Et sacer ut Bacchum referat scyphus.
“The maid clothes her father with the garlands, the locks and the garments of Bacchus, and places him in the centre of the chariot; around him the brazen drums and the boxes filled with nameless terror; herself, looking back, binds his hair and limbs with ivy and strikes windy blows with the vine-wreathed spear; veiled like the father she holds the green reins; the horns project under the white turban, and the sacred goblet tells of Bacchus.”
The word “tumeant,” in the last line but one, would seem to imply that the horns were not so small as Spence fancies.
Note 22, p. [62].
The so-called Bacchus in the garden of the Medicis at Rome (Montfaucon Suppl. aux Ant. T. 1, p. 254) has little horns growing from the brow. But for this very reason some critics suppose it to be a faun. And indeed such natural horns are an insult to the human countenance, and can only be becoming in beings supposed to occupy a middle station between men and beasts. The attitude also and the longing looks the figure casts upward at the grapes, belong more properly to a follower of the god than to the god himself. I am reminded here of what Clemens Alexandrinus says of Alexander the Great. (Protrept. p. 48, edit. Pott.) Ἐβούλετο δὲ καὶ Ἀλέξανδρος Ἄμμωνος υἱὸς εἶναι δοκεῖν, καὶ κερασφόρος ἀναπλάττεσθαι πρὸς τῶν ἀγαλματοποιῶν, τὸ καλὸν ἀνθρώπου ὑβρίσαι σπεύδων κέρατι. It was Alexander’s express desire to be represented in his statue with horns. He was well content with the insult thus done to human beauty, if only a divine origin might be imputed to him.
Note 23, p. [64].
When I maintained in a former chapter that the old artists had never made a fury, it had not escaped me that the furies had more than one temple, which certainly would not have been left devoid of their statues. Pausanias found some of wood in their temple at Cerynea, not large nor in any way remarkable. It would seem that the art, which had no opportunity of displaying itself on them, sought to make amends on the images of the priestesses which stood in the hall of the temple, as they were of stone and of very beautiful workmanship. (Pausanias Achaic. cap. xxv. p. 587, edit. Kuhn.) Neither had I forgotten that heads of them were supposed to have been found on an abraxas, made known by Chiffletius, and on a lamp by Licetus. (Dissertat. sur les Furies par Bannier; Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscript. T. v. 48.) Neither was I unacquainted with the Etruscan vase of Gorius (Tabl. 151. Musei Etrusci) whereon are Orestes and Pylades attacked by furies. But I was speaking of works of art, under which head I consider none of these to come. If the latter deserve more than the others to be included under the name, it would in one aspect rather confirm my theory than contradict it. For, little as the Etruscan artists aimed at beauty in most cases, they yet seem to have characterized the furies more by their dress and attributes than by any terrible aspect of countenance. These figures thrust their torches at Orestes and Pylades, with such a tranquil expression of face that they almost seem to be terrifying them in sport. The horror they inspire in Orestes and Pylades appears from the fear of the two men, not at all from the shape of the furies themselves.
They are, therefore, at once furies and no furies. They perform the office of furies, but without that appearance of violence and rage which we are accustomed to associate with the name. They have not that brow which, as Catullus says, “expirantis præportat pectoris iras.” Winkelmann thought lately that he had discovered, upon a cornelian in the cabinet of Stoss, a fury, running, with streaming hair and garments, and a dagger in her hand. (Library of the Fine Arts, vol. v.) Von Hagedorn at once counselled all the artists to turn this discovery to account, and represent furies thus in their pictures. (Betrachtungen über die Malerei, p. 222.) But Winkelmann himself presently threw doubt on his discovery, because he did not find that the ancients ever armed the furies with daggers instead of torches. (Descript. des Pierres Gravées, p. 84.) He must then consider the figures on the coins of the cities of Lyrba and Massaura, which Spanheim calls furies (Les Césars de Julien, p. 44), to be not such but a Hecate triformis. Else here would be exactly such a fury, with a dagger in each hand, and strangely enough also with flowing hair, while in the other figures the hair is covered with a veil. But granting Winkelmann’s first supposition to have been correct, the same would apply to this engraved stone as to the Etruscan vase, unless owing to the fineness of the work the features were indistinguishable. Besides, all engraved stones, from their use as seals, belong rather to symbolism; and the figures on them are more often a conceit of the owner than the voluntary work of the artist.
Note 24, p. [64].
Fast. lib. vi. 295–98.