Sappho and her influenceRobinson, David M. (David Moore)
History
Sappho and her influence
Robinson, David M. (David Moore)
Sappho -- Influence
There must have been statues and busts of Sappho, but so many have
been called Sappho without definite evidence that it is difficult to
know where to stop. We must always bear in mind that early Greek art
in Sappho’s day did not believe in realistic portraiture and that all
representations of Sappho are “study heads,” conceptions of later
artists. The most famous statue mentioned in literature is that by
Silanion, the Greek sculptor of the fourth century B.C., who was so noted
for his Plato and Corinna.[125] We learn from Cicero’s _Oration against
Verres_[126] and from Tatian’s _Complaint against the Greeks or Pagans_
that this bronze statue, on the base of which Cicero was still able to
read the epigram, stood in the prytaneum at Syracuse, perhaps a memorial
of Sappho’s sojourn in Sicily. Cicero tells us that it was stolen by
Verres and praises it highly: “Could this work of Silanion, so perfect,
so refined, so finished, be in fitter hands public or private than those
of a man so refined and cultured as Verres?... And how sorely this stolen
Sappho was missed is almost more than words can tell. Not only was
the poetess exquisitely portrayed, but there was a world-famous Greek
couplet inscribed upon the base.... For the inscription on the empty
base declares to-day what the statue was, thus proclaiming the theft”
(Edmonds).
We know from literature of the existence of two other later statues.
We have spoken (p. 34) of the epigram of Damocharis which refers to
a portrait of Sappho with bright eyes and mixed expression of gaiety
and graveness. An epigram by Antipater[127] (p. 8) is thought to come
from a statue at Pergamum and since part of an inscription found at
Pergamum[128] mentions Alcaeus, it is a plausible conjecture that the
lost portion contained the name of Sappho. This is probably the same
bronze seated statue which in the fifth century A.D. stood in the
gymnasium of Zeuxippus at Constantinople and which is described by
Christodorus in his Greek Anthology:[129] “She seemed to be weaving a
well-hymned song, concentrating her thought on the silent Muses.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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