Greece and the Ægean Islands

by Philip Sanford Marden

TOMB AMPHORA, CERAMICUS

The usual type of tomb relief of this sort seems to be a group of figures, sometimes two, sometimes three or four, apparently representing a leave-taking, or frequently the figure of a person performing some characteristic act of life. Of the latter the well-known tomb of Hegeso, representing a woman attended by her maid fingering trinkets in a jewel casket, is as good a type as any, and it has the added merit of standing in its original place in the street of the tombs. Others of this kind are numerous enough in the museum. The aversion to the representation of death itself among the ancient Greeks is well understood, and many have argued from it that these tomb reliefs indicate an intention to recall the deceased as he or she was in life, without suggestion of mourning. Nevertheless, the obvious attitudes of sorrowful parting visible in many of the tomb stelae seem to me to do violence to this theory in its full strength. Among those which seem most indicative of this is a very well-executed one showing three figures,—an old man, a youth, and a little lad. The old man stands looking intently, but with a far-away gaze, at a splendidly built but thoughtful-visaged young man before him, while the lad behind is doubled up in a posture plainly indicating extreme grief, with his face apparently bathed in tears. The calm face of the youth, the grave and silent grief of the paternal-looking man, and the unbridled emotion of the boy, all speak of a parting fraught with intense sorrow. It might be any parting—but is it not more reasonable to assume that it means the parting which involves no return?

The more archaic gravestones are best typified by the not unfamiliar sculpture, in low relief, of a warrior leaning on a spear, or by the well-known little figure of Athena, similarly poised, mourning beside what appears to be a gravestone of a hero. It was one of the former type that we saw exhumed from the Themistoclean wall, with the warrior’s figure and portions of the spear still easily discernible.

TOMB RELIEF, CERAMICUS

It remains to speak, though very briefly and without much detail, of the National Museum itself, which is one of the chief glories of Athens, and which divides with the Acropolis the abiding interest and attention of every visitor. It is in many ways incomparable among the great museums of the world, although others can show more beautiful and more famous Greek statues. The British Museum has the Elgin marbles from the Parthenon, which one would to-day greatly prefer to see restored to Athens; the Vatican holds many priceless and beautiful examples of the highest Greek sculptural art; Munich has the interesting pedimental figures from the temple at Ægina; Naples and Paris have collections not to be despised; but nowhere may one find under a single roof so wide a range of Greek sculpture, from the earliest strivings after form and expression to the highest ultimate success, as in the Athenian National Museum, with its priceless treasures in marble and in bronze. The wealth of statues, large and small, quaintly primitive or commandingly lovely, in all degrees of relief and in the round, is stupendous. And while it may be heresy to pass over the best of the marbles for anything else, it is still a fact that many will turn from all the other treasures of the place to the “bronze boy” as we will call him for lack of a better name. This figure of a youth, of more than life size and poised lightly as if about to step from his pedestal, with one hand extended, and seemingly ready to speak, is far less well known than he deserves to be, chiefly because it is but a few years since the sponge divers found him in the bed of the ocean and brought him back to the light of day. At present nobody presumes to say whether this splendid figure represents any particular hero. He might be Perseus, or Paris, or even Hermes. His hand bears evidence of having at one time clasped some object, whether the head of Medusa, the apple, or the caduceus, it is impossible to say. But the absence of winged sandals appears to dismiss the chance that he was Hermes, and the other identifications are so vague as to leave it perhaps best to refer to him only as an “ephebus,” or youth. The bronze has turned to a dark green, and such restorations as had to be made are quite invisible, so that to all outward seeming the statue is as perfect as when it was first cast. The eyes, inlaid with consummate skill to simulate real eyes, surpass in lifelike effect those of the celebrated bronze charioteer at Delphi. That a more detailed description of this figure is given here is not so much that it surpasses the other statues of the museum, but because it is so recent in its discovery that almost nothing has been printed about it for general circulation.

National Museum, Athens
BRONZE EPHEBUS

It would be almost endless and entirely profitless to attempt any detailed consideration of the multitude of objects of this general sculptural nature which the museum contains, and volumes have been written about them all, from the largest and noblest of the marbles to the smallest of the island gems. It may not be out of place, however, to make brief mention of the spoils of Mycenæ which are housed here, and which reproductions have made generally familiar, because later we shall have occasion to visit Mycenæ itself and to discuss in more detail that once proud but now deserted city, the capital which Agamemnon made so famous. In a large room set apart for the purpose are to be seen the treasures that were taken from the six tombs, supposed to be royal graves, that were unearthed in the midst of the Mycenæan agora, including a host of gold ornaments, cups, rosettes, chains, death masks, weapons, and human bones. Whether Dr. Schliemann, as he so fondly hoped and claimed, really laid bare the burial place of the conqueror of Troy, or whether what he found was something far less momentous, the fact remains that he did exhume the bodies of a number of personages buried in the very spot where legend said the famous heroes and heroines were buried, together with such an array of golden gear that it seems safe to assert that these were at any rate the tombs of royalty. If one can divest his mind of the suspicions raised by the ever-cautious archæologist and can persuade himself that he sees perhaps the skeleton and sword of the leader of the Argive host that went to recapture Helen, this Mycenæan room is of literally overwhelming interest. Case after case ranged about the room reveals the cunningly wrought ornaments that gave to Mycenæ the well-deserved Homeric epithet “rich-in-gold.” From the grotesque death masks of thin gold leaf to the heavily embossed Vaphio cups, everything bears testimony to the high perfection of the goldsmith’s art in the pre-Homeric age. Of all this multitude of treasures, the chief objects are unquestionably the embossed daggers and the large golden cups, notably the two that bear the exceedingly well-executed golden bulls, and the so-called “Nestor” cup, which, with its rather angular shape and its double handle, reproduces exactly the cup that Homer describes as belonging to that wise and reverend counselor.