/ / 'i-?i ^^r^M ■.>■■■■'■ ■.V-: -¥^: >^\<(I s^;. A , *>^> 'j'«, JU-:? -^^i?' ■*irovement so conspicuous in the technical part of these embodiments of bon'owed ideas. To the Christian and Gnostic classes Fortune has supplied me with many valuable additions which, as regards the first, have considerably increased the list of these monuments of the early ages of the Church — moniiments full of interest, but yet so strangely overlooked by all previous writers upon gems, until five and twenty years ago when I first called attention to them by publishing the very few specimens that were at the time accessible to me. Although more than ever con- vinced by lengthened experience that the specioiis fabric of " Artists' Signatures " had its foundation laid in error and was built up to its present towering height by Fraud and Credulity going hand in hand, yet I have retained mj^ translation of Dr. Brunn's ' Catalogue of Artists,' for the benefit of the multitude naturally unwilling to part with so pleasing a delusion ; as well as of the knowing few who have the best of all reasons to shout with Demetrius the silversmith, " Great is Diana of the Ephesians ! " *' For sure the pleasure is as great In being cheated as to cheat." Trinity College. C- W. KING. Auijugt 5, ISSo. DESCRIPTION OF WOODCUTS IN THE TEXT. Front isju'ece. — The Marlborough Cameo, long kno^vn as " Didius Julian and Manila Scantilla," but now to be restored to the true originals, Commodus and Marcia, for reasons set forth at length in my ' Early Christian Numis- matics,' p. 363. A recent explanation of the subject, as representing Julian the philosopher and Isis, evinces such complete ignorance of the necessary conditions of history, and of the Glyptic Art, that it may be passed by with a smile. (This drawing is made to the exact size of the cameo.) Titlepage. — Victory, advancing, holding out the laurel crown, and in her left the palm-branch. Sard, set in a solid gold ring of truly republican simplicity. Few relics of the kind possess decider historic interest than this, for it was found in the cofSn of a Scipio, and given by Pope Clement XIII. to M. Dutens, tutor to Lord Beverley, on their visit to Eome, shortly after ihe discovery of the burialplace of the Cornelia family. (Alnwick Castle.) Page iii. — Gladiator's Helmet, with palm-branch on each side instead of plume. It has a vizor of novel construction, being in two pieces, the button on each showing that they were intended to be slid laterally together so as to cover the whole face, leaving only a horizontal aperture for the sight. Car- buncle. (S. S. liCwis.) Page vi. — Horse feeding, with the name of his owner, " Heraclidcs." Small sard, set in a silver ring, found at Dover. Page ix. — Clepsydra : the DoljAin serves for index to a revolving dial. Page 3. — A very remarkable type, being the Grecian Hermes in Asiatic costume. He wears the Persian gown (candys), and on his head the leathern helmet (cidaris) ; were it not for the caduceus and the lotus in his hands, and the little wings attached to his ankles, the figure might well pass for an Achajmenian Satrap. Before him stands an eagle instead of Hermes' regular attribute, the cock. Engraved with great minuteness on the base of an octangular cone of sappharine calcedony. (New York.) Page 8. — The Drunken Hercules steadying himself with one hand placed upon his club. Greco-Bactrian work, a most instructive specimen of the transition of the bold Hellenic style into Puranic softness. The legend iu Bactrian Pali (not yet read) doubtless gives the owner's name. Intaglio iu a very fine sard, the history of which illustrates a curious phase in the progress of forgery. A cast from the intaglio came into the hands of the clever (no longer " mild ") Hindoo now so busily at work in supplying the viii VESCRIPTION OF WOODCUTS IN THE TEXT. demaiuls of Indian aicha^ologists. He has used it for the tyi)e of a sohd gold ring ; but unaware that the irregularity at the foot was due to the fracture of the sard, he has represented the swelling in the wax by a corresponding indentation of the gold beasil. I have ah-eady seen two such rings, exact counterparts of each other, and which have imposed upon collectors of much experience. Let the rest take warning. (General Pearse.) Pacje 11. — The most aiicient exami)le of a genuine Hebrew inscription to be found on a gem ; being probably as old as tlio 5lh century of our era. The type is the Liilab, the bunch of palm, olive, and willow, and the Esthropp, citron, which are carried by the Jews at the Foast of Tabernacles, and therefore are assumed as the national emblem. Of the various readings proposed for the rudely cut legend, I prefer that of the celebrated Hobrewist, Dr. Ginsberg, who makes it to be "Hillel Rabbi, bar Mosheh," i.e., the Kabbl Hillel, son of Moses. Brown garnet. (Hertz, now British Museum.) Fafje 19. — The Five Heroes in council. See pp. 17, 29. Page 30. — Frog : the seal-device of MecfBuas. If Isaac Taylor bo right in interpreting his Etruscan, name, MAIKNE, as Frog-man (analogous to the Italian "Eanuccio"), the great statesman had put in his seal a rebus on his name, after the so common fashion of his contemporaries. Calcodony scaraba3us. (Praun.) Page 33. — Lion, pulling down a Bull. The national Phoenician device typifying the power of the sun upon the earth. Sard scarabajus. (Praun.) Page 37. — Head of Hercules encircled with a wreath of his own tree, the poplar. A work in the bold, heavy manner of the Greco-Egyptian school. Sard, from the collection of Giovanni di Uimitrio. (New York.) Page 70. — A Christian intaglio, of very early date, apparently representing the Call of an Apostle. Christ, whose character is distinctly made known by the letters placed in the field above him, is seen, by his gesture, summoning a man, who seemingly holds back, whilst another, on the other side, appears to be hastening away to do his Master's bidding. The mystic meaning of the legend IX6YC will be found explained at p. 74 ; but it may be added here, that according to the great authority of Pashi (dec. 1105) the " Fish " does not stand for the Messiah himself, but for Leviathan, whose flesh is to be served up at the grand feast to be held at his coming. lied jasper. (S. S. Lewis.) Page 122. — Head of the Chimajra : being that of a lion armed with the horns of a goat : a condensed expression of the comjiositc figure in that monster. The two letters in the field are the beginning of the owner's name, cut short as was the early rule for Grecian signatures. A beautiful example of the Asiatic-Greek style. Yellow sard, from the Beckford Cabinet. Page 133. — Psyche, stealthily opening the Box of I^eauty, intrusted to her by Proserpine to carry to Venus. On her so doing, a ^wisonous vapour issues from it which throws her into a death-like swoon. There is extreme diversity in tlie merit of the Poniatowsky Gems ; many being weak in design, and vile in execution : others, again, perfect in both respects, as this specimen shows, but in conccptiDn and treatment totally differing from the antique. Amethyst. (New York.) Page 1.50. — Eleiiliant, emerging fmni n simil-sli' 11 : muc "I the cleverest of DESCBIPTION OF WOODCUTS IN THE TEXT. ix these fanciful unions of the most inconsistent elements : the object of which was to surprise. The letters in the field are no more than the owner's initials. Sard, (New York.) Page 100. — Antique intaglio of a lion, set in a })rivate seal of the 13th century, as may be deduced from the Lombardic lettering of the legend. Tlie words " Ira Eegia, &c." refer to a verse of Solomon's : " The wrath of a king is as the roaring of a lion ; " hence we may suppose the jewel to have served for talisman to a courtier. Drawn to the actual size. Page 179. — Girl, with dishevelled hair, advancing on tip-toe, amidst a profusion of floating drapery. This figure has hitherto passed for a Maenad in Bacchic frenzy — but as she carries none of the indispensable symbols of Dionysiac worship, neither the thyrsus nor the ivy-wreath, she can be no other than a dancing-girl, Juvenal's "choro Gaditana canoro:'' clothed, or rather, unclothed, in the transparent loose gauze, which this representation shows to have really merited its name of " Ventus textilis." Plasma of the finest quahty, and uncommon size. (Praun.) Page 200. — Bust of Vahrahran Kermanshah : upon his tiara is emblazoned the symbol known as the Standard of the Empire. Drawn to double the size from the masterpiece of Sassanian art, the Devonshire Amethyst. Page 282.— The Philoctetes of Boethus. (Beverley.) Page 287. — Head of the Etruscan Jupiter. (Blacas.) TRIUMPH OF LIOINIUS. ( Vide p 50.) (From Uuiiiv's ' Ifistoire liomainc,' vii. p. •_'7.) [To face p. i. A HANDBOOK OF ENGRAVED GEMS. HISTORY OF THE GLYPTIC ART. The prophet Enoch has recorded (viii. 1) that it was Azazyel, the chief of the angels who took unto themselves wives from among the daughters of men, who first taught " the use of stones of every valuable and select kind ; " and although the " seventh from Adam " is no longer regarded as a canonical authority, yet history and archaeology combine to point out the first cradle of the human race as the region where originated the notion of ajiplying stones, recommended by their beauty of appearance, to the purposes of personal decoration, and of serving for signets. It is a remarkable fact that, whilst the old Greek mythologists have ascribed to some particular divinity, or hero of their race, the authorship of almost every other useful or ornamental art, and of the instruments employed therein (as of ship-building and of the loom to Pallas, of the saw and the auger to Daedalus, of the working in metal with the hammer and anvil to Cinyras the Cyprian, of the lathe to Theodorus of Samos, &c.), they should have left unnoticed the inventor of the several processes employed by the glyptic art. And this neglect is the more surprising, from the art being, according to their habits of thought, of such extreme importance, and this infinitely more on account of its siibservience, during the greater part of its flourishing existence, to the uses of public and private life, than to the mere gratification of taste and the love of the Beautiful. This silence on the part of the Greek mythographcrs, ever ready as they were to claim for their own countrymen the credit of every discovery in science or invention in manufacture (even when manifestly due to foreigners, and merely naturalised and perfected upon Hellenic soil), sufficiently declares both the undenial)ly exotic origin of the art of engraving upon gems, and B 2 mSTOL'Y OF TEE QLYPTIC ART. also its comparatively recent introduction into Greece and Italy. The negative testimony, too, of Homer upon this point is justly adduced by Pliny (xxxiii. 4) in proof of the same thing. He observes that no mention whatever of signet rings is to bo discovered amongst that poet's minute descriptions of ornamental jewels, altliough he particularly specifies ear-rings, necklaces, and hair-cauls, the work of the Olympic court-jeweller, Vulcan. In fact, it is apparent that gems, even in their native state, were totally unknown to Homer; amber (and possibly pearls, in the solitary instance of Juno's rpiyXrjva, " triple-eyed " ear-rings) are the sole materials, besides gold, that enter into the composition of his jewelry ; and yet ho describes it with great exactness, and with an evident appreciation of the artistic skill displayed in its workmanship ; for example, when he vividly picti;res to lis the brooch of Ulysses chased with the group of a hound pulling down a " sorely-panting fawni," " which all gazed at with wonder to see how the two, though formed in gold, seemed, the one barking as he throttled the deer, the other, struggling to get loose, kept beating with her fore-feet" (Od. xix, 227). Bvit it is a truth that the real precious stones were till long after but little known to the Greeks, before, first, Asia was opened up to them by their intercourse, both hostile and amicable, with the Persians, and subsequently by the conquests of Alexander. Again, a still more convincing proof that signets were not in use with the Greeks in the Homeric age, is that whenever the poet has occasion to speak of the securing of treasures, that end is always effected by the means of an artfully-tied knot, the unfastening of which is only understood by its maker ; not by the imposition of a seal, in after times the regular substitiite for a lock amongst both Greeks and Eomans. Furthermore, the treacherous letter carried by Bellerophon to lobates has no seal upon it that is mentioned, it is simply called " a folded tablet ; " and, again, when the heroes cast lots, before the duel with Hector, it is done with marked sticks, and not witli the signet-ring of each, which became the established method after the latter ornament had come into general use. Later poets, indeed, transfer to the Heroic ages the customs of their own times; the dread of an anachronism being a feeling of purclj' modem growth. Sophocles, for example, makes Elcctra recognise her brother Orestes upon his producing the signet of his father Agamemnon : " Art tliou thru be?" " Cast but tliiiic eye on ihin, My thtlicr's aeat, and learn if I s] eak trulb." HOMERIC JEWELRY. 3 And similarly the Theseus of Euripides efclaims, on beholding Phaedra's accusing letter, discovered by him upon her corpse, — " And lo ! the impress of tlie gold- wrought signet Of her that is no more salutes mine eye." But the Athenian poets, as just remarked, never troubled themselves about archseological accuracy. In fact, Lessing, in his dissertation upon the famous " Eing of Polycrates," boldly maintains that the Greeks did not begin to wear signet-rings at all before the date of the Peloponnesian War (b.c. 431). In this he is probably correct, if his dictum be restricted, in our sense of the word, to the actual ring, containing the engraved gem, the true signet, acfypajLs. For had it been a regular fashion with his countrymen, at the time when Herodotus flourished, to wear the engraved stone set in a ring upon the finger, that observant traveller would have noticed as a striking peculiarity in the Babylonian customs (fond as he was of j)utting down such like contraventions of Grecian manners) their mode of wearing the signet, " which every man there possessed," by means of a string suspended from the wrist or nech. His silence on this point proves that he passed the fashion over unnoticed, as a matter of course, and familiar to him at home. JIISTOEY OF THE GLYPTIC ART. II. But if from Greece we turn to Asia, signets appear as far back as historic records exteml, holding a highly-important jjlaco in the usages of the most antique amongst civilized nations, the Assyrians and the Egyptians. Wo find the signet of Judah the Syrian jtledged as a security for a promised payment; that of King rharaoh given to Joseph as a badge of his investiture with vicarious authority ; the treasure-chamber of Ehampsinitus secured by the impression of his seal (Herod, ii. 121); the temple of Belus sealed up with the signet of Darius ; the stone closing in the den of lions and their fellow-prisoner Daniel sealed "with the signet of the same king, and with the signet of his nobles," &c. All these circumstances declare that this contrivance for securing property had been kn'OAvn in the East from time immemorial ; in fact, was almost coeval with the very institution of the right of property. For it must be remembered that in both these centres of primaeval civilization, the plastic clay of the two parent rivers, the Tigris and the Nile, supplied the inhabitants with the material for almost all their requirements — their houses, store-vessels, memorandTim- books, historical monuments, and, lastly, their coffins. The idea, therefore, must naturally have suggested itself to the first individual who deposited his property in a closed vessel, that it might be protected against pilferers by a plaster of clay laid round the junction of the lid, and rolled flat with the joint of a reed. Hence the first origin of the perforated cylinder, of which the bit of reed was the true prototype, both as to its form and its mode of application, and way of carriage. Something analogous to this is to be met with even in Grecian usage, and as late as the times of Aristophanes, who makes Euripides recommend to suspicious husbands similar nature-signets ("worm-eaten bits of wood") as seals proof against all forgery, to which the more elaborate productions of the gem-engraver were then so much exposed. From the natural markings njion the reed- joint, or the fantastically perforated wood, emi)loyed to impress the clay, the transition was easy to some definite device scratched around the circumference of the former by the owner, and appropriated to himself as his own peculiar mark. This instinct of possession extending itself to the assumi)tion of exclusive ownership in certain configurations of lines, or rude delineations fjf natural objects, is a universal impulse of num's nature, and one found existing amongst all savage nations when first discovered. EARLY EXISTENCE OF SIGNETS. 5 wheresoever the faintest traces of social life and polity have ooguii to develop themselves. Thus the Red Indian has, besides the mark of his tribe, that of the individual (his totem) wherewith to identify his own property or the game he may kill. The South Sea Islander carries the tattooed j^attern (amoco) that distinguishes his particular family imprinted in his skin, and also draws the same upon his credentials, like a regular coat of arms. These simple signets, with their artless carvings, preceded by a long space the invention of hieroglyphics, or any other arbitrary mode of denoting ideas ; for the earlier Assyrian cylinders present nothing but rude human and animal figures, or else religious symbols engraved upon them, and never exhibit the cuneiform legends that so commonly illustrate the design upon those belonging to a more advanced stage of civilization. And yet even this later date is anterior by several generations to the first appearance of anything like an engraved gem amongst the nations of Europe. Again, if we look towards Egypt, the incredible abundance of scarahsei, formed of terra-cotta glazed, or of a soft stone, of the same period with the primitive cylinders, still re- maining above ground (and how small a tithe these of the millions still buried !), strikingly demonstrates the long-established use, and the great importance of the purposes for which they were there employed. And this was amongst the inhabitants of the land that ever boasted itself the true fountain-head of all ancient civilization. In fact, the vast quantities in which scarabaji must have been manufactured during the entire continuance of Egyptian indepen- dence, has been sagaciously accounted for by a theory founded upon an expression of Plato's, in his ' Eryxias,' " in Ethiopia they use engraved stones instead of money," that they passed amongst the natives as representatives of trifling values, in lieu of small change (larger sums being paid in rings of gold and silver), like the earthen and leather tokens of early Rome recorded by Suidas, or the cowries of our own times amongst the natives of Hindostan. And speaking of the latter, by a singular coincidence, these coAvries are actually manufactured in china at our potteries for exportation thither, it having been discovered that the artificial shell can be supplied in sufficient quantities more cheaply than the natural one ; another point of analogy to the use above suggested as the real object of the terra-cotta scarabaji. n I STORY OF THE OLYrTIC ABT. 111. Thus far, hoAvever, wo have come upon no traces, in these earliest of signets, of the true process of gem-engraving, for all the designs they bear have been incised by means of some cutting- instrument, whether flint or bronze, capal)le of operating upon a comparatively soft material. Herodotus (vii. 69) describes the Ethiopian contingent, in the host of Xerxes, as equipped with reed-arrows tipped with the stone, sharpened to a point, " by means of which they engrave their seals." Arrows, flint-headed, found in the mummy-pits certify us of what kind this stone was. The first Assyrian cylinders were made of serpentine, green or red ; a material recommended by its pleasing colour, susceptibility of fine polish, and facility of carving ; the first Egyptian scarabaii are in steaschist, a cognate material, and prized for the same qualities, or else in glazed terra-cotta. The actual invention of the true art of gem-engraving (the incising a gem by means of a drill charged with the powder of a harder mineral) is undoubtedly due to the seal-cutters of Nineveh, and that at a date shortly preceding the times of Umkh; that is as early as the year B.C. 2000. This is the era at which cylinders begin to make their appearance in the so-called " Hard Stones " (better termed by the French Pierres Fines) — onyx, agate, calcedony, crystal — covered with engravings execTited in precisely the same style with the Archaic Greek intagli, and marked by the same minuteness of detail and elaborateness of finish. The delicate execution of the best eng-ravino-s referable to this period manifests that their authors had already invented the use of the diamond-point applied in the manner described by Pliny : " These minute splinters [of the crushed diamond] gem-engravers greatly value, and mount them in an iron tool; there being nothing so hard tliat tliey will not hollow out with facility." And the same instrument is distinctly referred to in the most venerable of all liistorical records : " The sin of Israel is written with a pen of ijon, and with the point of a diamond; it is graven on the table of their hearts" (Jer. xvii. 1), The })assage (evidently allusive to the stones of the High Priest's breast})late) is more correctly rendered by Jerome : " Stylo ferreo in nngue adamantine : " the adamas of those primitive times being beyond all question tlie corundum, the great agent of the Hindoo la])idary to the present day. Amongst their woiks, the signet of Sennacherib (nijw preserveicture uf the rriucc of 1'ynis : " The anointed cherul> that covereth — thon tliat sealest np the sum, full of wisdom, perfect iu beauty," set him before us as blazing in jewels ; " Thou hast been in Eden, the garden of God, every precious stone was thy covering," proceeding to enumerate the sard, topaz, and jasper; the chrysolite, onyx, and beryl ; the siipphire, carbuncle, and emerald. Or as Jerome more truly renders the ])assage, the Prince is termed " signaculum similitudinis," " the impression (or seal) of the Divine image;" he also gives " chrysolithus " {Oriental topaz) where our version has " diamond ; " and his authority as to the Latin equivalents to the Hebrew terms of the sort is deserving, from the circumstances of his period and opportunities, of the ver^'' greatest respect. Before quitting the subject of material it may be appropriately added here, that in the age of Alexander, the Greeks already possessed (as the descriptive list compiled by Theophrastus puts beyond question) all the true precious stones (except the diamond), including the real Indian ruby. Even without his authority the inspection of the Etruscan and Greek jewelry, brought to light of late years, would tell us as much, for these relics exhibit unmistak- able, though minute, specimens of the native ruby, sapphire, and emerald. ASSYHIAN DESIGN, V. The affinity between the Assyrian style of Design and that of Archaic Greek Art, as exhibited in all its remains, cannot but strike every one who examines each with intelligence. The subjects, for example, that decorate the earliest Greek vases, the sole existing specimens of the painting of their times, are purely Assyrian both in nature and in treatment. They consist entirely of sphinxes, gryphons, harpies, and similar composite monsters such as were being contemporaneously depicted upon the walls, " portrayed in vermilion," of Susa and Persepolis. In this branch, therefore, of art, the parentage of the Grecian is sufficiently obvious : that of the special subject of this inquiry shall be indicated in its proper place. Neither must it be overlooked that Pliny, going upon ancient tradition, asserts that Grecian sculplura in marble (in contradistinction to the more ancient statuaria in bronze) was invented by Scyllis and Dercyllides, in Crete, whilst that island still belonged to the Persian dominions. There is therefore nothing to surprise us in the Persepolitan air of the Metopes of Selinus, or even in much of the Eginetan marbles. It only remains to be noticed here that the Greek art of vase- painting became known to the Etruscans at an early period of their establishment in Italy as a distinct nationality, a fact shadowed forth in the legend concerning the two companions of Demaratus upon his emigration from Corinth to Tarquinii ; they were the painter Eugrammos, and the potter Eucheir. Nevertheless the Etruscans found it more convenient in general to make use of the Grecian manufacture, which may either have been imjiorted as an article of commerce through Tarquinii, Ardea, and other maritime towns ; or else (a theory serving better to explain certain existing facts) the ware was made in the country by a colony of Greek potters there domiciled, particularly in the district about Vulci. Proportionally few vases, and those in artistic value far below the rest, are inscribed with legends in the Etruscan language. Such examples, when they do occur, supply a trust- worthy criterion for distinguishing between the Greek and the Etruscan fabrique. Out of the innumerable vases found at Vulci, not more than three (according to K. 0. Miiller) present indubitably Etruscan inscriptions ; and the total number of such knoAvn to exist, says Millingen, amounts only to seven. A singular contrast this to the lesson taught us by the bronze mirrors, that specially national manufacture, where a true Greek inscription amongst the 10 HISTOHY OF THE GLYPTIC ART. hundreds of Etrnscan now collected, would form, if over discovered, a most interesting exception. The Etruscans were the great metal-workers of the ancient world, favoured as they were with the possession of the inexhaustible copper-mines of Monte Catino. Even in the age of Socrates they maintained their pre-eminence for the making of gold plate and " of all hrouze vessels required either for domestic use or ornament," as his disciple Critias informs us in a fragment of a poem preserved liy Athenteus. In the latter manufacture they continued to compete Avitli Greece long after art had Leon fully perfected there, for Horace alludes to the " Tyrrhena sigilla," or bronze statuettes, as being held in as high estimation by the dilettanti of the Augustan age as now by those of our own. These, too, were the " Signa Tuscanica " of Pliny, mentioned by him as then diffused all over the civilized world. Besides, the Etruscan statuaries were capable of the boldest flights ; the same author cites their colossus of Apollo, fifty feet high, standing then in the Palatine Library ; and is at a loss which most to admire, the excellence of the workmanship or the beauty of the metal. VI. But to return to gem-engraving. The Egyptians did not generally adopt the improved but more laborious process by that time established in the ateliers of Nineveh or Babylon, but continued the practice of carving or chiselling out their rude hieroglyphics upon the softer materials until the times of the Ptolemies. The signets of their kings and great men were engraved in gold, those of the commonalty upon the easily-worked substances, a fine limestone and steaschists of various colours, and in the manner already described. The circumstance that even in the age of Theophrastus the best material (ciKovai) used in engraving gems was still brought all the way from Armenia, })oints of itself to that (piartcr as the locality where the use of that agent was first discovered and generally adoi)ted by the jn-actitioners of the art. This new method of rendering available for signets even the " hard stones," although neglected by the Egyjitians, was speedily taken up by the ingenious Phoenicians, the allies or tributaries of the Assyrian and the Persian kings. In attestation of tliis, many seals are found, Egyptian indeed, in foiin, being regular scaraba'i, but purely Phoenician in style and subjects, lliough of a very early date, and bearing also inscrij)ti<»ns in the Semitic character, of PIKENICIAN ART. 11 which that j)eople were the first inventors. There are even some cylinders known that, from similar reasons, must be assigned to the Phoenician school. Their traders may have diffused the knowledge of this as well as of other decorative arts amongst the European and insular Greeks. Homer alludes to the Tyrian merchant-ships voyaging about amongst the islands of the iEgean sea, and trafficking in ornaments and jewelry with their inhabitants. His Tyrian captain offers for sale to the Queen of Syi'a a necklace of gold with pendants in amber ; the latter proljably carved into scaraba3i, or such like symbolical figui-es, as they so frequently occur in similar ornaments of the Etruscan ladies (Od. xv. 460). The Asiatic Greeks, however, who seem to have flourished as independent communities previous to the reign of Croesus (noted by Herodotus as the first subjugator of the lonians) learnt this art, simultaneously with the Phoenicians, from their Assyrian neigh- bours, to whom they were indebted as pointed out above, for all the other arts of design. Like the vase-paintings, the first intagli produced amongst the inhabitants of the sea- board of Asia Minor, bear the unmistakable impress of a Niuevitish or Babylonian origin in their stiffly-drawn, carefully-executed figures of animals ; lions or bulls, for the most part, supplying the device for the signet of the newly-planted iEolian or Ionian colonist. And such a restriction was to be looked for in this class, for it will be observed that the designs upon the scaraba?i of the Phoenicians also deviate but little from the strict rules of the Assyrian code of art ; a point which of late years has been remarkably illustrated by the numerous engraved gems brought to light in the cemeteries of their most ancient European colony, Tharros in Sardinia. But the Phoenicians were an imitative, not an inventive race : thus they fabricated jewelry and porcelain ornaments in the Egyptian style for the Etruscan trade, copying the hieroglyphics of their patterns with precisely the same degree of intelligence as a Birmingham manufacturer evinces in his now so fashionable caricatures of antique medals. 12 HISTORY OF THE GLYPTIC ART YII. From Asia Minor to Greece Proper the transition of fashion was expetlititms, and the signet, now for the first time worn nionnted as a Jinger-ring, c'Mno into universal favonr amongst all the Hellenic population. This was a new method for securing the engraved stone ; for the original inventors of seal-engraving had worn and continued to wear, down to the very close of their history (even to the date of the Arabian conquest), the cylinder or the conical seal as the ornament of the bracelet or the necklace. In fact, the curious necklace regularly borne by gods and royal personages in Assji'ian sculptures appears to be entirely made up of cylinders separated by round beads. This explanation is supported by the practice, doubtless traditionary, of the Arab women of thus utilising, as an adjunct to other beads, all the antique cylinders picked up by them in the ruins of Hilleh, Khorsabad, &c. ; a fashion which, until lately, was the only source supplying archaeologists with these interesting relics. This primitive mode of carrying about one's signet seems, as the negative testimony of Herodotus above quoted shows, to have been in the first instance the usual one with the Asiatic Greeks ; they had, however, modified the shape of the gem into the scnraheeid, an elliptical disc convex at the back and perforated through its axis ; a con- venient pattern, the mean between the Persian cone and the Egyptian scaraba3us. This fashion appears to have been first devised and made jiopular by that practical people the Phcenicians, to judge from its general use for signets, wliose devices are in their national style. Its general adoption by the lonians is established by one conclusive example upon a painted vase (figured by Visconti). Jupiter himself appears with his imperial signet thus shaped and tied round his wrist with a fine string. Mythologists told an ingenious fable to account for the origin of the finger-ring. Jove, upon loosing the Titan Prometheus from the bonds to which he had been condemned to eternity, obliged him as a peifietual penance, as an equivalent to his original sentence, to wear for ever upon his finger a link of the chain enchased with a fragment of the Caucasian rock of torture. Thus ornamented, Catullus introduces him at the Wedding of Peleus (1. 295). " Came wise Prometheus ; on his hand he wore The slcntler synihol of his doom of yore, Wliiii fettered fast with adamantine cliaiii Iluug from the craggy stceji, lie groaned in endless pain." FINGER SINGS. 13 That this invention shoukl be ascribetl to Prometheus, a Grecian hero, and its designation 8a/cTi;Aios, a word of native origin (unlike those of many other personal ornaments evidently of a foreign root, fjiavLOLKr}^ i//cAXtov, for examjile), are considerations going far to prove that this latest and most permanent fashion was purely an innovation of the Greeks. Besides this, we have the express statement of Pliny (xxxiii. 4), that the use of the finger-ring was introduced amongst the Eomans from Greece. " E Grecia fuit origo unde hie annulorum usus venit." The comparative lateness of the fashion is also indicated by the fact that all Greek intagli in the Archaic manner are found upon gems shaped as scaraba^ids. Even actual scaraba^i have been discovered in the Greek islands ; and although many of these may have been imported by Phoenician or Etruscan traders and colonists, yet a few are knoM^n of indis- putably Hellenic origin. The strange corruption of the commonest Greek names to be seen on the most finished works of the Etruscan engraver betrays the efibrts of an Oriental tongue to express sounds entirely new to it in a novel alphabet, w^hereas the very rare scarabaii in question exhibit the names of their proprietors, written according to the correct though antiquated spelling, intended to read from right to left on the impression — a convincing proof of their very early date. Of these, the finest examples are the one with the type of a beetle with exjjanded wings, reading in boldly-cut characters AAITN03<^>1, discovered by Fiulay the historian in a tomb in Egina ; and another from the plain of Troy, finely engraved with a girl kneeling at a fountain, with the name 20NOME2. But whatever their nature, signets of some sort or other must have been in general use amongst the Greeks 600 years before our era ; for, shortly after that date, we find Solon enacting, amongst his other laws, that the gem-engravers (already, therefore, constitu- ting a distinct profession) should not keep by them the copy of any signet once sold. The object of this regulation was to prevent the fradulent use of another person's seal through the obtaining a counterpart of the same from its engraver. About this date also Herodotus mentions the famous emerald signet of Polycrates, and the celebrity of the man who engraved it, Theodorus the Samian, as a jeweller and a worker in metal. It may be remarked here that this island, Samos, was the focus of the glyptic art, as far as Greece was concerned. According to the records, now lost, to which Apuleius had access (Florid, ii. 15), Mnesarchus, the father of Pytliagoras (b.c. 570), "amongst the sedentary artists working there, sought rather for fame than for riches by engraving gems in the most skilful manner." 14 HISTORY OF THE OLYPTIO ART. VIII. The Etniscaus, or, as they caUcd tliemselves, the Rasence, wore of a race very distinct from the Hellenic, as their language proves, which has more analogy to the Armenian than to any other, although there is no douht that Lydia was their latest seat, and their ruling family of Assyrian stock, for the Icings styled them- selves Snndonidse as the descendants of Sanclon, the Hercules of the Babylonians. Nevertheless, they speedily adopted Hellenic culture and art, and that to an extent infinitely greater than any other foreign race in those remote times. The cause was due apparently to the colony of Pelasgic Tyrrhenes, driven out of Southern Lydia (Torrhebis), and which settled in Italy around the cities of Ca3re and Tarquinii. The latter place long maintained its rank as the metropolis of the Etruscan confederation, and ever remained the principal channel through which Greek civilization floAved into the rest of the country, chiefly from Corinth, the city of potters and metal-chasers. Besides, the Etruscans acquired much that was Hellenic through their intercourse with the Dorian colonies in Lower Italy, especially after they had themselves gotten a settle- ment at Vulturnum and Nola ; as well as, still later, by their direct trade with Corinth and Phoca^a. This wealthy and luxurious nation (infamous on both accounts amongst the poor and ever-envious Greeks, as the stories Timaeus retails about their licentious manners sufiicieiatly indicate) were eager to decorate their persons by every means imaginable, and consequently were passionate lovers of jewelry. From the earliest period of their national existence they gave employment to a multitude of engravers in " fine stones." The majority of the sulijects upon their gems, and particularly those the most archaic in style, are proved by the localities where they are discovered so plentifully now, and still more by the strangely-distorted spelling of the Greek names in the legends occurring upon some of their number, to be beyond all question Etruscan Avorks, and not old Greek imported from abroad, as some archaeologists have endea- voured to establish. These intagli display the steps l)y which the art advanced, from the production of figures composed entirely by the juxtaposition of drill-liolcs up to those executed in the most elaborate and highly finished manner, and which exhibit marked vestiges of the extensive employment of the diamond-point. In the highest style attained to by the Etruscans, their gem-work combines a wonderful delicacy ETRUSCAN STYLE. 15 of execution with a love for violent action and an exaggerated drawing of the muscular parts of the figures introduced — consider- ations that often seem to have dictated the choice of the subjects. The distinctive character of art amongst the early Greeks and the Etruscans cannot be better described than by quoting the masterly definition of Winckelmann's when treating of the famous Tydeus of Stosch's cabinet (Pierres Gravees, p. 348) : — " Carnelian. Tydeus, one of the seven heroes of the Argive League against Thebes, who, having received a wound, is plucking the dart out of his right leg ; with his name in Etruscan characters 3TVT. If the intaglio of the Five Heroes be, as I have stated, the most ancient monument of the art in general, this gem is assuredly one displaying the highest perfection of the same art amongst the Etruscans. It is executed with a precision and delicacy which yield in no point to the finest Greek engravings. Here we are enabled to do more than merely form conjectures as to the state in which the art was at that period ; nay, can decide upon it, as it Avere, without risk of error, and by combining the lights furnished to us by the other Etruscan monuments, we can determine by the means of this figure of Tydeus the character and the peculiarities of design among the Etruscans. "The proi:)ortions of the figure in general are here already estab- lished upon the rides of harmony deduced by them from the study of Nature in her finest forms ; and the figure is finished and easy to quite the same degree as the most beautiful Grecian statues. The engraver's profound knowledge of anatomy is everywhere con- spicuous, each part is in its own place and is marked out with sure- ness ; and in truth the subject chosen by the artist was of a character to display the entire extent of the study he had pursued of Nature. The acute pain felt by Tydeus and the efforts that he makes to pull the dart out of his leg demanded an attitude full of violence, with all the muscles in motion and under irritation. And this was precisely the limit of the skill of the master, who had not advanced as yet as far as the notion of Ideal Beauty. In fact, the head of Tydeus presents neither nobleness nor elevation of feeling, the idea of it is borrowed from ordinary nature. Another defect is that by the effort of the artist to show off so ostentatiously the whole of his anatomical knowledge, he has become exaggerated and stiff; all the parts are too strongly marked; and though the pain by which Tydeus was agitated demanded that the muscles should be swollen, yet the bones are too distinctly shown and the joints too loose and strained. To give an idea of all this to such as may not have the opportunity of seeing the gem or even the IG HISTORY OF THE OLTPTIC ART. iinprossitm, I vouturo to comparo this figure witli tlio drawing of M. Angelo : thoro is the same relation between the manner of onr figm'c with the Greek as between the drawing of M. Angelo and ftaelo's. Tlie drawing, however, in this work mnst not bo regarded as a perstnial pecnliarity of the artist individnally ; the stiffness of the outline and the exaggerated rendering of the parts was the character of Etruscan art in general. " The arts make their way towards perfection by means of exactitude and precision ; but these two (]ualities are liable to go astray wherever they are coupled with the defects I have just particularised, and the eagerness* of the artist to display his knowledge does not always confine itself within the bounds of simplicity. The exaggerated style of M. Angelo depends i;pon these causes ; and (not to refer it to the national genius) it was these very caii&es that formed the characteristics of the Etruscan artists. Although it be true that amongst the Greeks design only attained to its sublime elevation by passing through the same gradations, it must be remarked that the circumstances were very ditferent ; by the time that the arts were in their fullest perfection in Greece, the Etruscans were worn out by continual wars, and at last remained subjugated by the Eomans. It is therefore probable that even had the manners and form of government among the Etruscans been as well adapted to favour the progress of the arts as they were among the Greeks, yet the complete perfection of art amongst the former people was rendered impracticable, inasmuch as its accomplishment was cut short by the fall of their comn^on- wealth. Such is the judgment which the examination of this intaglio induces us to pass." A summary of the remarks of the same great critic upon the more complicated design of ' The Five Heroes before Thebes,' will render this portion of our subject complete : — " The reader niTist bo apprized at starting that this stone is not only the most ancient monument of the art of the Etruscans, but also of art in general. For the shajies of the characters and the spelling of the words differ much from the ordinary Etruscan usage, and approximate more to the Pelasgic language, which is regarded liy tlio learned as the mother as well of the Etruscan as of the Greek. " In the next place, the engraving is executed with extra- ordinary carefulness, and exhibits a degree of finish far beyond one's preconceived idea of the productions of so remote a period. It is in this respect that it authorises us to judge, on sure grounds, of the ' First Manner ' of the art of design. In fact, this gem, with flic Tydeus, comprehends, so to speak, tlie complete SA'stem WINOKELMANN — " THE FIVE HEROES." 17 of Etruscan art ; and the knowledge to be derived from them is much more to be relied upon than that furnished by the urns and painted vases which are only the productions of artists of an inferior rank. " We discover in the Five Heroes the drawing of a master who belonged to a period when the Beautiful was not the primary object of art, as neither was it with the Greeks at the date of the earliest medals of Syracuse, Messina, Crotona, Athens, and other states, which subsequently all distinguished themselves by their inimitable coinage. The expression in the heads, which is very commonplace and without any individuality, justifies us in forming this judgn:ient. " Similarly the due proportions of the bodies were not as yet established : we perceive that the heads of our heroes are certainly larger than the seventh part of the entire figure. Consequently this period was the same one wherein architecture had not attained to those elegant proportions in columns that constitute all the beauty of them : vpitness the temples of Pesto, or Girgenti, and one of the temples in Attica. Lastly, there did not at that time exist any idea of beautiful variety in the grou^^ing : Tydeus and Polynices are placed the one next to the other in the same attitude ; and the latter, being opposite to Amphiaraus, is seated exactly like him without the least variation in the pose. The folds in the draperies of Parthenopasus and Polynices are parallel to one another, and of the same thickness — an indubitable characteristic of the most ancient style. " Nevertheless the artists belonging to that primitive age of art very well understood the material of the human figure ; and at least they knew how to draw those portions thereof in which nothing is left to the imagination. The feet here are drawn w^ith elegance, and the ankle, notwithstanding the minuteness of the figures, is indicated upon them without harshness, nay, with grace ; we even can discern the veins in the arm of Polynices. Amphiaraus has his breast protuberant exactly as we see him represented in statues in the finest style. " The extreme finish of the engraving is likewise a proof that skill in the mechanical part of the art reached its jierfection long before artists had attained to beanty in the drawing — an ob- servation applicable to the works of the painters preceding Raftaele, for their pictures are very highly finished. This gem, therefore, holds the same place amongst other engraved gems that Homer does amongst the poets ; no collection can boast of possessing another monument, in the way of engraving, equally valuable, " This gem would supply many illustrations of the science 18 HISTOBY OF THE GLYPTIC ART. of archa.'ology, but ■vvliieli woiilil ovei'iiass the limits vliieh our plan obliges tis to observe. For instance, the shield of Amphiarans has two grooves in the sides, after the pattern of the shields seen upon the medals of Argos, and of the one carved in relief upon the ruins of the Temple of Apollo at Amyclas." IX. Kings formed entirely of gold have also been brouglit to light in considerable numbers by recent excavations, having their faces engraved or punched out in arabesque figures {graffiti) of an unmistakably Oriental character. In all siach there manifests itself an aiming at monstrous combinations which clearly points to the true source whence the artist drew his insjiiration — the Babylonian or Phoenician works of the same description. Compare the Etruscan arabesques, the border-patterns (for examjile, the so-called honeysuckle), the winged deities, and the symbolical animals, the harpies, sphinxes, gryphons, — in short, every design of the incised ornamentation decorating the Assyrian bronze paierse lately discovered, — compare all these with the graffiti on either the rings or the mirrors of the Etruscans, and the im- mediate derivation of the latter style from Assyria becomes incontrovertibly obvious. Through the study of these relics, joined to the recognition of Oriental workmanship in all Etruscan jewelry, the crowns, bracelets (chiefly discovered about Yulci), &c., has the traditional Asiatic origin of the nation, as well as their love for personal decoration, so often noticed by ancient writers, received in our times the most consjiicuous verification. Again : if we proceed to consider their scarahaei, more especially those whose style betokens an earlier date, these, equally in material, form, and taste, jioint to Asia as the genuine land of their nativity. Their favourite stone, the Oriental sard, bears testimony, by its very name (from the Persian sered,) eqiially as decisive as to the country that supplied it. Together with the gem, came into Italy the art of engraving upon it ; nay, more, the engravers themselves by a continuous immigration. There is a striking analogy in the mode of producing the designs upon tlie scaraba?i in (piestion by means of unassisted diill-holes, and the technique characterising the agate and calcedony cylinders be- longing to tlie Second I'eriod of Assyrian Art. ETRUSCAN SCARABJ^L 19 X. These signets, like the Phoenician, retain the form of the Beetle. Why both nations should have conceived so persistent a partiality for that Egyptian fashion can only be a matter for conjecture. But it may be that, as the received symbol of the sun, this insect- form had recommended itself to the Phoenicians— those exclusive worshippers of that luminary, under the name of Baal : the beetle having acquired this honourable distinction amongst the Egyptians from its habit of forming globes, types of the world, as recejitacles for its eggs, thus symbolising the creation and its Author (Plin, XXX, 30). iElian, moreover, states that the warrior-caste amongst the Egyptians wore beetles in their rings as a badge of their profession, because the insect typified manliness, being, according to the popular belief, exclusively of the male sex. From this notice of Elian's, Kuhler ingeniously conjectures that amongst the Etruscans also this was at first the distinction of the military class (as the gold ring was of the Roman Jcnights) ; and upon this hypothesis he proceeds to account for the exclusively martial character of the devices — heroes and combats — to be found upon the scarabaii that he refers to the most ancient of his three classes. If this explanation be the correct one, the shape, in the sense of a talisman, survived the fall of Etruria, and even of Rome herself; for one, engraved with Hercules at the fountain, had been deposited along with his other jewels in the sepulchre of the Frankish king Childeric at Tournay, evidently from a lingering belief in its prophylactic virtue (Chiflet's ' Anastasis '). c 2 20 mSTOBY OF THE GLYPTIC ART. XI. As for the mhjects coiistitiiiiiig the si. As a general rule, the final 2 is omitted, and E is used for the O of the last syllable ; whilst the limited employment of the vowels, of which the short ones are usually dropped, bears another testimony to the Semitic origin of this method of writing. Such a distortion of names so famous, and so closely interwoven with all the historical associations of the people who have thus immortalised their ancient bearers by choosing them for the devices of their signets, goes far to support the assertion of Herodotus, that the few Pelasgians yet existing in his day sjioke a barbarian tongue, i.e. one not a current dialect of the Greek then in use. But again he proves undesignedly that their tongue was not the Etruscan, by taking one of his examj^les from a community dwelling among the Tyrrheni ; otherwise, what distinction coi;ld he have observed between the two races of Tyrrhene and Pelasgian settlers? It is no wonder that this ancient sj^eech sounded so foreign to the ears of Herodotus, that he could not detect in it the parent of his own expanded and flowing Tonic : the distortion of classic names, the abbreviations, and the substitution of harsh aspirates like the for T would seem to betoken a strong afifinitj^ between this primeval tongue and the Celtic. Another circumstance has struck me connected with these inscriptions, that they solely occur upon scarabsei of the very finest work, and belonging to the perfected style of Etruscan art : hence their rarity, and the vast increase of value added by them to the gems so inscribed. They are never found upon that infinitely more numerous class where the rude designs, entirely drill- wrought, bespeak the workmanship of a far less civilized race, apparently as yet unacquainted with the use of letters, the introduction of which into Italy had by constant tradition been ascribed to the Pelasgi (Plin. VII. 57). These legended gems, therefore (to l)e distinguished as the Archaic Italiote), present 30 HISTORY OF THE GLYPTIC ART. lis with both Greek art and Greek letters in their primitive form, tlnis ilhistrating a period in the history of both, preceding by- some ages the ai)pearanco of any coins bearing inscriptions; though, in truth, the meagreness of the legends upon tho Greek mintage, even in its full glory, must often have pro- voked every numismatist. As monuments, therefore, of palaio- graphy, they are perhaps of yet more importance than as illustrations of the state of art in the age that produced them. These considerations will elucidate another anomaly, so un- accountable at first sight, and which must have puzzled many a classical student, and that is, the strange alteration tho names of the G reek gods and heroes exhibit in their Latin form— Diana for Artemis, Hercules for Heracles, Ulysses for Odysseus, Pollux for Poly deuces, but the mode of spelling them (Ilercle, Thana, Tanait, Ulxe, PoUuce)— on these gems, the very ornaments of the Tuscan teachers to whom the Eoman youths were, in the early times of the Eepublic, sent for their education, as in after ages to Greece, will explain in a most satisfactory manner the cause of this singular transformation.* * The analogy between this language and Latin finds, to mo, a convincing testimony in the title V3V LEO, placed over a lion attacked by a bound, an excellent work of this kind (Impruute, iii. 58). I have never seen upon these gems the purely Etruscan names of the deities, so Celtic in sound, which are affixed to their representations on the metal mirrors. This is a natural con- sequence of the i'act that the Etruscans had gained distinction as workers in metals long before the Greeks, and therefore these ndrrors were produced by native artists, and adorned with the same designs in outline that had been used fur their original and Asiatic gold tablets, though Greek fable now supplied the subjects. The Etruscan Vulcan was Sethlans; Venus, Turan; Juno, Thalna : Bacchus, Pupluus ; Jupiter, Tiuia, the fire-god (from Tan, Jire, Celtic). HermcB is written Mercurius ; Athena, Minerva ; Selene, Lnsna ; and Artemis, Thana. In Losna we see the early form of Luna, the medial S being a cliaracter- istic of ancient Latin forms; and in the times of Nigidius (Sat. i. 9), tho rustic still called the moon lana, to which the D was iirefixed for the sake of euphony. SICILIAN AND MAGNA GRECIAN GEMS. 31 XIII. Gem-engraving, like the cognate art of die-sinking, attained to its highest perfection first in Sicily and Magna Grajcia. Greece itself was ever a jjoor country and distracted by perpetual wars and revolutions, whereas the colonies she had sent forth were on all sides advancing through commerce or agriculture to a degree of opulence now hardly credible. AVhat city of Greece Proper, Athens excepted, could vie in wealth and iioiDulation with Syracuse, Velia, Sybaris, or Tarentum? And what bears directly upon our subject, in one Dorian colony and that the most remote of all, Cyrene, ^lian particularly notices the wonderful multitude and skill of the gem-engravers, and to express the ostentation of the inhabitants in this article of luxury, adds that the very poorest of them possessed rings worth ten minas (30Z.). Cyprus again is named by Pliny as the locality from whence the fame of an engraved emerald had reached the ears of the conceited, purse-proud musician Ismenias at Athens. Many of the finest gems that grace our cabinets manifest, by the identity of their style, that they proceed from the same hands that cut the dies for the beautiful coinages of the cities just mentioned. The graceful " Etruscan border " incloses the type upon several mintages of Magna Grajcia, as it does the designs upon the contemporaneous signets of the coinless Tyr- rhenes of Upper Italy. After this period the establishment of Greek kingdoms in Asia, and the enjoyment of boundless wealth in the long accumulated hoards of the Persian kings, conduced greatly to the encouragement of this art, pre-eminently the handmaid of tasteful opulence. In the generation following Alexander, the advance of luxury disi^laying itself amongst the rest in the decoration of the fingers with rings, brought the glyptic everywhere to the highest perfection attainable by it in its relation to the other branches of creative art. History, how- ever, has preserved no name of the celebrities of this period besides that of Pyrgoteles, engraver of the Macedonian conqueror's signet. It is the opinion of K. 0. Miiller, that although we may occasionally trace in gem-works a treatment of form and a composition of groups corresponding to those of the sculptures of Phidias, yet vastly more numerous are the works of the class in which the spirit of the school of Praxiteles manifests itself 32 HISTORY OF THE GLYPTIC ART. in liotli tliosc particulars. The observation of Nature, coupled with the study of tlie early masters, which Lysippns intimately conilnned in his practice, led the artists who folloAved after him to many refinements in details (nrgutise operum). Thus it is noticed that Lysippus arranged the hair more naturally, meaning, it would seem, with greater regard to artistic effect. In addition to this, the succeeding school of l^olych'tus devoted their most earnest study to the proportions of tlie human body, in pursuing which they were seduced, by their endeavours to exalt Nature (especially in the case of portrait statues) beyond human measurement, into an exaggerated slenderness of forms, and this was carried to a new, totally artificial, system of more attenuated proportions in the figure. This system, inaugurated by Euphranor in sculpture, by Zeuxis in painting, was first carried out in its full harmony by Lysi})pus, and thenceforward became the dominant one in Greek Art. Lysippus is said " to have greatly advanced the art of statuary by making the heads of his figures smaller than had been the rule with the artists preceding him." " Euphranor," observes Pliny, " though the first to pay any attention to symnaetry, was too attenuated in his bodies, too big in his heads and joints." Lysippus, on the contrary, made the limbs more slender and somewhat less fleshy, in order to exaggerate the apparent height of the whole figure (Plin. xxxiv. 19, 6). It must, however, be observed that this svstem originated less in a vivid and intimate comprehension of Nature (which, in Greece especially, displays itself with more of beauty in such forms as are of a slender make) than out of the ambition to elevate the production of Art above the beauty of Nature herself. Moreover, in the works of this Alexandrian school there already betrays itself that prevailing inclination towards the colossal which in the next period of the history of Grecian sculpture shows itself as the predominant feeling. Pliny's acute criticism upon the style of these statuaries affbrds us the soundest data for determining the periods which produced the Greek gem-works that may come under our examination. In how many of them belonging to the Archaic period, corresponding to the flourishing times of Etruria, are we struck by the exaggera- tion in the size of the heads and the undue prominence given to the joints, and the skeleton-like attenuation of the 1)odies, that betray the epoch of Eui)hrauor; whilst in the grander and freer works of the mature art, with their general slenderness of propor- tions, and aiming at loftiness in the figure, the innovations f)f liysippus are equally conspicuous. DELATIONS TO PAINTING. 33 The Glyptic art indeed was, by its very nature, ancillary to Sculpture, and its productions, in order to be effective, are strictly tied down by the same rules as a bas-relief in stone or metal. To go beyond these limits, and ambitiously to invade the proper pro- vince of Painting, always results in egregious failure, as the over- refined works of the Cinque Cento school painfully attest, despite the immense practical skill and ingenuity they brought to the impossible undertaking. Yet, if we bear in mind that the painting of the Greeks was as simple in the rules for composition as was Sculpture itself, many gems may be supposed, with the best reasons, to preserve to us copies of celebrated pictures, and in the same proportion as they confessedly do of world-famous pieces of sculpture. In the fine intaglio by Nisus (Orleans) we have trans- mitted to us a faithful reduction in miniature of that masterpiece of Apelles for which he received the fabulous remuneration of twenty talents (nearly one ton weight) of gold pieces. We recognise in the gem all the particulars given by Pliny of his picture in the temple at Ephesus, " Alexander holding the thunder-bolt of Jove," where his fingers seemed to project and the thunder-bolt to stand out of the painting. And to return to Sculpture — that greatly admired woi'k of the very early statuary Canachus, an Apollo holdiuo- up a stag by the forefeet, which stood when Pliny described it in the Didymasum at Miletus, has left behind it no other vestige of its existence save the tiny sard formerly discovered by me amongst the Praun gems. Another intaglio of the same cabinet enables us to appreciate the justice of the same critic's encomium upon that piece by Leochares, " the eagle sensible of what he is carrying off in Ganymede, and to whom he is carrying it, and using his talons gently not to hurt the boy through his garments." And in reading the poetical Catalogue composed by the ingenious Byzantine Christodorus of the sixty -eight masterpieces of Greek statuary in bronze, then standing in the Gymnasium of Zeuxipjius (shortly afterwards destroyed by fire), how many, both groups and single figures, upon gems are we enabled to identify from his accurate delineation of their prototypes ! M HISTORY OF TEE GLYPTIC ART. XIV. " Painting amongst tlio Greeks was at first divided into two schools — the Asiatic and the Helladic." 1'his is an important record for the history of our special subject. The existence of the former school sufficiently explains the appearance upon vases, chasings, and gems, of the strange monsters and fanciful arabesques already adverted to as full of the taste of Babylon and Persepolis. The Helladic, on the other hand, has left us the stiff drawings — eternised in the contemporary gems — of gods and heroes, and scenes drawn from mythology and the Epic Cycle, all framed within the elaborately engrailed borders popularly known as Etruscan. Subsequently the high reputation of Eupomjjus of Sicyon occasioned the subdivision of the Helladic school into three — the Ionic, Sicyonic, and Attic. The most distinguished pupil of Eujjompus, Pamphilus, a Macedonian by birth, was also a proficient in every branch of learning, especially in arithmetic and geometry, without which two sciences he declared that excellence in painting was not to be attained. By his influence he brought it about, at Sicyon first, and afterwards all over Greece, that the children at the public schools should be taught before anything else the art of drawing (graphice, i. e. sketching in outline) ujion a boxwood panel, and that this art should be reckoned the first step amongst those termed the " liberal arts." Indeed such respect had always been paid in Greece to painting, that it was exclusively practised by persons of free, and afterwards even of noble birth — there being a standing prohibition against teaching it to slaves ; and this is the reason, says Pliny (xxxv. 36, 9), why no works of note exist, either in 2)ainting or sculpture, executed by one of servile condition. Even the severe Eomans of the Primitive Pcpublic lield this art in the highest reverence. The head of the pati ician clan, the Fabii, gloried in the surname of Pictor, conferred upon him for having decorated with his own hands the Temple of Concord. And later Augustus recommended that a deaf and dumb boy, a relative of his, Q. Pedius, should be brought up to this profession ; in which the youth made great progress, but was cut off at an early age. M. Aurelius studied painting under Diognetus ; Alexander Severus, that model of a perfect prince, " pinxit mire," to use the expression of his biographer Lampridius. Even Yalentinian, distinguished as he was for his military abilities, added to his other merits in the estimation of the honest old soldier Animian that " of writing a beautiful hand, and modelling in wax and painting with much PORTRAITS ON OEMS. 35 elegance." No wonder that, with such a training, the Romans so well appreciated the artistic value of engraved gems. But to return to Greece in its best times. Hippias, the sophist, the contemj)orary of Socrates, is described by Apuleius (Flor. p. 112, ed. Bipont.) as coming to the Olympic games and boasting that everything he wore was manufactured by himself, and at the same time perfect in its kind, including his gold ring, which he had wrought with his own hands, and the gem in it, which he had engraved most artistically and set : " Et annulum in lajva aureum faberrimo signaculo quem ostendebat ipse, ejus annuli et orbiculam circulaverat, et palam clauserat, et gemmam insculpserat." XV. Proceeding now to the epoch of the full development of the Glyptic Art, under Alexander and his immediate successors : this period presents us for the first time with contemporary portraits of princes, whose heads begin to replace the national deities upon the stone of the signet, as they were doing at the same date uj)on the obverse of the coin. From several allusions of classic wi-iters (to be quoted under " Signets ") it appears that the official seal of every person of importance was, as a rule, the likeness of himself. This fact, to give an example, seems implied in Cicero's warning to his brother Quintus, concerning the cautious use of his official seal during his government of the province assigned him. " Look upon your signet, not as a mere instrument, but as your own self; not as the agent of another person's will, but as the attestation of your own." The example of this substitution was probably set by Alexander ; and the exchange of the god for the king was connected with his ovm assumption of divinity : certain it is, that the first authentic portraits of him are those partially deified by the assumption of the horn of Ammon. This consideration likewise serves to explain the motive for restricting the privilege of engraving the sacred features to Pyrgoteles, the first master in the art. This indeed is the reason actually assigned by Apuleius (I. c, p. 118), who subjoins, after mentioning the restriction, — " Threatening that if any other artist should be discovered to have put his hand to the most sacred image of the Sovereign, the same punishment should be inflicted upon him as was appointed for sacrilege." In fact, it is obvious, from their style, that the numerous gem-portraits of the hero I) 2 SG niBTOET OF TUB OLYPTIC APT. now to be seen are mostly long posterior to his times, and belong to the school of the Konian Empire when such heads were in high repnte as amulets. And this virtue extended to his likeness impressed upon his medals ; as Trehellius, writing in Constantine's daj^s, incidentally informs ns. AVith this period, also, a new branch of the art — cameo-engraving — is first inaugnrated. The term signifies work in relief upon stones of two or more diflerently-coloured layers, affording a back- ground and a contrast. The word, which first appears in the thirteenth century as camalmtum, is usually derived from the Syriac cJiemcia, " a charm," from the light in which such relics were universally considered in those ages by both Orientals and Europeans. There may, however, be some truth in Von Hammer's conjecture, who makes it the same with camaut, " the camel's hum])," applied metaphorically to anything prominent, and therefore to gems in relief, as distinguished from signet-stones. The EtriTscans had, indeed, made some small attempts in that style by carving the backs of scaraba?i into figures in relief, but these instances are of such extreme rarity, that they may be put out of the question. The earliest indubitable example of a true cameo possessing the necessary quality of a distinction of colours, the date of which can be certainly fixed, is that presenting the heads conjoined of Demetrius Soter and his wife Laodice (b.c. 162-150). This precious monument of the first days of the invention, though inconsiderable in point of magnitude, if compared with similar works of Eoman date, being only lixl inch in measurement, is execxited with admirai)le skill, and the sardonyx of three layers is of surjiassing beauty. It originally decorated a cabinet made for Cardinal Grimani in the sixteenth century, which long stood in the sala of the Ducal Palace, Venice. The gem was extracted in 1797, and presented by the municipality to M. Lallemand, the French Comnaissary, wdio, later, ceded it to the gem-loving Empress Josephine. Previously to the establishment of Macedonian kingdoms in Persia and Bactria, we may infer, from the confused expressions of Thcophrastus, in speaking of the use of fire in making the artificial stones " which are brought out of Asia," that tlie special material for the cameo, the sardonyx, was but little known to the Greeks, and was mistaken by them for an artificial composition of the Indian jeweller. Thus the art advanced with rapid strides towards its culmina- ting point, its practitioners ranking high amongst the artists of their times, and their performances deemed not unworthy of being PORTRAITS ON GEMS. 37 sung by the court poets, nay, by kings themselves. Tryphon's Galene is immortalised by Addseus, Satyreius's Arsinoe by Diodorus, whilst king Polemo bestows an ingenious conceit upon a group of seven coivs which seem alive and browsing, on a green jasper. They enjoyed the patronage of the most powerful monarchs. Antiochus Epiphanes delighted to spend his leisure hours in the ateliers of his artist-goldsmiths and jewellers, greatly to the scandal of that stiff pedant, Polybius. Mithridates is recorded as the founder of the first royal cabinet of gems ; and a treatise upon stones (unfortunately no longer extant) was dedicated to him by Zachalias of Babylon. The very nature of the destination of their works, to serve the imjjortant office of public signets, has, un- happily for us, precluded the engravers from marking them with their oicn names, the rule then prevailing in all the other departments of creative art. Hence it is that, before the age of Augustus, the sole masters belonging to this era of perfection, of whom any historical notice is preserved, are, in addition to Pyrgoteles, Cronius, and Apollonides, the two already mentioned as enshrined in the Anthology, and the most ancient in the list (after Theodorus), Nausias the Athenian, incidentally vilified by the orator Lysias. 38 HISTORY OF THE OLYPTIC ART. XVI. It is but natural to suppose that the Romans, in tlie beglniiing, took the Etiniscans for their masters in the Glyptic as they are known to have done in all the other arts of peace, such as their c