File:Greek bronzes (1898) (14773561881).jpg

Identifier: greekbronzes00murr (find matches)
Title: Greek bronzes
Year: 1898 (1890s)
Authors: Murray, A. S. (Alexander Stuart), 1841-1904
Subjects: Bronzes, Greek
Publisher: London : Seeley and Co. New York : Macmillan
Contributing Library: Harold B. Lee Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brigham Young University

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y, if we think of the elaborate extent withwhich the cuirass is decorated with patterns, inlaid partly in silver and partlyin a sort of enamel, the leaves of the rosettes being alternately of enameland silver. I take this figure first, because it seems to stand on the borderbetween pure classic workmanship and native art. It has been describedas a portrait of a Roman Emperor or an imperial personage of some sort ;but an insuperable obstacle to its being an imperial Roman is that thehair is bound by a simple ribbon or diadem, whereas the Roman emperorswore wreaths, usually of laurel, until a very late period, when theypreferred rich gold diadems. Clearly the statuette cannot represent aRoman. On the other hand, nothing was more distinctive of a Greekking, from the time of Alexander the Great onwards, than a flat fillet or GREEK BRONZES 87 ribbon worn exactly as on our statuette. That alone is conclusive evidencethat the figure is either Alexander or one of his successors. The portraits
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Fig. 36.—Bronze found at Barking Hall, Suffolk. British Museum. of his successors are known from their coins, and we may fairly exclude them from the running. There remains, therefore, only Alexander himself. We have already spoken of certain portraits of Alexander by Lysippos. 88 GREEK BRONZES One of the attitudes in which he was represented was, as we know, that ofstanding with one foot raised on a rock or such like, the head appearingto be turned a little sidewards so as to conceal his natural defect of acrooked neck. In particular there was one in which he appeared withhis face looking towards the heavens, as he was wont to look, says Plutarch,and turning his neck gently, so that some one on seeing a statue of himin this attitude wrote an epigram to this effect, that the bronze seemed tobe looking towards the heavens and saying, * The earth is under my rule.You, Zeus, hold Olympos. Several other Greek epigrams exist to muchthe same purpose. It is known also that in that instance

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