Now it is noteworthy that the many examples of this type in our possession are all copies of the Capuan and not of the Melian figure. This is clear from the direction of the drapery folds, which differs in the Melian from all the other figures. The history of the type is thereby made clear. It was an early Hellenistic or late fourth-century statue of the Armed Aphrodite, possibly the cult statue, which appears in identical pose on coins of Corinth. Itself a typical genre adaptation of a very early myth, it at once gained favour and was much copied, especially in Roman times. The Melian goddess was a second-century Hellenistic copy, but not a mere copy, rather an adaptation of the earlier prototype to a figure more suitable for Melos itself. Unfortunately the artist was unable to make the pose suit his new scheme properly. We get another adaptation in the Augustan age in the shape of the Victory of Brescia inscribing a roll of the dead on the shield,[101] and finally, in the second century and later, we get a crowd of copies much closer to the original, of which the Capuan Venus is the best.
The history of the Melian Aphrodite throws much light on the Hellenistic art of the mainland and its neighbouring islands. We see its artists bankrupt of new ideas, and able only to adapt older conceptions to new requirements with a series of eclectic modifications. The Aphrodite is a close parallel to the monuments of Damophon and Euboulides, although its artist is admittedly a better sculptor. All three show a poverty of new ideas, but a strong reaction against the excesses of the later Pergamene school. They are, therefore, forced to look backward and make up new conceptions out of a medley of older details. It is of the utmost importance that we should remember this state of mind when we come to deal with Greco-Roman art.
V
GRECO-ROMAN SCULPTURE
We have now completed our survey of Greek sculpture on the mainland, and in connexion with the eastern kingdoms which Greece absorbed as conqueror. We have yet one other aspect to consider: Greek sculpture in connexion with the Roman world of the west, by which Greece was conquered. ‘Conquered Greece led her conqueror captive,’ and while Greek civilization as a whole strongly modified the Italic civilization by which it was overthrown, Greek art in particular established its mastery over the inartistic nation which supplanted it. We have many accounts of how Roman connoisseurs filled their galleries with Greek statues. Mummius, Aemilius Paulus, Verres, Cicero, Sulla, Asinius Pollio, were all robbers or purchasers of Greek sculpture, and by the time of Pompey and Caesar the great market for Greek sculpture was in Rome. The demand exceeded the supply of antique marbles, enormous as the supply must have been, for the systematic plundering of the great shrines belongs to a later date. And as the Roman noble could not be accommodated with originals, he had to content himself with copies. Doubtless few of the collectors could tell the difference. Rhodes continued to turn out original sculpture until the time of Augustus, but Pergamon and Alexandria had long sunk into decay. It was, therefore, the opportunity for a new school of artists to arise in Athens, an opportunity which was promptly taken. Athens and Delos, Ephesos, and later Aphrodisias, became great centres of the new industry, which was primarily commercial. There was no longer any talk of idealism or of votive offerings to deities. The necessity was to turn out quantities of work suitable to the Roman taste.
Greco-Roman sculpture falls into three clear divisions. There are copies pure and simple like the Delian Diadumenos, a straightforward replica of the masterpiece of Polykleitos; there are adaptations of earlier work like those turned out by the school of Pasiteles and Arcesilaos; and there are, finally, new works, mostly in relief, which have been termed Neo-Attic, and which represent a new artistic development based on an elegant and artificial archaism. Athens is the centre of all this art, and she thus recovers in the first century B.C. the position which she had lost for so long.
The direct copies of this age need not be considered here. Direct copying from the antique as distinguished from adaptation is a new feature very eloquent of the poverty of original ideas both in the buyer and seller of statues. But it is important to realize that the Roman market made sculpture for the first time a really paying business, and therefore saved it from the possibility of extinction. Had it not been for the new Attic school of sculptors, who sprang up in the two preceding generations, it is hard to see how Augustus could have secured the workmen for his great Roman buildings, which formed the basis of a fresh artistic development in Roman imperial sculpture. The copies of this period are the best and most faithful which we possess. They have still some vitality of their own, and are not the dead and soulless caricatures produced by a later age.
But in addition to their copying work the latest generation of Attic artists busied themselves with free adaptations from the antique on lines laid down by contemporary art. These productions are to be distinguished both from purely archaistic works, which copy the style as well as the poses of ancient sculpture, and from works like the Aphrodite of Melos, which make a wide selection from ancient styles and poses. Statues such as the Farnese Herakles of Glycon,[102] the Apollo Belvedere,[103] or the Artemis of Versailles,[104] are not eclectic at all; they are older types taken over and translated into modern style. They show less originality than the Melian goddess, because there is no real change of pose or of meaning. An old statue is simply worked out with a new technique. Thus the Farnese Herakles gives a Hellenistic rendering of a statue by Lysippos, while the Apollo Belvedere is perhaps a new version of a work by Leochares. The former attempts to render the massive strength of the hero by immense exaggeration of muscular development in a style worse than anything perpetrated at Pergamon. The latter attempts to outdo the elegance of its original by an ultra-refinement of surface in every direction, and by an affected stage-pose and gesture. In both cases we see the effect of commercialism on art, for the artist no longer works on his own high standard of achievement. He is bound by the tastes of the patrons for whom he caters, and the uneducated Roman buyer liked to see strength shown by mighty muscles and refinement by daintiness of gesture. Both the Herakles of Glycon and the Apollo Belvedere are fine pieces of sculpture, but as works of art they are little short of abominable. We have no evidence about the original of the Artemis of Versailles, a statue of somewhat similar type to the Apollo. We may notice how the little fold of drapery above the left knee is turned up without any justification simply for the purpose of displaying the outline of the leg. The Medici Venus in Florence[105] is an adaptation of the later version of the Praxitelean nude Aphrodite, the Capitoline rather than the Cnidian type. It is also an Attic work of this period, finely executed, but adding a yet further degradation to the Capitoline version by the additional elegance of its gestures.
The Torso Belvedere ([Fig. 52]) is another Attic work of great technical ability. Its prototype is unknown, and considerable controversy exists about its meaning and correct restoration. It is a seated figure with head and upper torso turned sharply towards its left, a position which suggests a Lysippic original. The massive musculature of the torso recalls Glycon’s Herakles, but the influence here is more Rhodian than Pergamene. One of the most popular suggestions[106] for its restoration makes it a Polyphemos shading his eyes with one hand, as he looks out for Galatea, and holding a club in the other. A similar type is known from wall paintings. No agreement on this point has, however, been reached.
Works of this quality of technique, even if uninspired by high artistic feeling, show how greatly the Attic school has improved since the days of Euboulides. In sculpture the skill of the workman depends largely on the popularity of, and demand for, his work. The new vogue of sculpture soon produced a high standard of technical efficiency. But if Greco-Roman art remained wholly and unalterably Greek, Greece itself was not allowed the monopoly of its production. During the early years of the first century two Greek artists transferred their business to Rome itself, and initiated thereby a new school of Hellenistic sculpture. These were Pasiteles and Arcesilaos, names of high importance for Greek art.