The Minerva of the Parthenon, a gold and ivory statue, was a marvellous piece of work, and one of the earliest productions of Phidias. There is no known description of it, though frequent allusions to it are found in the works of ancient writers. From Plato, we learn that the gold on the statue predominated over the ivory. “Phidias,” he says, “made neither the eyes, nor the face, nor the feet, nor the hands, of his Minerva of gold, but of ivory;” and Plutarch records the fact that Phidias arranged to meet his critics, by so disposing the gold about the statue that it could be taken off and weighed, if his honesty was doubted.
After the death of Alexander, statues of himself and family, in gold and ivory, were placed in the Philippeum of Olympia. The funeral monument of Hephæstion was ornamented with statues of ivory and gold.
The successors of Alexander made lavish use of ivory. Ptolemy Philadelphus, at the time of his triumph in Egypt, was followed by six hundred elephants’ tusks borne by slaves; and, according to Quatremère de Quincy, some of the many statues drawn upon the cars in his triumphal march were of gold and ivory.
To show the abundance of ivory at this time, Ptolemy used it to build a portico in his favorite ship, described by Athenæus.
PLATE XVII.
STATUE OF JUPITER. (Made of Ivory and Gold, by Phidias.)
According to Dion Cassius, Cæsar caused a statue of himself to be executed in ivory; and Passiteles, a contemporary of Pompey, executed an ivory statue of Jupiter for the temple built by Metellus. The doors of the Palatium, which Augustus raised after the victory of Actium, were of ivory. A similar statue was decreed to Germanicus by the senate, and the Emperor Titus had an equestrian statue executed in honor of Britannicus.