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The so-called ‘Sardanapalus’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Katharine A. McDowall
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Extract

This interesting type, of which six replicas are known, has received comparatively little attention at the hands of archaeologists. One authority (see Roscher, Lexikon, pp. 1117–8) treats it as an example of a Hellenistic statue of the bearded Dionysos, adducing numismatic evidence for purposes of comparison. There is, however, no evidence of the erection of cultus statues of the Bearded Dionysos either during the later fourth century or the Hellenistic age, and this work alone is quoted as at once the justification and the example of the assertion. Nor can the coins be considered copies of contemporary statues: they are mere types, possibly reminiscences of existing works, certainly nothing more. No better instance of the use made by fourth century die-cutters of a cultus statue could be given than the Olympian Zeus as he appears on the coinage of Alexander compared with the representation on the famous Elean coin of the time of Hadrian.

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Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 24 , November 1904, pp. 255 - 259
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1904

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References

1 (a) Naples. Figured Reinach Têtes antiques,. Pl. 197; Wolters, , Jahrb. 1893, p. 177Google Scholar.

(b) Athens. Einzelnverkauf, No. 714.

(c) Palermo, id. 557.

(d) uffizi. Alinari, 9410 (unpublished).

(e) Vatican. Denkm. No. 381. It is from the inscription incised on this example by a seventeenth century hand that the type has acquired the name of Sardanapalus.

(f) British Museum. Roscher, Lexikon, l.c. Sybel, , Weltgesch. d. Kunst, p. 255Google Scholar.

2 Praxiteles, p. 419.

3 N.H. xxxiv. 69.

4 Einzelnv. Text to No. 557.

5 Têtes antiques, p. 158.

6 Cf. the description of a Praxitelean Dionysos ap Callistratus, , Ecphrasis 8Google Scholar, where he is described as like the Dionysos of the Bacchae, ivy-crowned and clad in a nebris: this was also bronze work and possibly that to which Pliny refers. See also Diod. iv. 5, 2. Δίμορφον δ᾿ αὐτὸν δοκεῖν ὑπἁρχειν διἀ τὸ δύο Διονύσους γεγονέναι #x03C4;ὸν μὲν παλαιὸν καταπώγωνα διὰ τὸ τοὺς ἀρχαίους πάντας πωγωνοτροφεὶν, τὸν δὲ νεώτερον ὡραῖον καὶ τρυφερὸν καὶ νέιν

7 The statue has never been reproduced save in the poor woodcut in Roscher, Lexikon, l.c., and on a small scale in Sybel, Weltgesch. d. Kunst, l.c.

8 Einzelnv. text to NO. 557.

8a Adjectives less applicable to the work of Praxiteles than ‘streng und einfach,’ it would be hard to find.

9 The more dramatic character of the B.M. head, its deep-set eyes and greater depth of modelling in brow and cheeks, are misleading, and due to the copyist, as even the advocates of a Praxitelean original admit.

10 Arndt, Glypt. Ny-Carlsberg, Pl 56. Amelung, Mus. Chiaramonti, Pl 61.

11 Other instances are the Aphrodite ἐν κήποις, published in Rüm. Mitth. 1901, p. 21Google Scholar; the Hope, Albani, and Farnese Athenas; and the ‘Schutzflehende Borghese.’ The hanging sleeve is also characteristic.

12 The same treatment occurs in the Maidens of the Erechtheum.

13 Imhoof, and Gardner, , Num. Comm. Pl CC 5Google Scholar. For the full-length figure reproduced on Athenian coins, see Imhoof and Gardner, ibid, Pl CC, 1–4.

14 None of the replicas have hitherto been reproduced in profile; for permission to have this statue so photographed I am again indebted to Mr. Cecil Smith. The lighting of the statue, in its present position, makes a satisfactory photograph of the profile impossible.

14a Deliberate archaism was, of course, unknown to the age of Praxiteles.

15 The Theatre, though completed by Lyourgus c. 330, belongs in its general design to an earlier age (Gardner, , Ancient Athens, p. 434)Google Scholar. Statues of Dionysos stood in the sanctuary at the back of the stage buildings, as well as in the temples hard by (Paus. i. 20, 3, and Frazer, , Commentary, pp. 212–216)Google Scholar.

16 Plin., N.H. xxxvi. 16Google Scholar.

17 Reisch's, rejection of the coins (Eranos Vindobonensis, p. 10)Google Scholar as too archaic for the Alcamenes statue is now shewn to bo baseless.

18 Daremberg and Saglio, Fig. 2902; Arch. Zeitung, 1858, Pl. cxi.; Denkm. 150.