Rambles and Studies in Greece

by J. P. Mahaffy

The composition of the groups in the pediments and friezes has been described by Pausanias (V. 10, §§ 6–10) in a passage of great interest, which has given rise to much controversy. The general impression of Drs. Hirschfeld and Weil, when I was at Olympia, was against the accuracy of Pausanias, whom they considered to have blindly set down whatever the local cicerones told him. That of Dr. Purgold was in his favor. The traveller says, however, that the eastern pediment, in which, [pg 309]as already remarked, it was not usual to represent violent action, depicted the preparation of the chariot race between Pelops and Œnomaus. In the centre was Zeus, whose torso has been recovered, and at the narrow ends of the field were figures of the Alpheus and Kladeus, to the right and left of the spectator respectively. These figures are partly recovered—graceful young men lying forward on the ground, and raising their heads to witness the contest.

It is worth pausing for a moment upon this disposition, which was so usual as to be almost conventional in the pediments sculptured during the best epochs of Greek art. In the centre, where the field was very high, and admitted a colossal figure, it was usual to place the god whose providence guided the events around him, and this god was represented calm and without excitement. Then came the mythical event grouped on both sides; but at the ends, where the field narrowed to an angle, it was usual to represent the calmness or impassiveness of external nature. This was done in Greek sculpture not by trees and hills, but by the gods who symbolized them. So thoroughly was nature personified in Greek art, that its picturesqueness was altogether postponed to its living conscious sympathy with man, and thus to a Greek the proper representation of the rivers of Olympia was no landscape, but the graceful forms of the river gods—intelligent and human, yet calm spectators, as nature is wont to be. [pg 310]The very same idea is carried out more characteristically in the pediment of Alkamenes, where, in spite of the violent conflict of Centaurs and Lapithæ, the central and extreme figures, as I shall presently notice, are perfectly unmoved witnesses of lawless violence.

The arrangement of the rest of the eastern pediment was evidently quite symmetrical. On Zeus’s right hand was Œnomaus, his wife Sterope, his charioteer Myrtilus sitting before the four horses, and two grooms; on his left, Pelops, Hippodamia, and a like number of horses and attendants. A good many pieces of these figures have been found, sufficient to tempt several art-critics to make conjectural restorations of the pediment, one of which is now set up, I believe, in the museum at Berlin.

The western pediment, of which more, and more striking, fragments are recovered, is more difficult to restore, because Pausanias is unfortunately not nearly so precise in describing it, and because, moreover, he is suspected of a serious blunder about the central figure. Contrary to the precedent just mentioned, he says that this central figure is Pirithous, whose wife is just being carried off by the Centaurs, and ought therefore to be in violent excitement. But there had been found, just before we arrived at Olympia, a colossal head, of the noblest conception, which seems certainly to belong to the pediment sculptures, and which must be the head of [pg 311]this central figure. It is perfectly calm and divine in expression, and almost forces upon the spectator the conclusion to which all the best judges lean, that it must be an Apollo, and that this was the central figure, while Pirithous was more actively engaged. There was on each side of this figure a Centaur carrying off, the one a maiden (I suppose the bride) and the other a boy, and Kæneus and Theseus at each side, coming to the rescue.

But on the other figures Pausanias is silent; and there were certainly two beautiful mountain or river nymphs at the extremities—lying figures, with a peculiar head-dress of a thick bandage wrapped all round the hair—which are among the most perfect of the figures recovered. It seems also certain that Pirithous must have been somewhere on the pediment; and this would suggest another figure to correspond to him at the other side, for these groups were always symmetrical. In this case Pausanias has omitted four figures at least in his description, and seems to have besides mistaken the largest and most important of all. The Germans cite in proof of these strictures his passing remark on the Metopes, representing the labors of Herakles, on one of which was (he says) Herakles about to relieve Atlas, whereas this slab, which has been found, really represents Herakles carrying the globe, and one of the Hesperidæ assisting him, while Atlas is bringing to him the apple.

This criticism will seem to most ordinary people too minute, and I am rather disposed to think well of Pausanias as an intelligent traveller, though he, of course, made some mistakes.

But since the above words were written sufficient time has elapsed not only to bring the excavations to an end, but to study more carefully the recovered fragments, and offer a calmer judgment as to their merits. On the whole, the strong feeling of the best critics has been one of disappointment. The design of both pediments still seems to me masterly, especially that of Alkamenes, but there can be no doubt that the execution is far below that of the Parthenon marbles. There are some positive faults—inability to reproduce drapery (while the nude parts are very true to nature), and great want of care in other details. It must be urged in answer that the pediments were meant to be seen about forty feet from the ground, and that the painting of the figures must have brought out the features of the drapery neglected in the carving. However true this may be, we can answer at once that the workmen of Phidias did not produce this kind of work. The first quality of the Attic school was that conscientiousness in detail which meets us in every great age of art.

So serious have these difficulties appeared to some, that they have actually suspected Pausanias of being misled, and having falsely attributed the work of [pg 313]obscure local artists to Alkamenes, and perhaps also falsely to Pæonius. They say that nothing is more common with vulgar cicerones than to attribute to a great master any old work of uncertain origin. Others, who will not proceed to such extremes, hold that only the general design was made by the two sculptors, and its execution handed over to local artists. This may probably have been the case. But I am disposed to infer from the overpraised Niké, which certainly is the work of Pæonius, that he was not an artist of the quality of the great Attic school.[119] The whole external work of the temple seems to represent a stage of art rather earlier and ruder than the school of Phidias. This is eminently the case with the Metopes, which can hardly be later in date than 460 B. C., or pre-Phidian in time.

Very different is the impression produced by the greatest and most priceless gem of all the treasures at Olympia—the Hermes of Praxiteles, which was actually found on the very spot where it was seen and described by Pausanias, fallen among the ruins of the temple which originally protected it. This exquisite figure, much smaller than life-size, represents the god Hermes holding the infant Dionysus on one arm, and showing the child some object now lost. The right arm and the legs from below the [pg 314]knees are gone; the right foot with its sandal, an exquisite piece of work with traces of gold and red, has been recovered. It is remarkable that the back of the statue is unfinished, and the child treated rather as a doll than a human infant; the main figure, however, now widely known through copies, is the most perfect remnant of Greek art. The temple in which the statue was found, the venerable Heræon, is the most interesting of all the Olympian buildings in its plan, and has solved for us many problems in Greek architecture. The acute researches of Dr. Dörpfeld have shown that the walls were not of stone, but of sun-dried bricks, and that the surrounding pillars had gradually replaced older wooden pillars, one of which was still there when Pausanias saw the building. The successive stone pillars and their capitals were of the same order, Doric, but varied in measurements and profile according to the taste of the day. So then this ancient building showed, like our English cathedrals, the work of successive centuries in its restoration. The roof and architrave were evidently of wood, for all trace of these members has vanished; but we learn from remains of the old “treasuries” described by Pausanias that in very old times wood and mud bricks were faced with colored terra cotta, moulded to the required form, and that this ornament was still used after stone had replaced bricks and mud as the material of the walls and architrave. [pg 315]These curious details, and many others, have been the main result of the architectural inquiries made by the Germans into the archaic buildings at Olympia; but it would be tedious to the reader of this book were I to turn aside to discuss technical details. He will find them all put with great clearness, and indeed with elegance, in Bötticher’s Olympia. The complete results of the excavations are now to be found in the official work issued by the German Government on the explorations.

Unfortunately, there only remains one very realistic head of a boxer from a large class of monuments at Olympia, that of the portrait statues of victors at the games, of which one was even attributed to Phidias, and several to Alkamenes, in Pausanias’s time. All these were votive statues, set up by victors at the games, or victors in war, and in the early times were not portraits strictly speaking, but ideal figures. Later on they became more realistic, and were made in the likeness of the offerer, a privilege said at one time only to have been accorded to those who had won thrice at Olympia.