PART II
HELLENISTIC AND ROMAN SCULPTURE
CHAPTER V
THE POST-ALEXANDRIAN ART OF THE EMPIRE OF SELEUCUS,
THE KINGDOM OF PERGAMUS, RHODES, AND ALEXANDRIA
The life story of an idea—the flower of the spiritual world—presents many analogies to the vital phenomena of the natural world. It is born, it lives and, maybe, it suffers the “sea-change” we call death. There are the weeks, months, or years which correspond to the time when the flowers are in their tiring rooms,
“Fast busy, weaving, in those still retreats,
The robes of rainbow dyes, which they must wear.”
Then, with the idea as with the flower, comes the day when Spring,
“Fast running o’er the drowsy earth,
Taps at the closed portals of their homes,
And calls them forth, fresh perfumed and new clad,
To the festival of Nature.”