The little figures in Naples, the Louvre, Venice, and elsewhere are
partly recumbent dead figures of Persians, giants, and Amazons, and
partly crouching figures defending themselves. None of the victorious
Greeks seems to have survived, except possibly the torso of a horseman
in the Terme Museum. They are dry, rather hard figures, much inferior
in skill to the larger group and much closer to the bronze originals
which they represent. The head of a dead Persian in the Terme Museum
(Fig. 5) is probably a more worthy copy (on a larger scale) of one of
the figures of this series. Its type of features and its moustache
resemble the Ludovisi Gaul. Another fine Gallic head is in the Gizeh
Museum at Cairo (Fig. 6). This has been often called an original, an
Alexandrian variant of the Gallic dedications. There is, however, no
need to separate it from the others. If it shows more emotion, that
only brings it rather closer to what we know of earlier Pergamene art.
The provenance of the Gizeh head is disputed, and it may be only a
recent importation into Egypt.[24]
We now come to the frieze of the great altar at Pergamon (Fig. 7), the
contribution of Eumenes II to the series of monuments commemorating
the defeats of the barbarians. Here again we have several inscriptions
of artists,[25] which are especially interesting as showing that four
foreign artists of Attic, Ephesian, and Rhodian origin all contributed
to the great monument. It is, however, quite uniform and unique in
character, and shows a _baroque_ exaggeration of expression and of
muscular detail, which in the end becomes monotonous and overpowering.
The slight tendency towards a histrionic attitude, which we noticed in
the Ludovisi Gaul, has now become much more pronounced. Most of the
figures are in stage attitudes of fright, ferocity, attack, or defence.
Their bodies are covered either with drapery in wild disorder, or,
if naked, with massive rolls and lumps of muscle, which are almost
comical in their exaggeration. Their hair is in unrestrained twisted
snaky locks; their faces are distorted in fierce expressions of anger
or alarm; they are in every conceivable attitude of attack or defence.
When we add to this the colossal size of the monument and its figures,
we can well understand how its remains became known to early Christian
writers as the throne of Satan.[26]
[Illustration: 5]
[Illustration: 6]
[Illustration: 7]
[Illustration: 8]
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