Plate XIII
Page 150
seat of the rider, and the noble forms of the horse, place this relief among the most pleasing which we possess.
FIG. 58. YOUNG HORSEMAN.
A fine monument of the age and style of Pheidias comes from Aegina ([Pl. XIV]). Carved on it is the beautiful figure of a young man clad in a mantle, who holds in his left hand a bird, and extends the right without obvious purpose[176]. By this hand is a bird-cage; under it is a sepulchral monument, against which a boy leans, and on the top of which is a sculptured cat. The cat was well known in Egypt in antiquity, but the Greeks were unfamiliar with it, and its presence in this connexion is curious. The young man reminds us by the form of his head and his garment of the youths of the Parthenon frieze, who are his contemporaries and may come from the same chisel. The beautiful ornament which surmounts the group forms in its extreme gracefulness a fitting boundary to it.
Another striking group ([Pl. XV]) comes from the bed of the Ilissus. It is nearly a century later in date than the last-mentioned. We see in it a youth of magnificent proportions, half sitting on and half leaning against a sepulchral column. In the left hand he grasps a short staff, which rests on his knee. At his feet is a dog scenting the quarry; on the steps of the stele is seated in an attitude of dejection a young boy, while an old man, no doubt the father of him to whom the tomb belongs, gazes earnestly into his face. No doubt this vigorous young man was a hunter of hares, the short staff being such as hunters used to throw at the prey. Nothing but the view of the original of this wonderful relief, or at least of a cast of it, suffices to make one appreciate quite adequately its beauty.
With these reliefs we may compare an epitaph[177], written by an anonymous author to be placed on the tomb of a young man named Pericles. From the description of the relief which the tomb bore it is clear that the implements of the chase were represented in it in detail; this would be quite natural in the Hellenistic age, as we may see by comparing several examples in the Museum at Athens[178]:—
A marble tomb I stand for Archias’ son,
Young Pericles, and speak his hunting done.
The horse, the spear, in my relief are set,
The dogs, the stakes, and on the stakes the net.
Yet all are stone. The beasts their pleasure take
Around; thy wakeless sleep they cannot break.