On the track of Ulysses; Together with an excursion in quest of the so-called Venus of Melos / Two studies in archaeology, made during a cruise among the Greek islands

by William James Stillman

The knee took quite readily the action indicated, and, indeed, would be compelled to by the pressure of the shield if the weight rested partly on the left hand, as it must to have left the right free for any action whatever. Both nature and the antique assert precisely the contrary to that which Valentin assumes. The length to which the argument against this restoration is carried by him may be judged from the assertion that the action of the “Victory of Brescia” is that of an outward push of the left thigh, to make it agree with that of the theory Von Ravensburg lays down. But the assertion is purely gratuitous. If the Brescian bronze is an argument, as far as it goes it obviates every difficulty in the interpretation of the Melian statue by taking, so far as the action of the limbs is concerned, the very action of the latter.

There is but one objection to the restoration theory I propose which deserves serious consideration—that of the goddess looking off or above the point at which she would be writing if she were writing. Half the ingenuity displayed in many of the proposed restorations, or half the sophistry employed by Von Ravensburg to combat this, would carry us over much greater difficulties. In later Greek work, when art was sought for its own sake, and consistency continually sacrificed to the grace of a pose and harmony of the lines, we should not be surprised at the goddess looking at one point and writing at another; but at this period the dramatic unities were sacred alike in poetry as in art. But I suppose that, unlike the Brescian statue, she is not at the moment engaged in writing, but pausing as having just finished, and, looking out from her pedestal in the little temple, gazes out toward Marathon, in which direction the temple opens, and this is no difficulty in the restoration. A little of that kind of imagination so much abused in modern art-criticism, which consists in attributing to the artist all the fancies which arise in our minds in the contemplation of his work, all the far-fetched and poetic visions our own eyes have conjured up, would supply all deficiencies in our theory.

But while I maintain that my theory has more accordances with the known facts and actual qualities of the statue than any other, and presents fewer gaps in the demonstration, I am unwilling to lay down any theory not sustainable by what we know of Greek art, and I admit the difficulty as frankly as I state those of other theories. Doing so, however, I still maintain that not only is there the means of reconciliation of my hypothesis of an actual shield-inscribing Victory with the statue as it is, but even in case I am compelled to abandon this particular point, and advocate the modification of Millingen that she holds the shield with both hands and looks at it, my main hypothesis—that the statue is a Victory and no Venus, and the particular wingless Victory of Athens—is untouched. We do not know what the Niké Apteros was doing. What we can see is that this statue was more probably holding a shield, either contemplatively, or pausing, just having written on it, than taking any other action.

VICTORY OF CONSANI.

If we may accept the analogy of the Apollo Belvidere, which also looks off in the same inexplicable way, it would illustrate my hypothesis still further, but the Apollo is later and less dramatic. If we hold to the strict dramatic quality of the best Greek art, we must suppose that the goddess has just finished writing, and looks up and out toward the field where her heroes died. Or even if the shield was a high one, such as the Spartan wounded used to be brought home on, she might still be looking at the shield, if not at the words she has just written. In fact, several suggestions offer themselves, and none open to accusation of such flagrant inconsistencies as those involved in Tarral’s restoration, which shocks the dramatic sense beyond endurance.

The objection that the shield would hide so large a part of the figure goes for absolutely nothing. We continually find Greek work completely, or nearly, finished in positions where by necessity much of it must have been hidden. As the pediments of the Parthenon were originally placed, they would never have been half seen, and how the Panathenaic frieze could have been adequately seen, once the building scaffolds were taken down, we can much less easily conjecture than how the Victory could have been seen behind her shield. The Brescian, a later and more realistic work, is seen behind hers. Consani has made a very happy emulation of the motive in his Victory. It is amongst the best of the modern Italian works of its class, and illustrates the manner of avoiding the difficulties we have seen adduced. The principal arguments in favor of my theory are these: The statue is not of the Venus type but on the contrary agrees distinctly with known statues of Victory, some of which I have indicated, of which another is in the coin of Agathocles, and in the Museum of Naples is a terra cotta Victory in almost the identical action and drapery; it is of the epoch of the Victories of the temple of Niké Apteros, and of the same style of treatment and type of figure; it was found where we might expect the Athenians to hide a treasure; and, while unquestionably a Victory, it is the only wingless Victory of the great Attic school we know of. I do not consider this archæological, but artistic demonstration.

TEMPLE OF NIKÉ APTEROS.

The little Temple of Niké Apteros has had a destiny unique amongst its kind. Like the Parthenon, it was standing little more than two hundred years ago, but during the Turkish occupation it was razed, and its stones all built into the great bastion which covered the front of the Acropolis and blocked up the staircase to the Propylæa. It was dug out and restored, nearly every stone in its place, by two German architects during the reign of Otho, and it stands again as Pausanias describes it, on the spot where old Ægeus watched for the return of Theseus from Crete, and seeing the black sails of his son’s ship returning, token of failure (for Theseus had forgotten to raise the white sail, the signal of success), threw himself from the precipice, and was dashed into black death on the rocks below. In the distance are Salamis and Ægina, and the straits through which the ships came from Melos and Crete, and to the south is Hymettus, beyond which are Marathon and the road by which the Persians came, and the Turks after them. There certainly was the spot, and this the occasion, if ever, that an Attic sculptor should feel that spiritual enthusiasm below which Greek art stopped and lost the clew which, in later centuries, the Florentine found again and followed to new, if not higher, heights.