The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 6 (of 6)Pliny, the Elder
History
The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 6 (of 6)
Pliny, the Elder
Natural history -- Pre-Linnean works
Arcesilaüs,[2472] also, is an artist highly extolled by Varro; who
states that he had in his possession a Lioness in marble of his,
and Winged Cupids playing with it, some holding it with cords, and
others making it drink from a horn, the whole sculptured from a single
block: he says, also, that the fourteen figures around the Theatre
of Pompeius,[2473] representing different Nations, are the work of
Coponius.
I find it stated that Canachus,[2474] an artist highly praised
among the statuaries in bronze, executed some works also in marble.
Saurus,[2475] too, and Batrachus must not be forgotten, Lacedæmonians
by birth, who built the temples[2476] enclosed by the Porticos of
Octavia. Some are of opinion that these artists were very wealthy
men, and that they erected these buildings at their own expense,
expecting to be allowed to inscribe their names thereon; but that, this
indulgence being refused them, they adopted another method of attaining
their object. At all events, there are still to be seen, at the present
day, on the spirals[2477] of the columns, the figures of a lizard and
a frog,[2478] emblematical of their names. In the Temple of Jupiter by
the same artists, the paintings, as well as all the other ornaments,
bear reference to the worship of a goddess. The[2479] fact is, that
when the temple of Juno was completed, the porters, as it is said,
who were entrusted with the carriage of the statues, made an exchange
of them; and, on religious grounds, the mistake was left uncorrected,
from an impression that it had been by the intervention of the
divinities themselves, that this seat of worship had been thus shared
between them. Hence it is that we see in the Temple of Juno, also, the
ornaments which properly pertain to the worship of Jupiter.
Some minute works in marble have also gained reputation for their
artists: by Myrmecides,[2480] there was a four-horse chariot, so small
that it could be covered, driver and all, by the wings of a fly; and by
Callicrates,[2481] some ants, in marble, the feet and other limbs of
which were so fine as to escape the sight.
CHAP. 5. (6.)—AT WHAT PERIOD MARBLE WAS FIRST USED IN BUILDINGS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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