It remains to speak of a few monuments which seem to have been more directly under the influence of particular tragedies. One hears, for example, that the sculptor Seilanion made a ‘Dying Iokaste.’[[14]] This notion would appear to have been borrowed from some play. One may think of the Oedipus Tyrannus of Sophokles or the Phoinissai of Euripides. Of far greater importance is the relief on one of the columns from Ephesos which is known to every one[[15]]. The most satisfactory interpretation of this work so far offered explains the scene as Alkestis being delivered from Death. The heroine, rescued from Thanatos by Hermes, is being conducted to the upper world again. Unfortunately there is no agreement among archaeologists on this explanation[[16]]. Until a better one is brought forward, however, this important monument may be held as evidence for the influence exerted by Euripides’ handling of this popular myth. The Alkestis is known to have been exceptionally well received.
If tragic influences are only possibly at hand in the fragment from Ephesos, the excavations at Pergamon have brought to light extensive remains of reliefs that were inspired by Attic tragedy. The Telephos frieze, now in Berlin, is directly associated with the drama. The mythic founder of Pergamon had a long and varied career, which was told in dramatic form by both Sophokles and Euripides. The suggestions for the reliefs in question came from the Auge and Telephos of the latter, and the Mysoi of the former[[17]]. In these fragments one can see distinctly the high esteem in which the Attic drama was held at the court of the Attalidai. I know of no Greek sculpture which comes so near being an illustration of tragedy as does this frieze.
Another work of monumental greatness belonging to about the same period and exhibiting unmistakable signs of tragic influence is the Farnese Bull in the National Museum in Naples[[18]]. This colossal group, which represents Dirke being tied to a rampant bull by Amphion and Zethos, the sons of Antiope, is characterized by a passion and violence that are late products in Greek sculpture. Such motives made their appearance first in the fourth century B.C. Niobe and her children are the earliest representation on a grand scale of these elements that are so akin to the drama. Such compositions were first possible with Praxiteles and Skopas who broke away from the traditions of the Pheidian age. The generation that saw a new type of Dionysos and of Aphrodite, and could appreciate the frenzied maenad of Skopas, had been prepared for these new motives very largely through the theatre. The drama had not a little to do with impressing the artist and his public with the importance of delineating the human feelings. In the case of the Niobe group one would not attempt to point out any special influence of the Niobe of Aischylos or Sophokles, and still there is little doubt in my own mind that the sculptor was more or less influenced by the tragic literature. May not Praxiteles or Skopas, each of whom shares the credit of the Niobe group, have been led to the pathetic look upon the mother’s face by the lines of one of these lost plays? This new tendency in sculpture reached its highest expression in the Laokoön and the Farnese Bull. The latter can be traced to the influence of Euripides’ Antiope, which appears to have been the source of all Dirke monuments in ancient art; there is no dissenting voice as to Euripides’ right to occupy the honourable position thus assigned[[19]] him. Reference has already been made to the Laokoön[[20]] as representing the culmination of tragedy in marble. The view held by Lessing and many others that Virgil was the sculptors’ authority has been abandoned long since. The Pergamon altar frieze has enabled us to fix the date of the Laokoön with approximate correctness. It is surely some centuries older than the Aeneid and stands therefore in a possible relation to the Laokoön of Sophokles. Yet here again opinions vary widely. Sophokles’ play is lost, and the few remaining fragments are not enough to enable one to make a satisfactory reconstruction. The story came down from the epic literature, and, like so many incidents in the fall of Troy, needed no further popularization in order to appeal to the artist. That Sophokles’ tragedy, however, was wholly without any influence on the Rhodian sculptors who so tragically and realistically represented Apollo’s vengeance on his priest seems to me highly improbable. Such a conception as found expression in this masterpiece of sculpture may well have sprung from the masterpiece in poetry which was at hand in Sophokles’ Laokoön[[21]].
2. The Etruscan Ash-urns.
The reliefs on the Etruscan and Roman sarcophagi carry us to Italian soil and furnish us with a much larger field for pursuing our subject than could be found in Greek sculpture. Of all the Italian races with whom the Greeks came into contact, the Etrurians were by far the most advanced in civilization; and during the centuries of active commercial relations between the two peoples this nation, whose origin is the puzzle of historians, and whose language is the crux of philologists, came more under the influence of Greek literature and art than any of the Latin races that remained unhellenized. They have left abundant evidence of these hellenizing influences. In various classes of monuments which may still be studied—urns, mirrors, cistae, tomb-paintings, and vases—one discovers Greek mythology and poetry. The national mythology of the Etruscans is so much of an exception in their art, and the Greek is so universally adopted, that one is at a loss to account for the strange fact. On hundreds of Etruscan monuments one sees the workings of Greek poetry, which found its way into Etruria before Livius Andronicus produced the first tragedy in Rome 240 B.C. That the Greek drama was introduced for the most part directly and not through the medium of the early Latin tragedians, is shown by the fact that the latter flourished in the second and first centuries B.C., while the urns exhibiting tragic subjects are, for the most part, from the third century B.C. Some may, indeed, date from the fourth century. Roman tragedy can not be said to have really become at all a matter of general interest before Ennius went to Rome in 204 B.C. He died 169 B.C., and one should not think that the influence of these Latin adaptations and translations of Greek plays took an immediate hold upon the neighbouring Etruscans. Such elements percolate gradually into the various strata of national life, to say nothing of the time required to reach a foreign people whose language and customs are so different. But the summus epicus poeta[[22]] was not the most popular or most prolific pilferer of Greek plays. His tragedies numbered only about twenty. In Accio circaque eum Romana tragoedia est[[23]]; and the probable truth of this statement is well attested by the list of fifty plays that have come down to us under Accius’ name. This poet, however, was born 170 B.C. and first exhibited tragedies in 140 B.C. It is therefore very doubtful whether one can rightly speak of the influence of Latin tragedy upon the Etruscan artists. One dare not, at any rate, bring the ash-urns too far into the second century B.C., as Brunn and those immediately under his teaching formerly did. More recent investigations have proved the chronological impossibility of interpreting these reliefs with the help of Ennius, Accius, and Pacuvius.
Without taking time and space to review the arguments on which the interpretations of the reliefs are based it will be enough for my purpose to simply add a list of the scenes which one may reasonably refer to Greek tragedy. Examining the first volume of Brunn’s I rilievi delle urne etrusche, which is devoted to urns with scenes from the Trojan Cycle, one learns that those presenting a version of the stories ascribable to the tragic poets exceed those that are based on the Iliad, Odyssey, and other epics. The representation of Paris’ return to his Trojan home is, with one exception[[24]], the most frequent. The thirty-four reliefs were referred, even in the time of the former late dating, to Euripides’ Ἀλέξανδρος[[25]]. The fate of Telephos was, according to Aristotle, a common subject for a tragedy[[26]]. We have already met the story on the Pergamon frieze, and it is very frequent on the Etruscan urns. Telephos grasps the young Orestes and threatens his life on the altar after the manner of the drama. It may be the influence of Aischylos or Euripides, but if one judges from the comparative popularity of these poets in this period he would be inclined to assign the first place to the latter[[27]]. The offering of Iphigeneia occurs on twenty-six urns, nearly all of which were found in the vicinity of Perugia[[28]]. It was again unquestionably Greek tragedy that was the incentive for these scenes. Aischylos, Sophokles, and Euripides may all share the credit of having furnished the literary source. A smaller series of urns representing Odysseus’ adventure in taking Philoktetes from Lemnos is also to be placed under the influence of the fifth century tragedy[[29]]. The δόλιος Ὀδυσσεύς is seen playing his part as cleverly as he does in the extant play of Sophokles. The attitude of Philoktetes standing before Neoptolemos, having in two cases the arrow in his hand, corresponds well to the character drawn by this poet. The injured chieftain displays his courage and scoffs at the thought of being carried away by the detested Odysseus. The murder of Aigisthos and Klytaimestra represented on seventeen urns has been shown by Schlie to be essentially Euripidean[[30]]. The arrival of Orestes and Pylades at the precinct of the Tauric Artemis is possibly the subject of three reliefs[[31]]. This would also take one directly to Euripides[[32]]. The following are published in the second volume of the Urne etrusche by Körte. Medeia escapes on her dragon-chariot, driving over the bodies of her children[[33]]—an echo of the great tragedy that exercised so wide an influence in other fields of art[[34]]. The punishment of Dirke on four reliefs is based without question on the Antiope of Euripides[[35]]. The blinding of Oedipus at the hands of Laios’ sons seems to have been an invention of the same poet and is recognized in another relief[[36]]. The Theban fratricide and the assault on the city were both much-prized subjects[[37]]. Körte points out many features common to the numerous reliefs and the Phoinissai of Euripides[[38]]. The death of Alkmene is represented on five urns which one would associate with the Alkmene of the same poet[[39]]. Euripides’ Κρῆτες is traceable on seven reliefs, showing the legend of Daidalos and Pasiphaë[[40]]. Theseus’ fight with the Minotaur occurs four times and reminds us of Euripides’ Theseus[[41]]. The death of Hippolytos on eight reliefs does not present any essential variation from the extant Greek tragedy[[42]]. Perseus and Andromeda are met with likewise and emphasize the wide popularity of Euripides’ play[[43]]. The famous legend of Oinomaos’ death and Pelops’ triumph occurs on thirty-one urns[[44]]. It can be shown that these were inspired by one or more of the lost tragedies that dealt with the subject[[45]]. The Μελέαγρος of Euripides appears to have been the source of at least three of the many reliefs representing the Kalydonian Hunt[[46]]. To this long list of urns based on Euripidean tragedies one must still add seven that were probably inspired by this poet’s Μελανίππη ἡ σοψή and three more that follow his Μελανίππη ἡ δεσμῶτις[[47]].
More than two-thirds of the more than four hundred Etruscan urns examined are decorated with sculpture based on Greek tragedy, and in nearly all instances the drama was Euripidean. Such are the instructive facts regarding this important class of monuments.
3. Roman Sarcophagi.
Under the expression ‘Roman sarcophagi’ one understands those of the first and second centuries A.D. unless the expression is further qualified. Sarcophagi from the time of the Republic are very rare and they are withal modest in their workmanship. The florid decorations of the time of the Empire, and especially of the period just noted, are often of secondary interest, but the reliefs on the sarcophagi are for the most part of prime importance, as furnishing reminiscences of lost tragedies and ancient paintings of great renown. The majority are copies of very ordinary merit, while now and then a sarcophagus relief is not unworthy a Greek artist of the fourth century B.C.
It is a commonly known fact that long before the Laokoön, or the Farnese Bull, or the Apollo Belvidere was unearthed in the sixteenth and fifteenth centuries—long before the classical antiquities of Rome, Florence, and Naples had attracted students and lovers of art—the sculptures of these sarcophagi, scattered about in cathedrals and palaces, had begun to teach the Italian artist what the human figure really is, and what composition and decoration should be. The Renaissance artist first learned the charm and simplicity of the ancient costume from these marbles and perceived how vastly superior this was to the heavy, conventional church-dress that concealed the outlines of the form and rendered grace and beauty impossible. The study of the antique, we have reason to believe, was in the early Renaissance largely a study of these Roman sarcophagi.