Pompeii, Its Life and Art

by August Mau

The dancing satyr is shown in [Fig. 258]. It was found lying on the floor of the atrium in the house of the Faun, but the pedestal could not be identified. The figure is instinct with rhythmic motion. Every muscle of the satyr's sinewy frame is in tension as he moves forward in the dance, snapping his fingers to keep time; the pose is a marvel of skill. The unhuman character of the half-brute is indicated by the horns projecting from the forehead, and the pointed ears. The face, marked by low cunning, offers no suggestion of lofty thought or moral sense. We have here the personification of unalloyed physical enjoyment. The satyr, unvexed by any care or qualm of conscience, is intoxicated with the joy of free movement, and dances on and on, unwearied, with perfect ease and grace.

Muscular tension is skilfully indicated in the Silenus, who stands holding above his head with his left hand a round frame, in which, as shown by the fragments, a vase of colored glass was standing at the time of the eruption. The head, crowned with ivy, leans forward and to the right, and the right hand is moved away from the body in the effort to balance the weight supported by the left. The frame is awkwardly designed to represent a snake. The thick-set figure of Silenus is about sixteen inches high. This bronze was discovered in 1864, in the house of Popidius Priscus (VII. ii. 20).

Fig. 259.—Listening Dionysus, wrongly identified as Narcissus. Bronze statuette in the Naples Museum.

The third of the bronzes mentioned is also a statuette, about two feet high ([Fig. 259]). It was found in 1863 in a house of the seventh Region (VII. xii. 21). The figure is that of a youth of remarkable beauty. The face wears an expression of childlike innocence and pleasure. The head leans forward in the attitude of listening; the index finger of the right hand is extended, and the graceful pose is that of one who catches the almost inaudible sound of a distant voice.

The name Narcissus, given to the figure by Fiorelli immediately upon its discovery, is surely wrong; that unhappy youth did not reciprocate the love of the nymph Echo, and could not have been imagined with so cheerful a face. The figure has also been called Pan, from a myth in which Pan and Echo appear together; but the characteristic attributes are lacking, and the rough god of the shepherds would not have been represented in so lithe and graceful a form.

This beautiful youth, with an ivy crown upon his head and elaborate coverings for the feet, and with the skin of a doe hanging over his shoulder, is none other than Dionysus himself. The mirthful god of the vine is not playing with his panther—the base is too small to have been designed for two figures, and the attitude of listening is not consistent with this interpretation. The youthful divinity has fixed his attention upon some distant sound,—the cries of the bacchantes upon some mountain height, or the laughter of naiads in a shady glen.

Of unusual interest is the bronze statue of an ephebus, discovered in November, 1900, outside the city on the north side, about a hundred paces from the Vesuvius Gate; it was laid away in an upper room of a house presenting nothing else worthy of note. It is apparently a Greek original, and is of three-quarters life size ([Fig. 260]).

The statue represents a youth about fourteen years of age, of slender but well-developed form, and finely chiselled features. Advancing with firm but graceful step, he rests the right foot, and is bringing the left foot forward. In his right hand, extended, he carried some object—a branch, it may be, or a crown, which was to be laid upon an altar; the eye naturally follows the movement of the hand.