CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE Cornell University Library N5610 .P72 1896 3 1924 031 053 550 olin The original of tliis book is in tlie Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031053550 THE ELDER PLINY^S CHAPTERS ON THE HISTORY OF ART , Tnerrtoiuiioaaur-' 'poW aim tnutprauefemtferarrc cUtuf* fi crontM-f bAg«VA- ixer difciTJuLuf «liA<lu»TJc- fe- cjuA- amnef feaxnii-m Xfaa. molltter' lutte qiitf<)' ttiiieAfferrc- VjAecefi /nuTn fectt cerTtwrTrtalcrrnfT-'o ' .polvcltii 'pr-o^trrzx:ai)ex-pUt nern' ttlrtetzurn • J^UUtr -ttirTUl. clefAtJt: C^itMT tAem ^jJot-v pViorum utraltter'puerit ffecttr- tfiquet77ca.TJo»iA^ metitf- ,pW*-diif• praaitter tii aem ol/f^miim cfuemnerrto A.-r-rtfTcefuocATTt .l-iTira- XernvJuttUT' ftctce^cii^or^ •mcrrta. 3kT-nf ejcco ^etcn xetnue-mvnertiAm Jcotentf- -cef ueL ira ^ilfig^ quAdam •fblitfc|«eliominuTn ecr" -oBTTJjpfXm feciffcr itr-nf nem fu^r^vsaan tninetrtiX opere- tudica^ur- fecnr ^st -tATTi cjcf»T»iaL^pu.U;l>rtiii«lt iefVingentem fe- dinu mf-ucfcrTriACr cdcrjowen dum-caLs tncrfferixeTTj • ^uxeper-w fiecwdicliHucuTn • duofbitte-- -pucrortcftm ^Zilijun mtnertUiTn quam nudof- xiUfVtuientefqui vUocdjTtwT' a.f^ra.«LUx0>i a.clAe«Jemfi>ytunae-V»tfju'rce' tn «-tt itt: « > f tcf ^fjtnr _^ ftei dtcAutc- ttftn duo fiy X*rioAuo.Vioc*ipercTiuV la. c^uA«caWLufine3u]em Utrn a-pfbUrttuf ptertq' |vtede- ^*ll*A*ak- diaVusT-uwi CO ttidiiuMtr- TremTnfrrcurl Vlp ffVxoTi-nu<lt»Ti.y»nTnttfq» tttn- quifUttlf-fimxcliajsae. COD. BAMB. M. V. lo. FOL. 59. [Original size of page = 26 x 21'gcin.] THE ELDER PLINY'S CHAPTERS ON THE HISTORY OF ART TRANSLATED BY K. JEX-BLAKE CLASSICAL LECTURER AT GIRTON COLLEHE, CAMBRIDGE WITH COMMENTARY AND HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION BY E. SELLERS FORMER STUDENT OF GIRTON COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, AND OF THE BRITISH SCHOOL AT ATHENS AND ADDITIONAL NOTES CONTRIBUTED BY DR. HEINRICH LUDWIG URLICHS HonOon MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd. NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN CO. 1896 \^All rights reserved'] S ^ PREFACE The text printed in the following pages is based upon that of Detlefsen, but free use has been made of both earlier and later critical auxiliaries. We differ from Detlefsen mainly in adhering more closely to the Codex Bambergensis, whose superiority in respect of those parts of the Historia now reproduced must be regarded as incontestable. Our short critical apparatus is limited to notices of our devia- tions from Detlefsen, or of readings offering special interest or difficulty. For brevity's sake the name of Detlefsen stands in our apparatus not only for his own readings but also for those of the scholars whose views he adopts. In none but a few important cases do we print Detlefsen's sources. I have to thank Mr. Fischer of Bamberg for kindly verifying a number of readings in the Bambergensis, and Dr. Leitschuh, Chief Librarian at Bamberg, for permis- sion to reproduce in facsimile a page of the famous codex. The present text has been prepared under the guidance of Dr. Ludwig Traube, who, moreover, has generously placed at our disposal a number of his own readings or conjectures. Out of the many problems which even this short selection from the Historia Naturalis offers, the Introduction pro- fesses to deal only with the question of Pliny's Greek sources for the history of art ; it touches upon his Roman authorities only in so far as these were the channel through which the Greek authors reached him. The question is viii PREFACE one which, so far from being, as was supposed, either exhausted or incapable of solution, is still in its infancy. Where an earlier school was content to trace back Pliny's debt to his Roman predecessors, a newer method of inquiry enables the student to work backwards not only from the Roman to the Greek authors, but from one Greek author to another. So it is that, returning to the Introduc- tion after an interval, it became clear to me (see footnotes on p. xliii f.) that in matters of anecdote and biography Antigonos of Karystos was seldom, if ever, to be regarded as an ultimate source, and was to a far greater extent than I had at first supposed the debtor of Duris. Nay, I be- lieve that we may in time recover (to some extent) the authorities which Duris himself had at his command. I am profoundly indebted to Dr. F. Munzer for reading and criticizing the proofs of the Introduction up to p. Ixxiii, and for allowing me to publish as footnotes and Addenda the suggestive remarks made to me in the course of a detailed correspondence. I have endeavoured to make the notes printed below the text a real commentary to the author's meaning, not a bundle of bibliography. Modern commentators might still lay to heart the criticism passed by Scaliger on the Pliny of his friend Dalecampius : le bon homme est docte, mats il farcit trap ses annotations deje ne sais quelle fatraille d'autezirs . But wherever further revision showed that I had done but scant justice to important though dissentient views I have tried to remedy the omission in the Addenda. There too a few notes are printed the necessity for which occurred to me later, and reference given to quite recent literature. One group of contributions has been made to this book calling for special notice. When my work was already ad- vancing towards completion, I learnt that Dr. H. L. Urlichs was himself engaged upon an edition of the same parts of ; PREFACE ix Pliny. With ready generosity, however, Dr. Urlichs offered me at once for my own book a number of his notes, which we agreed should be printed in square brackets and marked with his initials H. L. U. Subsequently, however, Dr. Urlichs informed me, to my regret and surprise, that the present edition would block the way for his own accordingly, since he had given us notes, whose value is undeniable, we acceded to his request that his name should be placed as a third on our title-page. In fairness to Dr. Urlichs, I should add that his contributions and his responsibility begin and end with the notes that bear his initials. Besides those scholars who have given me constant and special help, I have to thank Mr. A. S. Murray, M. S. Reinack, and Professor Wilhelm Klein for many friendly hints, Mr. Bernhard Berenson for helping me to a better understanding of passages concerned with the technique of art, and Director G. von Lanbmann for the singular privi- leges accorded to me as a reader in the Royal Library at Munich. Above all am I beholden to my friend Miss K. Jex-Blake, not only for undertaking the translation, but for her liberality in allowing certain readings to be printed, of whose soundness she was not fully convinced. She has also found time, amid the arduous tasks imposed by College lecturing, to compile both Indices, and to assist in the revision of the book throughout. EUGENIE SELLERS. ScHWABiNG, Munich. Jnly, 1896. — CONTENTS PAGE Facsimile of Cod. Bamb. M. V. lo. f. 59 . • facing title Preface vii Introduction xiii 1. Xenokrates of Sikyon xvi 2. Antigonos of Karystos xxxvi 3. DurisofSamos xlvi 4. Literary epigrams Ixviii 5. Heliodoros of Athens baciv 6. Pasiteles of Naples Ixxvii 7. Varro, Cornelius Nepos, and Fabius Vestalis . Ixxxii 8. Mucianus Ixxxv 9. Pliny's own Additions — Roman Museography Retrospect xci Bibliography xcv Manuscripts c Silver-chasing 2 Bronze Statuary 6 Painting 84 Table, showing—A. The Thebano-Attic School 1 { . to face p. 118 B. The Sikyonian School . ) Table, showing—A. The Family of Polykles . toface p. 208 B. The Family of Athanodoros I Modelling 174 Sculpture in Marble 184 Appendix 217 Addenda 229 Index I, of Names of Artists 243 Index II, Museographic 247 PLINY THE ELDER and this too was why he rode in a litter in Rome. I can remember his blaming me for walking ; I need not, he said, have lost those hours, for he thought all time lost that was not given to study. INTRODUCTION The Historia Natiiralis of Pliny was intended not only to embrace the whole of the Natural Sciences, but to consider them in their application to the Arts and Crafts of Civilized Life. Hence it is that in a work, whose title would least suggest it, a short yet complete History of Art finds a logical place within the scheme. To Pliny the arts of chasing in silver and of casting in bronze are simply the indispensable complement of the chapters on metals, while, in the same way, the arts of sculpture, of painting, and of gem-engraving come under the head of kinds of earth and precious stones. Pliny's larger and compacted purpose might thus, on the face of it, seem to condemn this present detachment of the History of Art for separate treatment. But that general commentary on Pliny in the light of modern research, to which the texts of Sillig and L. von Jan were but to serve as preliminaries ^, seems likely, owing to the multifarious contents of the Historia, to remain in the region of unachieved possibilities, if not further away still—in Utopia : il faut plus d'un homtne pour ecrire sur le grand Fline '^. Meanwhile, from the nature of the subject, the Plinian account of Ancient Art and Artists forms an episode sufificiently complete in itself to be made, without further apology, the subject of a special inquiry. In the Dedicatory Letter addressed with the Historia to the co-Emperor Titus, Pliny has himself announced that the ' twenty thousand matters worthy of attention ' contained in the thirty-six volumes of his work were 'gathered from some two thousand books ' ^ ; we must therefore regard his work as nothing more than a compilation from other records, in which personal obser- vation plays no part outside the range of contemporary events.