Roman sculpture and Roman imperialism—these two things are indissolubly connected. That is the proposition, expressed in the baldest terms, that must now be established. As long as the Republican system sufficed for the needs of Rome, her sculpture was entirely Hellenistic in character. It was only with the advent of the Augustan age (between, let us say, 50 b.c. and the year of Our Lord) that traces of a distinctively national spirit began to show themselves. A complete imperial system had commenced to exert its influence upon society. From that time onward, and throughout the three following centuries, characteristics can be traced which clearly differentiate the work of the Roman sculptor from that of any Hellenic or Hellenistic artist. It was only when “the pale Galilean” triumphed and the ideals of Christianity supplanted those of an outworn imperialism that “Roman sculpture,” too, became a thing of the past.
The how and the why suggested by our major proposition must be faced boldly. Reducing the problem to its elements, we require, in the first place, to gain a clear idea of what “Roman imperialism” denotes. In the second place we must distinguish clearly between “Roman sculpture” and, an entirely different thing, “sculpture produced in Rome.” The one is organically Roman. The parentage of the other is Greek; its birthplace is an accident. It precedes the national art of imperial times by at least a century.
That so widely diffused an appreciation of sculpture existed long before the growth of a native art is in itself highly significant. An imported art is not a rare phenomenon in history, but it rarely persists for the length of time it did in Rome. In the sixteenth century, England welcomed an invasion of Italian “noveletti” and romantic poetry. In a very short while, however, the alien art was replaced by a vigorous national drama. Earlier in the same century, France for a time suffered the Italian school of painting (the school of Fontainebleau). But the stranger never quite made herself at home, and was finally supplanted by an artistic canon which was entirely French in spirit.
Republican Rome, on the contrary, was not only satisfied with her alien school of sculpture for a century and a half, but borrowed at the same time an entire culture from Greece—literature, science and philosophy. The Roman boy was educated by Greek teachers in Rome. During adolescence, he passed over to Athens for a course of philosophy or to Rhodes for instruction in the accepted methods of rhetoric. Afterwards, a year was spent upon “the grand tour” through Greece and Asia Minor where the chief temples and monuments of the Hellenic masters were still to be seen in situ. This Greek education by no means changed the Roman Republican into a Hellenistic Athenian. The Roman was never more Roman than he was during the Republican age. Yet the same art and philosophy served for both. In other words, peculiarly Roman thought and emotion found no artistic expression whatever.
These facts compel us to retrace some of the ground covered in our last chapter. Both upon the historical and the artistic side we are forced back to the time when Republican Rome furnished the principal market for the wares of the Hellenistic sculptor. We shall, however, regard it from a different ground. Our review of Hellenistic sculpture only interested us in as far as it affected Greece. We judged it from the standpoint of the Greek artist. Now Hellenistic sculpture calls for attention from the point of view of the Roman patron.
During the later Republican age—the period from the defeat of Carthage to the rise of Julius Cæsar—Rome was filled with Greek sculpture. Thousands of original Hellenic and Hellenistic works were carried there. Numberless Græco-Roman sculptors spent their time in producing copies of Greek masterpieces or designing variations upon well-known and popular designs. The process of despoiling Greater Greece of its art treasures began as early as the fall of Syracuse in 212 b.c. Corinth was stripped in 146 b.c. by Mummius. Delphi and Olympia both suffered. Even Athens itself was plundered by Sulla in 86 b.c. during the war with Mithridates. Chryselephantine statues like the “Athena” of Phidias and the decorative sculptures of the great temples were left untouched, but so many works of the Greek masters were carried westward that Myron, Phidias, Polyclitus, Praxiteles, Scopas, and Lysippus became household names in Rome.
We moderns can only be grateful that Roman taste did not prefer the productions of its own native sculptors. Had it done so, the history of Greek sculpture would have had to be reconstructed from stray works like the Elgin and the Æginetan marbles, the “Charioteer of Delphi” and the “[Hermes]” of Olympia. As matters stand, we have such books as those of Pausanias and Pliny. We are, moreover, furnished with numberless copies of the principal Hellenic masterpieces. True, these “copies” are not “the real thing.” In many cases they are marble translations from bronze originals, giving us, let us say, that intimacy with the earlier Greek works which the Arundel Society’s prints, or large-sized photo-gravures, afford about the Italian original paintings they reproduce. In addition, the Roman preference for Greek sculpture resulted in the production of many statues which, though they cannot be directly connected with any original Greek work, are clearly little more than variations upon popular Greek themes.
THE GRÆCO-ROMAN SCULPTORS
Generally speaking, throughout the first and second century b.c. none of the Greek sculptors working in Rome departed far from the accepted models. Some followed the general standards adopted by Praxiteles; some those of Lysippus; others again preferred the more romantic style of the school of sculpture at Rhodes. When new subjects presented themselves, however, Roman taste began to exercise a direct influence upon the work of the Hellenistic sculptors. We dwelt upon some of the effects of the Roman influence when considering the “[Farnese Hercules]”—the work of the Græco-Roman Glycon. It is equally well illustrated by two fine bronzes which have been recently discovered and placed in the Terme Museum at Rome. The first is the life-sized warrior or athlete leaning on his spear, usually called “The Prince.” It closely resembles such a work as the “[Cerigotto Bronze]” in general style. Nothing except the tendency towards an accentuation of muscular development and the fact that it apparently does not follow an earlier Greek design mark its Græco-Roman origin.
