fortune (Nos. 1 525-1 543) ; or are derived from Greek types, such as Somnus (No. 1509), or Victory (Nos. 1548-1561). Purely Roman mythology is repre- sented by agricultural deities such as Vertumnus (Nos. 15 10-15 12), Pomona (No. 1 5 13), and Silvanus (PI. XXX.). Other figures which represent exclusively Roman ideas are the Lares (Nos. 1 562-1 580), and the series of orators, officials, and sacrificing figures (Nos. 1 583-1 587). The myth of Romulus and Remus occurs in three examples: the sistrum No. 872, and Nos. 1 58 1 , 1582. The figures of Greek deities and heroes, and the series of miscellaneous figures and animals do not call for further comment here ; as regards the former, a strict classification of types has been made when possible in the Catalogue.
VI. PERSONAL ORNAMENTS AND IMPLEMENTS.
The personal ornaments, implements, and smaller objects generally, which are described in this Catalogue, belong for the most part to the Graeco-Roman period. In mcst cases, even an approximate dating is impossible, unless the
* Preller -Jordan, Rom. Mythol.* ii. p. 387. See for Attis the article in Roscher's Lexicon ; the figures of dancing youths in Eastern co.tume (Nos. 1020-1022) are generally taken to be representations of this deity ; see also Baumeister, Denkmaeler, i. p. 225.
INTRODUCTION.
lix
circumstances of finding happen to be known, or evidence can be derived (as in the case of the fibulae) from a chronological development of types. Many of the smaller objects of a primitive character from Greece and Italy can be dated in this way, and have accordingly been included in the earlier part of the Catalogue, as for instance the Cypriote weapons, the Geometrical fibulae, and the early Italian objects. But on the whole a detailed classification of these smaller objects under a separate heading has been found more satisfactory.
In the whole series perhaps no group is more interesting 1. Fibulae. than that of the fibulae, which have received more attention and scientific study from scholars than most products of bronze, with the result that a satisfactory system of classification has been attained,* and that their development can be traced, with approximate dates, from the earliest civilisation of the Bronze Age down to the latest Roman times, and indeed even later, in Merovingian, Anglo-Saxon, and Scandinavian examples. The Museum collection is fairly representative of all classes from the fiat "safety- pin " type of the Bronze Age and the spirals of Hallstatt down to the late zoomorphic fibulae and enamelled open-work brooches.
Among the objects discovered at Enkomi in Cyprus in 1896 were several gold pins with ornamental heads, having the centre of the stem widened and pierced with a hole. Pins of this type appear to have been the prototype of the fibula ; and it is remarkable that one or two figures on the Francois vase f appear to have their chitons fastened on the shoulder by means of similar pins, although of course this vase is not earlier in date than 600 B.C. The hole was intended for the insertion of a piece of wire, which was twisted round the drapery and held it in place. The transition from this to the safety-pin type, consisting of pin and bow ending in a hook to catch the end of the pin, can easily be understood. Similar pins with holes have been found in Northern and Central Europe.
In the tombs of the Mycenaean period the fibula is practically non- existent, except in a few cases where it has appeared in the late tombs of Cyprus (see Nos. 57, 59, 60). These are of the plain safety-pin form, which has also been found among the more advanced remains of the Terramare civilisation (see above, p. xliv.)4 Two more have been found in the lower city of Mycenae, of similar shape, but on the acropolis of Mycenae and at Hissarlik they have not been found, and generally speaking their appearance among Aryan civilisations is contemporaneous with that of the Iron Age.
The simple type of Greek fibula is semi-circular, with a spiral at the head, and
* The most complete system is that of Tischler {Bcitr. zur Anthrop. u. Urgesch. Bayer ns, iv. iSSi, p. 47 ft".)> which has been in the main adopted here; see dXsoJahrb. d. Vereins von Altcrtumsfr. im Kheinl. lxiv. p. 80 ft". ; Rei ach in Daremberg and Saglio, Diet, des Antiqs., art. Fibula ; Montelius, Spannen fran Bronsaldern (Autiquarisk Tidskrift for Sverige, vol. vi.) ; and for early Greek fibulae, Undset in Zeiischr. fur Ethnol. 1889, p. 205 ft".
t Studniczka, Bcitr. zur Gesch. d. altgr. Traeht, p. 98.
% Zeitsekr. fur Ethnol. 1889, p. 205.
lx CATALOGUE OF BRONZES.
a small bent-up foot to hold the pin. One of these was found at Mycenae with those mentioned above. In the early Greek cemeteries of Rhodes several variations of this type occur (see Nos. 151, 154, 155, 157). In Nos. 150, 152, 153, and 156 the foot has become enlarged into a flat oblong plate, often decorated with geometrical patterns and animals, incised. In Cyprus the earliest fibulae are developed from the safety-pin type, and assume an elliptical form, with two slight projections on the bow (see Nos. 57, 1946, 1947) ; this form is commonly found in tombs dating from 700 to 500 B.C. A more peculiarly Cypriote type is represented by Nos. 1 948-1 954 ; here the bow takes a triangular form, with a bulbous knob at the apex ; each arm of the bow is ringed at intervals, and has a flat oblong piece attached by the middle ; the sheath-like foot tapers to a point. These fibulae are found in the " Graeco-Phoenician " tombs of the sixth and fifth centuries at Amathus, Curium, and elsewhere (see My res, Cyprus Mus. Cat. Nos. 4840-4842).
Greek fibulae of the Geometrical period are also found at Olympia, Athens, and Thebes, and more rarely in other parts of Greece.* Their connection with contemporaneous pottery has already been pointed out (p. xxxix.) ; the foot is developed from such examples as No. 153 to a large square plate like a sail, as occurs in Nos. 119-121, and in some cases, as No. 119, the bow is broken up into three convex discs with hollow under-surface. No. 3197 is a quite abnormal form, the bow and foot having coalesced and preserved the curved outline of the former and the flat vertical surface of the latter. Simpler and smaller examples of the type of No. 119 are seen in Nos. 1955— 1957-
Fibulae formed of two spiral plates united by a figure-of-eight twist, with a pin and catch on the under side, appear to be a Greek invention, many having been found in Greece, but they are more usually associated with the necropolis of Hallstatt in Austria, where they were found in large numbers and varying forms ; hence this is called the Hallstatt-type. The art of the objects found in these tombs compares with that of the Villanova civilisation, and they may be attributed to about the fifth and sixth centuries B.C. They however lie apart from the continuous development of the ordinary fibula. The examples in this collection (Nos. 1929-1941) come from Southern Italy, where the type was no doubt introduced from Greece.
The development of the simple semi-circular type, not only in Greece but also in Italy, is illustrated by three distinct varieties, known as the " boat," "leech," and "kite" types. The boat-type (1958— 1977) has a bow much swollen in the centre and tapering towards the head and foot, sometimes hollowed out underneath. Several specimens of this class (1960-1962, 1968) have the bow- marked with grooves and incised lines which appear to represent the body of an insect ; and it has been ingeniously suggested | that they may be intended for models of reTTcyes or cicadae, such as were used for fastening up the hair by the
* Zeilschr. fur Ethnol. 1889, p. 221 ff. ; and see above, p. xxxix. t Studniczka in Jahrbuch, xi. (1896), p. 281 ff.
INTRODUCTION. lxi
Athenians of the sixth century B.C. (Thuc. i. 6). The leech-type (1992-2000) is a slighter variation of the semicircular bow ; it is generally ringed with fine lines, and is often short and slightly curved, so as to resemble a leech. The kite-type (1978-1991) is derived from the boat ; it is produced by a flattening of the bow, and by a drawing out of the edges in the middle to form points, which are often adorned by knobs. More minute variations of these three types are indicated in detail in the Catalogue.
A type of fibula which is unknown in Greece, but is very common in Italy, is one which preserves the plain semicircular bow, but the foot is twisted up to form two loops between which the pin passes, and then ends in a circular or oval flat piece of metal (cf. Nos. 2008-2020). This is sometimes in the form of a leaf, sometimes twisted into a spiral form, and is often engraved with swastikas, chevrons, and other incised patterns. This type merges into the snake-type (see Nos. 2025-2029), a very common Italian variety, also found at Olympia (Furtwaengler, Olympia, iv. pi. 21, Nos. 353-358). Sometimes the flat tail-piece is preserved, but more usually the foot ends in a long sheath ; the bow derives its name from its twisted and sinuous form. The varieties of this type are exceedingly numerous ; one familiar one is the " horned-snake " type (as No. 2038), two pieces ending in knobs being attached to the bow, one on either side near the head.
Such are the principal varieties of fibula found in Greece and Italy during the earlier classical period ; they extend over several centuries, from the seventh down to the rise of the Roman dominion in the second. One other type should perhaps be mentioned here, a small fibula with sharply-arched bow and turned-up foot, which is known as the Certosa-type, from its frequent occurrence in that cemetery at Bologna, together with black-figured vases, by means of which it may be dated about 500 B.C. (see Nos. 2054-2059).
The chief distinction between fibulae of the Greek period and those of the Roman is that the spiral at the head is replaced by a cross-piece on which the pin works as a hinge. This is a fundamental distinction, and an invariable one. Many of these types are spread widely over Italy and Central Europe, but others are more specially characteristic of Graeco-Roman art, and are to be regarded as more exclusively Roman. Three varieties may be readily distinguished, known as the La Tene type, the T-shape, and the cross-bow form. The La Tene fibulae are distinguished by a doubly-curved bow and an elaborate foot often ending in a knob ; sometimes the bow divides into two pieces, which between them enclose the foot. The La Tene civilisation, distinguished by the typical forms of its fibulae and iron swords, and general use of iron in place of bronze, is of very wide-spread extent, but appears to have had its home in South-East France. Of the cross-bow form there are two varieties, one with spiral hinge and arched bow ending in a catch for the pin ; in the other variety (of which Nos. 2000 and 2001 are excellent examples), the bow is arched in a semicircle and terminates in a long sheathlike foot, into which the pin is inserted, the other end of the pin working on a hinge. These fibulae are often gilded, or ornamented with elaborate
lxii CATALOGUE OF BRONZES.
patterns. The ordinary type of T-shaped fibula has a long cylindrical head and wide flat bow, ornamented with grooves or patterns in gilding and enamel ; a common variety has a large horizontal disc in the centre of the bow, through which it passes like the clasp of a belt.
The Roman fibulae are either varieties of the above types, or mere safety- pins in form ; but they are generally ornamented with gilding or knobs or heads of animals, so that the varieties become too numerous for exact classification. To this period belong the zoomorphic fibulae so frequently found in Gaul, Belgium, and elsewhere, which in some cases are ordinary fibulae with bow or foot in the form of an animal, but more generally brooches, consisting of the figure of a lion, horse, bird, or fish, with a pin attached to one end passing through two hooks underneath, exactly in the manner of the modern brooch. The animals' bodies are often ornamented with spots and other markings in various coloured enamels.
Roman taste seems to have run more in the direction of elaborate brooches than of fibulae properly so called, that is, of any modification of the safety-pin type. The bow completely disappears, and is replaced by a disc or lozenge with ornamental patterns, or by a rosette or circle of open-work, or, as we have already seen, by the figure of an animal. Such brooches are often represented on ancient monuments, holding the drapery in place on the shoulder, or in other ways. The most frequent method of decorating the brooches of the first and second classes named was by means of coloured enamels, as is illustrated by Nos. 2162-2222. Besides the disc and lozenge forms mentioned above, many elaborate varieties of shape occur, such as Nos. 2173, 2185. The enamel is usually inlaid in geometrical patterns of circles and squares, or in various small pieces to fit into the different parts of the brooch. The process employed for this method of decoration is supposed to have had its origin in Gaul, as has already been indicated (p. xxxvi.) with reference to a passage in Philostratus. Many of the examples in this collection come from Gaul or the Rhenish provinces. This process is similar to cloisonne enamelling, but with this variation in the brooches, that the pieces of enamel of different colours are placed in immediate contiguity, and not divided by pieces of bronze, as we see, for instance, in the Japanese work, which exhibits the highest perfection of the process. It is, in fact, an adaptation of the method employed in mosaic work.*
A small class of objects, Nos. 2225-2242, calls for some 2. " Seal-boxes." attention. They consist of small bronze boxes with hinged lids, and are of various shapes, some circular, some square, others oval, lozenge-shaped, or bellows-shaped. As a rule they are pierced at the bottom with three holes, and at the side with two square openings ; the lid is generally enamelled in patterns or bears a figure in relief. Several examples occur with heads of Imperial personages of the Flavian epoch (cf. Nos. 2228,
Fontenoy, Les bijoux anciens et mode* lies, p. 345.
INTRODUCTION. lxiii
2229), and it is probable that they all belong to that period. The use of these objects is quite uncertain ; they have been variously explained as perfume- boxes and seal-boxes, and one explanation seems to be as satisfactory as the other.*
Nos. 2246-2312 form a collection of bronze finger-rings, 3. Finger-rings, some with engraved designs on the bezel, some with gem or paste settings, with or without intaglio designs, and some with heads or busts attached to the ring. None of these appear to be earlier in date than the later times of the Empire. This is most naturally accounted for by the fact recorded by Pliny (H. N. xxxiii. II, 21, 29), that during the greater part of Roman history finger-rings of iron were regularly worn by the poorer classes, and under the Republic by all, even the most wealthy. Iron finger-rings were also worn for official and ceremonial reasons, or given as betrothal rings (id. xxxiii. 12 : sponsae muneris vice ferreus anidus mittitur). Pliny complains bitterly of the luxurious tendencies of his days, which had substituted gold for the less precious metals ; and Martial frequently satirises would-be smart individuals who made ostentatious display of rings (v. 11, xi. 47, 59), or wore pastes to pass off as real stones (ii. 57).f In spite of the large proportion of bronze rings still existing, there appear to be no direct allusions to them in ancient authors, though there is a passage in the Thesmophoriazusae of Aristophanes (1. 423) which seems to imply the possibility of getting a ring and seal made for three obols, presumably in bronze. The passage is worth quoting in reference to the use of key-rings (of which Nos. 2607, 2608, etc., are examples) and the practice of sealing up doors to protect property : —
Oi yap avSpes rjBr) /cXetS/a
avrol cpopoucn Kpvirra, Ka/corjdeaTaTa,
AaKG>v'iK arra, rpels zyovTa yo/Acfriovs.
irpb tov p,ei> ovv rjv dW' inrol^ai ti)v Ovpav
7roirjcrafMeuai(Ti Sa/crvXiov Tpia>/36\ov,
vvv 3' ovto<; avTovs (OKorptyjr 'EtvpnriBr)^
iBiha^e dptTn']he(TT e%eiv afypayihia
iffatyafievov?.
Besides being set with pastes to pass for real gems, bronze rings were often gilt to look like gold ; those too with designs engraved on the metal bezel were no doubt made for the benefit of those who could not afford the more expensive material.!
* See Fri.derichs, Kleinere Kunst u. Industrie, p. 137, and for the most recent discussion, Numism. Chronicle, xvii. (1897), p. 294.
t A ring pleJged for the sum mentoned here (eight nummi) could not have had any real value.
X On ancient rings and their uses generally see King, Antique Gems and Kings, p. 329 ff. ; Krausp, Pyrgotcles, p. 169 ff. ; Fontenoy, Les bijoux anciens et moderncs, p. 15 ff. ; Daremberg and Saglio, Diet, des Antiqs. art. Anulus.
lxiv CATALOGUE OF BRONZES.
The subjects represented on these rings are such as occur on all intaglios of the Graeco-Roman period ; some of the stone settings, especially the pastes, are quite plain, perhaps from motives of economy in the wearers. Nos. 2260- 2265 illustrate in an interesting manner a passage of Pliny (//. N. xxxiii. 41), where he speaks of a fashion of wearing figures of Egyptian deities on rings : " lam vero et Harpocraten statuasque Aegyptiorum numinum in digitis viri quoque portare incipiunt." Many of the bronze stamps (Nos. 303 1-3 183) having rings attached at the back, and from their size evidently intended for the insertion of the finger, were employed for various purposes, such as sealing doors and wine- jars, and most commonly for signing documents. In the majority of cases the letters on the stamp are in relief and may have been inked over to produce the impression, as is done in signing official documents in the East to the present day, and frequently by ourselves for commercial purposes.
The extensive collection of surgical instruments cata- 4. Surgical instru- logued under Nos. 2313-2373 seems to indicate that the ments. Greeks and Romans had attained to considerable skill and
technical knowledge in this branch of science. But the subject is beset with great difficulties for us. Many of these objects can only be tentatively classed as surgical, and others, such as bodkins, tweezers, and stylus- like instruments, may have been used for other purposes, or are too ambiguous in form for their use to be definitely ascertained. There are two courses open for identifying them, namely, a comparison with the descriptions given by ancient writers, such as Hippocrates and Celsus, and secondly a comparison with the instruments in use at the present day. Unfortunately, as regards the former, we can learn little more than the names of the instruments employed ; descrip- tions are rarely given. In some cases, however, the resemblance to modern instruments is unmistakable, and the modern names have accordingly been given, eg. Nos. 23 18-2321, 2329
Cases of instruments have been found in different parts of Europe, generally in the form of cylindrical boxes, sometimes divided into compartments. A relief has been found on the Acropolis of Athens {Bull, de Corr. Hell. i. pi. 9, p. 212), on which one of these is represented, containing two cupping-glasses, three scarifiers, two scalpels, and a probe. The instruments appear to have been almost entirely of bronze, except in the case of knives, which were often of iron, fitted into a bronze handle ; silver was sometimes used, but as a rule only for damascened patterns on the bronze. Nos. 2330, 2347, 234^. 2370-2384 are from a hoard of surgical instruments and other objects all found together at Orvieto. One of the finest existing specimens of a surgeon's apparatus was found in Paris, and is described by Dr. Deneffe {Trousse d'tm Chirurgien, p. 31 ff.), with a discussion of the various instruments. They were found enclosed in cylindrical and oblong boxes, all within a large vase.
The commonest type of surgical instrument is that of the spatula, termin- ating at one end in a bulb, at the other in a flat leaf-shaped or oval blade. The spatula was employed for various purposes, generally for mixing and spreading
INTRODUCTION. Ixv
ointments and medicaments, and both ends were used. The bistoury (Nos. 2332-2341) was a small knife with a short strong blade. The other objects, if rightly identified, afford close parallels with modern instruments, and do not call for further explanation here.
Among the objects used in the toilet (2383-2456) there 5. Razors. are few that require special comment. It should, however, be
noted that the semicircular and crescent-shaped razors (Nos. 2420-2423) appear to belong to a very primitive period ; they are found, for instance, in the remains of the Terramare civilisation (see above, p. xliv., and Torlonia-Gsell, Fouilles dans la Nkropole de Vulci, p. 296 ff.). It is to be remarked that No. 2420 is said to have come from Athens, and No. 2422 from Cyprus, but it is more likely that they were found in Italy and conveyed to Greece for sale (see Helbig, Horn. Epos1, p. 248, note 2 ; he also gives a long list of other examples found in Italy).
The question of locks and keys is a very difficult and 6. Locks and keys, complicated one, owing to the somewhat confusing accounts
in Homer and other authors of the arrangements employed for door fastenings ; while the number of locks or representations of locks that have come down to us are very {ew in number. The simplest form of door- fastening as described by Homer (//. xii. 453 ff.) consisted of a double door with bolts crossing both ways. Traces of such doors have been found in excava- tions.* A far more elaborate system is that described in Od. xxi. 45 ff. and in i. 436 ff. :
/3f; p l[xev he daXd/xoto, dvprjv S' eirepvaae /copcovrj apyvperj, eVt Se k\ijl8' eravvacrev Ipbdvri.
These lines have been fully explained and illustrated by Diehls f and other writers, but two points may be noted in passing. In the first place, there is here no lock, properly so-called, but merely a bolt which was secured by a thong. Secondly, the /copcevr] or key, with which the bolt was loosened, was an object of peculiar shape, which is often depicted on Greek vases {e.g. F 127 and F 209 in the Brit. Mus.).J This was the typical form of key for the door of a temple, and it is generally in the hands of a priestess that it is represented on the vases. It should further be remarked that Kkrfiha in the passage quoted above denotes the bolt (later, 6^ev<;), and not the key.§
Another lecus classiais on the subject of Greek door-fastenings is the passage of Parmenides (i. 1 1 ff.), on which Diehls bases his comments ; the
* Schliemann, Tiryns, p. 276 ff. ; Benndorf, Heroon von Gjolbaschi, p. 35 ; Diehls, Parmenides, p. 117.
t Op. at. p. 127 ff.
% For specimens see Diehls, op. cit. p. 123 ff.
§ For a further discussion of the Homeric and other locks, see also Fink, Verschluss bet den Gr. u. Rdmern (Regensburg, 1890) ; Protodikos, de aedibus Homericis (Leipzig, 1877) ; Cornish, Concise Diet, of Antiqs. s.v. Ianua. See also for Roman locks, Marquardt, Privatctltertiimer, vii. p. 226 ff. , and Cohauscn in Ann. d. Vereins fiit nassauischi Altertumskunde, xiii. p. 135 ff.
e
lxvi CATALOGUE OF BRONZES.
description seems to tally more or less with that of Homer. We have already had occasion (p. lxiii.) to quote a passage from Aristophanes (Thesm. 421 ff.) which also throws light on the subject. The system here employed is a cross between the Homeric and the modern lock ; the bolt is not pushed along, but raised up by means of three teeth in the key which fit into corresponding sockets in the bolt. No doubt many modifications and extensions of this system were in use, which would account for the numerous varieties of keys which have come down to us. The type most commonly employed had a piece bent at right angles or an obtuse angle to the shaft, to which two or three teeth (<yo/x(f)LOi) were attached. This system is illustrated by Nos. 2593-2597, in which the holes for the wards of the key are indicated.
Finally, we have the modern type of lock, with a hole for the insertion of the key, and a system of revolving " tumblers." The door, or other object to be fastened, was generally provided with a bronze plate (as Nos. 2587-2592), in which various holes are cut, according to the shape of the wards of the key. Other locks of various shapes exist (cf. Nos. 2599-2605), which were either inserted in the door, or else attached like a padlock.
The varieties of key are so numerous that they almost defy classification. Roughly speaking, they fall into two groups, those with wards formed by groups of small pegs or arrangements similar to a modern key, and those with a flat piece attached to the shaft in which a pattern is cut out to correspond lo the hole in the lock, as No. 2619 ff. To the key-rings which so frequently occur we have alluded above in speaking of finger-rings (see p. lxiii.).
Nos. 2704-2876 represent the collection of ancient arms
7. Arms and and armour — Greek, Etruscan, and Roman. Although these
Armour. objects are well represented in this and other museums, the
A. Homeric. chief sources of information available are those supplied by
their pourtrayal on ancient monuments ; in the case of Greek armour, on the vases ; in the case of Roman, on reliefs, such as those of Trajan's column. For our knowledge of the armour of the Mycenaean period we are almost entirely dependent on evidence of this kind. A considerable number of swords, spear-heads, and arrow-heads of this period have been found on Mycenaean sites, but, with the exception of the greave (No. 74) found at Enkomi, in Cyprus, no specimens of defensive armour exist. In this connection we are met with the question how far the Homeric poems may be accepted as evidence. A recent writer * has with much ingenuity adduced reasons for answering the question in the affirmative. Many of his arguments, indeed, are convincing, as, for instance, the use of the large oblong shield to protect the whole body, which is represented on the silver fragment from Mycenae {Ephcm. Archaeol. 1891, pi. 2, fig. 2). This shield would have obviated the necessity of a metal cuiiass (Oayprj^) or metal greaves, and is more appropriate to the Homeric method of warfare in chariots, while the small round shield is better suited to
* Reichel, Homeriscke IVaffen ; see also Class. Review, ix. (1X95), p. 55, and x. (1S96), p. 212.
INTRODUCTION. lxvi'l
more active movements. But the weak point in the argument is that it involves the rejection, as later interpolations, of all passages which speak of a metal cuirass (such as that of Agamemnon in xi. 19, and that of Achilles in xviii. 610). Moreover, it entails the assumption that the civilisation of the Homeric period is identical with that of Mycenae, which cannot be justified merely on the ground of an identity in the fashions of armour, especially since the arguments from methods of burial and female costume appear to point the other way. It may also be pointed out that the Homeric descriptions of armour tally much more closely with the subjects on black-figured vases of the sixth century.*
Apart from the Homeric question, we may note a few facts in reference to Mycenaean armour, which can be gathered from the monuments. Helmets in metal appear to be unknown ; the helmet of this period was in an early stage of development, and consisted merely of a leather skull-cap, adorned with a plume (Xocpos or /copvs), and the </>aA.o?, an erect piece over the forehead. Of the shield there are two types : the large oblong shield mentioned above, and the smaller shield of figure-of-eight form, which often occurs in Mycenaean art as a decorative pattern as well as in actual use (see Reichel, op. cit. pp. 6, 7, 8). The cuirass and greaves were only of leather, those parts of the body being protected by the shield ; but no doubt greaves of bronze, and in later times even of tin,f were in use, as the example from Cyprus implies.
The swords found at Mycenae vary in length from two to three feet, the longer varieties having a double edge and handle of wood or bone, the shorten which should rather be styled knives, a single edge and a ring-shaped handle. In some cases (see No. 92) the blade is made double, perhaps in order to inflict a more dangerous wound. The typical Bronze-Age sword and knife of Cyprus are of about the same dimensions, but have long thin handles, ending in a small hook (see Nos. 50, 52). The spear-heads are not cast until after the Mycenaean period ; those from Ialysos and Cyprus are formed out of plates of metal rolled up and hammered into a tube. Arrow-heads are rare, and of a single type, that of a flat triangular head with more or less pointed barbs (see Nos. 30-34).
Specimens of Greek armour of the historical period are B. Greek. comparatively rare, and, as has already been said, information
on the subject is to be derived chiefly from representations, especially on the vases. Moreover, in many cases the date or origin of existing objects is difficult to determine. The Ionian Greeks of Asia Minor seem to have worn a close-fitting bronze helmet with the skin of a bull's head covering the crown ; see Terracotta Sarcophagi in Brit. Mus. pi. 2, p. 8. Two types of helmet stand out as conspicuously Greek. The first is that known as the Corinthian helmet, from its frequent occurrence on the coins of Corinth. It has closely-fitting cheek-pieces (TrapayvadlSes), with or without hinges, and between
* As maintained by Helbig {Horn. Epos,2 p. 284. ff.) ; see also Baumeister, Denkmaeler, iii. p. 2024. t See Horn. //. xviii. 613, xxi. 592. As regards bronze greaves, it may be noted that the phrase Xa^K0Kvr)/j.l5€s only occurs once, in //. vii. 41, and that this line is an undoubted interpolalion.
lxviii CATALOGUE OF BRONZES.
them a nasal or flat piece to protect the nose, these combining to serve the purpose of a visor. It also had sometimes a piece to cover the neck at the back ; this type was adopted by the Romans, who increased the piece at the back to a considerable size. This helmet is frequently represented on the Corinthian and Athenian vases ; examples in this collection are Nos. 251 * (with dedicatory inscription), 2816, 2818, 2820, 2821 ; many were also found at Olympia. It usually had a crest (A,odjo<>) inserted in a long grooved piece supported by a tube on the crown, as represented frequently on the vases ; but many helmets show no traces or signs of this. In the Hellenistic age the Corinthian helmet was developed with more elaboration, and the cheek-pieces were made separate and of a greater length. The other type, known as the Attic helmet, had a short nasal and narrow cheek-pieces, cut to fit the outline of the jaws and working on a hinge (cf. Nos. 2187, 2844). Another typical Greek helmet is No. 317.
The Greek cuirass is represented best by a specimen found at Olympia (Murray, Handbook of Gk. Archaeology, p. 122) ; existing examples are rare, but many of course occur on the vases. The Greeks, however, often wore cuirasses of linen. Those of bronze appear to have been made plain, with slight modelling to adapt them to the anatomy of the body; Nos. 2846-2851 maybe Greek examples.f Cuirasses formed of overlapping scales of metal sometimes occur on red-figured vases (e.g. E yy, E 469). Greaves vary very little in type, and were generally plain in character. When ornamentation is employed, it generally takes the form of a Gorgoneion at the part covering the knee, as in Nos. 265, 249 ; the modelling of the part which fits closely to the leg is often very carefully rendered. Greek shields fall into three classes, as represented on the vases : (1) the plain circular Argolic buckler ; (2) the Boeotian shield, so called from its appearance on coins of Boeotian cities, which is oval in form, with a piece cut out of each side ; (3) the pelta, a crescent-shaped shield, which was generally of wicker covered with leather, and is almost exclusively used by Amazons in art. The Greek shield usually bore a quasi-heraldic device (cf. Aesch. Sept. c. Theb. 387 ff. and Brit. Mus. Cat. of Vases, ii. passim).
Of offensive weapons the principal are the sword, the spear, and the arrow. Greek swords were usually short, and employed for piercing rather than cutting ; two varieties are the dirk (ey%eLp(8iov) and the kott'is, a sort of scimitar with single edge. Nos. 2749, 2750, from Cameiros, are two typical Greek daggers of the sixth century B.C. Spear-heads, as has been already pointed out, are now cast, not beaten up. Nos. 2772, 2773, from Olympia, and 2774, 2779, from Cameiros, may be regarded as genuine Greek specimens. The collection of arrow-heads (Nos. 2797-2815) has come for the most part from Greek sites, and belongs to the Hellenic period ; the various types are distinguished and illustrated below (p. 346).
* This helmet, by virtue of its inscription, justifies the name of Corinthian for this type. t There is a passage in Xenophon {Mem. iii. 10), which shews that the art of making body-armour was carefully studied by the Greeks.
INTRODUCTION. lxix
Italian armour, especially that which can be referred to C. Italian. Etruria or to Southern Italy, presents certain distinctive
features which are worthy of mention here. The earliest specimens of weapons found in Italy are the celts of the flange-type (see p. 355) found in the remains of the Terramare period, which appear to have been used for military as well as domestic purposes. In the early Iron Age, bronze belts occur, with which may be ranked Nos. 2852-2855, 2858. Early Etruscan shields are not uncommon; the earliest specimens are merely decorated with patterns of raised dots, after the manner of Nos. 368-373 ; No. 2704 is a fine specimen of the next stage of decoration.* A later type of Etruscan shield is illustrated by No. 2706 ; it is circular, with the edges bent over, and a deeply-hollowed centre, in which is generally a mask of some kind. Etruscan swords are mostly of iron, but the ordinary bronze type is represented by Nos. 2707-2709.
The various Italian types of helmet are very interesting, and considerable numbers of them have been preserved. Of the specially Etruscan helmets there are two principal types : (1) a high conical helmet with vertical brim, immedi- ately above which the helmet is indented, so that the upper part projects over the brim (see Nos. 2717-2720); (2) a low cap-like helmet which must have come down over the face in front ; on these the eye-holes and nasal are merely indicated in low relief, the eyebrows by incised featherings (see Nos. 2722, 2723). Another type which is found in Etruria is not exclusively Etruscan, but also occurs north of the Alps and in Hungary ; it is very probably of Osco- Samnite origin. In form it resembles a jockey cap, with a high knob at the apex ; but the peak attached to the brim was intended to protect the neck, not the forehead. Nos. 2725-2728 are examples of this type. The form of the Hiero helmet (No. 250) is not exclusively Etruscan either; it was widely spread over Europe, and even has modern parallels.
Most of the helmets found in Southern Italy present local peculiarities which betray a non-Greek origin. Like the type just described, they are probably remains of the Osco-Samnite civilisation. The most typical form is probably derived from the leather conical cap or pileus, a high conical head- covering with a deep brim all round, generally with a large curved piece of bronze affixed to either side, in which the plume was inserted (cf. No. 2824). Sometimes this was worn without any crest, as appears on a peculiar class of Apulian vases (see Brit. Mus. Cat. iv. F 297, F 301, and Ann. dell Inst. 1852, pis. M, N, P). Some helmets again have a spike on the apex which branches into two for a double plume ; while others have hollow tubes for crests fixed to the sides in place of the bronze pieces. The crests were of bronze, horse-hair, and feathers. The South-Italian vases, especially those of Campania (see F 197, F 241, and F 242 in Brit. Mus.), and a series of paintings discovered at Paestum (Man. deli1 Inst. viii. pi. 21) afford an insight into further peculiarities of " Osco-
* Others are published by Orsi in Mus, Ital. di Class. Ant. ii. p. 97 ff. ; and a series of similar shields, but of more advanced execution, by Orsi and Ilalbherr, ibid. Atlas, pis. 1-8, found in the ca\e of Idacun Zeus in Crete.
/
lxx CATALOGUE OF BRONZES.
Samnite " armour. Another type of helmet appears, a close-fitting cap-like shape with cheek-pieces, adorned with several upright plumes of feathers. Warriors are usually clad in a very short chiton reaching just over the hips, over which is a cuirass of a quasi-triangular form ornamented with three large bosses. This appears to be the Kap8io(f>v\a^ of Polybius (Mi/it. Rom. 23, 14), and several specimens are preserved to this day {e.g. No. 2845 and another in the Karlsruhe Museum). The elaborate helmet worn by Heracles on the Assteas vase in Madrid (made at Paestum) is an abnormal and exaggerated form.
Of Roman bronze armour, as distinguished from earlier Greek and Italian specimens, comparatively little exists beyond what is depicted on the monuments. The swords and such-like weapons are mostly of iron, but some have handles of bronze. The famous " sword of Tiberius " (No. 867) is of iron in a bronze sheath. The types of helmets are too numerous for classification, but are for the most part developments of Greek or Etruscan prototypes. Gladiatorial armour has special features of its own, such as the helmet with perforated visor, of which Nos. 2842, 2843 afford examples, or the covering for the arm often depicted in works of art (see Nos. 2864-2S66). Nos. 1601-1605 and 2966 are typical figures of gladiators illustrating these characteristics.*
* See also Baumeister, Denktnaeler, s.v. Wettkampfe, and Daremberg and Saglio, Diet, des Antiqs. s.-<>. Gladiator.
L BRONZES HISTORICALLY GROUPED.
A. GREEK BRONZES.
I. MYCENAEAN PERIOD, i — 118.
A. RHODES AND OTHER GREEK ISLANDS (1-48).
1-42. Bronze weapons and other objects excavated by Messrs. Salzmann and
Biliotti at Ialysos in Rhodes in 1868, and presented to the Museum by Professor John Ruskin in 1870 and 1872, with the exception of Nos. 28 and 29 from Cameiros, and 39 and 40, which came direct from Biliotti. All these belong to the Mycenaean period, being found in tombs with pottery and "-ems of that style (see Furtvvaengler and Loeschcke, Myken. Vasen, p. 1 ff., pis. A-E, and Atlas, pis. 1-11).
1. SWORD. Two rivets for attachment of ivory handle, and one hole for another rivet ; groove along middle of blade. Length 2o| in. From tomb 7. Presented 1870. Furtwaengler and Loeschcke, Myken. Vasen, pi. D. 13. Much damaged.
2. SWORD, as last ; the handle and hilt complete (except the ivory filling) ; four rivets ; parallel lines down the middle of the blade. Length 19J in. From tomb 4. Presented 1870. Furtvvaengler and Loeschcke, Myken. Vasen, pi. D. 11, p. 8; Torr, Rhodes in Ancient Times, pi. 3. D. A sword of the same type, but with double edges, as No. 92, is given in Schliemann, Mycenae, fig. 238.
3. SWORD, as last but one ; a ridge down the centre. Length i6\ in. Presented 1872.
4. SWORD-BLADE (?), part of. Three rivets for attaching the handle. Length 6 in. Presented 1872.
5. DAGGER, with two rivets at the top for attaching the handle. Length 6 f in. Presented 1872. Furtwaengler and Loeschcke, Myken. Vasen, pi. D. 19. Corroded and much broken.
6. DAGGER, as last ; three rivets for handle. Length 7 1 in. Presented 1872. Furtwaengler and Loeschcke, Myken. Vasen, pi. D. 18.
7. DAGGER OR KNIFE. Four rivets for handle ; one edge is straight and blunt ; in good condition. Length 13! in. From tomb 4. Presented 1870. Furtwaengler and Loeschcke, Myken. Vasen, pi. D. 6, p. 8.
8. BLADE OF DAGGER, part of, broken in two; at the top, three rivets for handle. Length 5! in. Presented 1872. Furtwaengler and Loeschcke, Myken. Vasen, pi. D. 1.
B
2 CATALOGUE OF BRONZES.
9. DAGGER OR KNIFE. Remains of ivory handle, beyond which the bronze hnndle
projects. Length 12^ in. From tomb 27. Presented 1872. Furtwaengler and Loeschcke, My ken. Vasen, pi. D. 9, p. 14 ; Torr, Rhodes in Ancient Times, pi. 3. F.
10. KNIFE (Konls ?). Three rivets for handle; in good condition. Length 10} in.
Presented 1872. Furtwaengler and Loeschcke, Myken. Vasen, pi. D. 17, p. 8 ; .Torr, Rhodes in Ancient Times, pi. 3. A.
11. KNIFE, as last. Four rivets for handle. Length 7-jj- in. Presented 1872. Torr, Rhodes in Ancient Times, pi. 3. B. Blade damaged.
12. PART OF KNIFE, as before. Length 7 § in. Presented 1872. Furtwaengler and Loeschcke, Myken. Vasen, pi. D. 8, p. 8.
13. KNIFE, as before ; only one rivet remaining ; corroded. Length 6} in. Presented 1872.
14 TWO KNIVES, as before ; four rivets for handle ; blades broken and much corroded.
Length 7 in. and jls in. From tomb 6. Presented 1870.
15. TWO KNIVES, as before ; three rivets remaining ; edge of blades damaged. Length 7! and 7 1 in. From tomb 4. Presented 1870.
16. KNIFE, as before ; handle broken (two rivets remaining). Length 6 in. From tomb 6. Presented 1870.
17. KNIFE, as before, in four fragments ; three rivets for handle; much injured. From tomb 8. Presented 1870.
18. KNIFE, part of ; haft with three rivets ; point broken. Length 4 in. Presented 1870.
19. SPEAR-HEAD. Length i6~ in. From tomb 4. Presented 1870. Furtwaengler and Loeschcke, Myken. Vasen, pi. D. 5 ; Torr, Rhodes in Ancient Times, pi. 3. C. The hollow part is not cast, but beaten out of a flat plate into cylindrical form, and so in the other specimens here described. The form of these spear-heads is typical of the European Bronze Age.
20. SPEAR-HEAD, with very broad blade. Length i%\ in. From tomb 4. Presented 1870. Furtwaengler and Loeschcke, Myken. Vasen, pi. D. 16, p. 8 ; Torr, Rhodes in Ancient Times, pi. 3- E.
21. SPEAR-HEAD; edge damaged. Length 8| in. From tomb 4. Presented 1870. Furtwaengler and Loeschcke, Myken. Vasen, pi. D. 12, p. 8.
22. SPEAR-HEAD. Length 12' in. Presented 1870.
23. SPEAR-HEAD. Length 7 f in. Presented 1872. Furtwaengler and Loeschcke, Myken. Vasen, pi. D. 10.
24. SPEAR-HEAD ; the end bent up, and the edges injured ; corroded. Length 13 in. Presented 1872. Furtwaengler and Loeschcke, Myken. Vasen, pi. D. 14.
25. SPEAR-HEAD. Length 13 in. Presented 1872. Butt-end damaged.
26. SPEAR-HEAD. Length 9J in. Presented 1872. Furtwaengler and Loeschcke, Myken. Vasen, pi. D. 15.
27. THREE SPEAR-HEADS. Lengths respectively 8| in., 1 i\ in. and i6£ in. Presented 1872. End of socket of second one shattered.
BRONZES OF MYCENAEAN PERIOD FROM RHODES. 3
28. SPEAR-HEAD. Length n| in. Cameiros, i86r. Probably of later date, but the
hollow part is still beaten together, not cast.
29 SPEAR-HEAD. Length 15! in. Cameiros, 1861. Probably 6th cent. B.C. Hollow
part beaten up into cylindrical shape, and pierced with a hole ; blade grooved, with moulded tongue-pattern round the broad end.
Fig. 1 = No. 29.
30. ARROW-HEADS, seven in number, with long barbs and broad shaft. Length i7s to 4! in. Presented 1872.
31. ARROW-HEADS, four in number, with short barbs, forming a right angle with the shaft. Length 1 ~ to l| in. Presented 1872.
32. ARROW-HEADS, three in number, as last; all much broken. Length if to if in. Presented 1870.
33. ARROW-HEAD, with triangular top ; much corroded. Length 2| in. Presented 1870.
34. ARROW-HEAD (?) ; barbs broken off; much bent up. Length 4 in. Presented 1872.
35. CELT. Length 4 § in. Presented 1872. Furtwaengler and Loeschcke, Myken. Vasen, pi. D, fig. 2. Flat type (A), as in Evans, Ancient Bronze Implements, p. 40.*
36. PLATE from a piece of armour, with holes pierced all round the lower edge ; roughly wedge-shaped. Length 7 in. "Presented 1872. Broken in three pieces.
37. STYLI or bodkins, two fragments of. Length 3' and 4f in. Presented 1872.
38. FISH-HOOK. Length 2 in. Presented 1872.
39. FISH-HOOK, the butt-end twisted up in a loop. Length 2 \ -in. From Ialysos (Biliotti's report, 16 June, 1868) ; found in the fourth chamber.
40. LID OF SMALL BOX, circular, with hinge. Length \\ in. From Ialysos, 1868; found with the last.
41. SEVEN STUDS, or nail-heads, one with traces of gilding. Diam. \ to J in. Presented 1872.
42. GOAT, lying down, with head turned to its r. Ht. -| in. Length i| in. Presented 1872. Head and tail much broken.
43. KNIFE, with three rivet-holes at the broader end of the blade, by which the handle has been fastened on. Length 6J in. From Saria, or Suria (Nisyros ?), an island north of Carpathos. Presented by W. R. Paton, Esq., 1889. Journ. Hell. Stud. xvii. p. 64. Edge of blade jagged.
* For a classification of celts, see below, Nos. 2911-2941.
B 2
CATALOGUE OF BRONZES.
44. CELT, of type (A), as No. 35 ; broad and flat, with a diamond-shaped hole at the narrow end. Length 6| in. From Saria. Presented by W. R. Paton, Esq., 1889. Journ. Hell. Stud. xvii. p. 65. Cf. Proc. Soc. Antiqs. 2nd Ser. iii. p. 437 (objects from Kythnos, now in Prehistoric Saloon of Brit.
Mus.).
45. CHISEL (?), narrow and long. Length ,\ in. From Saria. Presented by W. R. Paton, Esq., 1889. Journ. Hell. Stud. xvii. p. 64. Cf. Proc, Soc. Antiqs. (ut supra).
46. DAGGER, with parallel lines down the centre of the blade ; an ivory handle has been attached by bronze rivets. Length \2~ in. Found in a tomb with Mycenaean vases at Carpathos (see Furtwaengler and Loeschcke, Myken. Vascn, p. 83). Presented by W. R. Paton, Esq., 1887. Journ. Bell. Stud. viii. p. 449, pi. 83, fig. 3. Cf. No. 2.
47. KNIFE (kottls), with three rivets on the handle uniting it to another piece of bronze on which are two more rivets ; probably this end of the blade was fixed between two flat pieces of bronze by way of a handle. Length iojj- in. Aegina, 1893. Journ. Hell. Stud. xvii. p. 65.
48. FLAT RING, much broken. Length 5' in. Antiparos, 1884. From a primitive tomb.
Fig. 2 = No. 44.
Fig. 3 — No. 47.
B. CYPRUS.
49-114. Bronze objects from excavations in Bronze-Age cemeteries in Cyprus.
Nos. 49-52 are from various sites, and were found at different times ; for accounts of the excavations on those sites, see Myres, Cyprus Mus. Cat. Introd. Nos. 53-114 are from the excavations conducted by the British Museum under the bequest of Miss E. T. Turner; 53-58 from Curium (1895); 59-114 from Enkomi near Salamis (1896).
49. TWO CELTS. Length 3J in. and \\ in. Phoenikiais, Cyprus, 1884 ; from the Bronze- Age necropolis. Corroded. Type (A) as in Evans, Ancient Bronze Implements, p. 40.
50. THREE SPEAR HEADS or daggers, the butt-ends or handles ending in a hook. Length 10] in., 10^ in., and 17^ in. Phoenikiais, Cyprus, 1884; Bronze-Age necropolis. The shortest one is much corroded, and has lost the handle.
51. TWO SPEAR-HEADS, much corroded and split up. Length 12? in. and 17 in. From Amathus. Presented by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 1880.
52. SPEAR-HEAD OR DAGGER, ending in a hook, as No. 50 ; a ridge down the middle. Length \o\ in. Cyprus, 1869. Furtwaengler and Loeschcke, Myken. Vascn, pi. 1). 3.
BRONZES OF MYCENAEAN PERIOD FROM CYPRUS. 5
53. SPEAR-HEAD. Length l6| in. Curium, 1S95. From excavations under the Turner bequest (tomb 44, Mycenaean site).
54. STEAR-HEAD. Length y\ in. Curium, 1895 (Turner bequest); tomb 94, Mycenaean site.
55. DAGGER, with rivets on which the handle was fixed. Length 9} in. Curium, 1895 (Turner bequest) ; tomb 94.
56. TWO KNIFE-BLADES, with rivets for attachment of handle. Length 4l in. and 4l in. Curium, 1895 (Turner bequest) ; tomb 99, Mycenaean site.
57. FIBULA, of roughly quadrilateral shape, curving towards the head ; this shape is common in tombs of the seventh and sixth centuries in Cyprus (but see No. 59 below). The pin is lost. Length 2| in. Curium, 1895 ; from excavations under the Turner bequest. Mycenaean site, tomb 102 ; found with a steatite intaglio with a bull in the style of the Vaphio cups, and a large vase with figures. Two gold fibulae of similar shape (Oxford, Ashmolean Mus. 1197 and 1 198) were found in the excavations at Paphos in 1888 (Journ. Hell. Stud. xiii. p. 223, note), together with a sub-Mycenaean pseudamphora ; two others from Maroni are in the Brit. Mus. (see Journ. Hell. Stud. xvii. p. 63, where the provenance is wrongly given as Moni).
58. PAIR OF TWEEZERS. Length 4^ in. Curium, 1895 (Turner bequest). Mycenaean site, tomb 107. Compare No. 117. Similar tweezers of bronze have been found in the Bronze Age cemetery at Agia Paraskevi, Cyprus (Richter, Cyprus, the Bible, and Homer, pi. 150, fig. 2), and in silver at Mycenae (Schliemann, Mycenae, p. 308, fig. 469).
59. FIBULA, of the early Bronze-Age type, with oblong flat bowuniting in a spiral with the pin. Length 3| in. Enkomi, tomb 38 (Turner bequest). Bronze fibulae of the Mycenaean period are very rare ; two identical with this in shape were found at Mycenae in 1887 (see Ephcm. Archaeol. 1888, pi. 9, fig. 2, p. 167). For a similar example from Italy, see Montelius, Civilisation primitive en Italic, pi. 4, fig. 20. See also Studniczka in Athcn. Mittheil. xii. (1887), p. 8ff., and Helbig in Nachr. d. k. Gcscllsch. d. IViss. zu Gottingcn, Phil. -hist. CI., 1896, p. 235 ; for another example from Cyprus, see No. 57, from Curium.
60. FIBULA, as last, but the bow rises towards the foot, which holds the pin in a small sheath. Length 5 in. Enkomi, tomb 74.
61. TRIPOD-STAND, on three feet, with connecting bars meeting in the middle ; round the top, wavy pattern. Ht. 3| in. Tomb 97.
62. TRIPOD-STAND, with three feet from which spring Ionic columns (as on No. 76), and outer supports uniting in rings with each other ; a projecting rim round the top. Ht. \\ in. Tomb 58.
63. STAND, with circular band at the top formed of a row of double spirals between two rims, supported on a square frame of four panels, each with a border of rings as above ; below these are straight legs with a volute at the top of each, from which spring supports meeting in a double volute. In each panel are two square openings with a solid framework in the lower part, above which in each opening is the bust of a woman, as if looking out of a window, of Egyptian type, with a thick curl of hair on each shoulder. Similar figures are to be seen on ivory panels of Phoenician workmanship from the north-west palace at Nimroud (in the Nimroud gallery of the Brit. Mus.). Tomb 97. The whole is very fragmentary and much corroded ; one side is almost gone.
64. BOWL, with large sinking in centre, and upright side handles. Diameter \z\ in. Tomb 66. Cf. Schliemann, Mycenae, p. 276.
6 CATALOGUE OF BRONZES.
65. LAMP, nearly square, with the end folded over on each side to form a sort of nozzle ; at the other end is a long spike, which was inserted in the wall of the tomb on the left-hand side of the door. Length g's in. Tomb 66. Spike broken.
66. NAILS, five in number, inserted in the walls of the tomb for hanging up objects ; they are all slightly polygonal. A silver bowl was found hanging on one of these nails. Length 6J to 9 in. Tomb 66.
67. UNCERTAIN OBJECT, perhaps a celt. Length 3| in. Tomb 73. Corroded. A similar object in the Prehistoric Saloon of the Brit. Mus., case M.
68. KNIFE. Handle lost ; two rivets remaining. Length y~ in. Tomb 66. Corroded.
69. KNIFE, part of; handle and point lost ; two rivets remaining. Length 5 in. Tomb 66. Very much corroded and split.
70. KNIFE, as before; in two pieces; two rivets remaining; handle lost. Length about 6| in. Tomb 66. Split and corroded.
71. KNIFE, part of; two rivets remaining. Length 3J in. Tomb 66. Corroded and injured.
72. SWORD-BLADE, three fragments of, with ridge down the centre. Tomb 66.
73. SPEAR-HEAD, with hole in haft, which is injured. Length 6 in. Tomb 66. Corroded.
74. GREAVE for right leg, fragmentary, with remains of a bronze wire lace for the fastening at the back, and two studs remaining on the edge, round which the lace was wound ; along the edge a double ridge. Tomb 15.
75. JUG, in fragments, with high flat handle, and beak-shaped mouth. Tomb 15.
76. STAND, in fragments, with grooved band round the top, the supports in the form of Ionic pilasters, fluted, with capitals of early type. Tomb 15.
77. THREE objects, either butt-ends of spears or supports formed in imitation of tree-stems, with spurs on either side at the upper end. Ht. 8f to n| in. Tomb 15. Perhaps part of the preceding object.
78. SPEAR-HEAD. Length 7f in. Tomb 15. Corroded and injured.
79. KNIFE. Length Jl in. Tomb 15. Corroded and injured. Three rivets remaining.
80. KNIFE-BLADE. Length 4$ in. Tomb 15. Corroded and injured.
81. SPEAR-HEAD, with thick ridge down the middle. Length 14! in. Tomb 16. Corroded and split at the bottom. ,
82. KNIFE-BLADES, five in number, all corroded and injured ; on two are two rivets remaining ; on another, one. Length 6 to 7 -J in. Tomb 16.
83. KNIFE, with haft in one piece ; the back edge curved. Length 6 in. Tomb 22.
84. THREE KNIVES, in which one, two, and three rivets remain respectively. Length 6^ in., 8£ in., and gl in. Tomb 22. All corroded.
85. KNIFE-BLADE, with three rivets vertically placed. Corroded. Length 8| in. Tomb 24.
86. SIX KNIFE-BLADES; all more or less fragmentary. Corroded and injured. Tomb 5 S.
87. SPEAR-HEAD. Length iog in. Tomb 79. Much corroded.
BRONZES OF MYCENAEAN PERIOD FROM CYPRUS. 7
88. SPEAR-HEAD. Split up and very much corroded. Type as usual. Length S% in. Tomb 6o.
89. KNIFE. Three rivets remaining; very much corroded; point broken. Length 8* in. Tomb 6o.
90. KNIFE-BLADE. Injured and corroded. Length 6| in. Tomb 6o.
91. KNIFE-BLADE. Length gl in. Tomb 40.
92. KNIFE-BLADE, formed of two separate blades soldered together longitudinally down the middle, so as to present a double edge each side (cf. Schliemann, Mycenae, fig. 238). Length 6f in. Tomb 53. Corroded ; handle broken off.
93. SPEAR-HEAD, tapering to a point ; cylindrical and hollow throughout. Length I2f in. Corroded ; socket injured. From the shaft of tomb 93.
94. SPEAR-HEADS, six in number, clustered together as in a quiver, with remains of wood attaching to them, as also the remains of shafts of arrows. One has straight edges and a blunt point ; another has lost the point. Length 5| in. to 8^ in. From the surface of the site, probably the remains of an ancient foundry.*
95. KNIFE-BLADE, with three holes for rivets remaining. Corroded. Length 8| in.
96. KNIFE-BLADE, curved back. Length 5J in.
97. KNIFE-BLADE, as No. 92. Length 5 J in. Corroded ; one rivet remaining.
98. KNIFE, set in a bone socket. Length 6 in. (blade only, 3 in.). Corroded ; bone partly worn away.
99. AXE-HEAD, thick and heavy, widening into a diamond shape in the middle, with circular hole. Length 8| in. ; breadth 2 in.
lOOp AXE-HEAD, flat, with large hole ; ends not sharpened. Length 5 1 in. Corroded.
1002. AXE-H E AD, part of ; broken away at the socket.