Laocoon

Antiochus (Anthol. lib. ii. cap. 4). Hardouin, in his commentary on Pliny (lib. xxxv. sect. 36), attributes this epigram to a certain Piso. But among all the Greek epigrammatists there is none of this name.

Note 2, p. 9.

For this reason Aristotle commanded that his pictures should not be shown to young persons, in order that their imagination might be kept as free as possible from all disagreeable images. (Polit. lib. viii. cap. 5, p. 526, edit. Conring.) Boden, indeed, would read Pausanias in this passage instead of Pauson, because that artist is known to have painted lewd figures (de Umbra poetica comment. 1, p. xiii). As if we needed a philosophic law-giver to teach us the necessity of keeping from youth such incentives to wantonness! A comparison of this with the well-known passage in the “Art of Poesy” would have led him to withhold his conjecture. There are commentators, as Kühn on Ælian (Var. Hist. lib. iv. cap. 3), who suppose the difference mentioned by Aristotle as existing between Polygnotus, Dionysius, and Pauson to consist in this: that Polygnotus painted gods and heroes; Dionysius, men; and Pauson, animals. They all painted human figures; and the fact that Pauson once painted a horse, does not prove him to have been a painter of animals as Boden supposes him to have been. Their rank was determined by the degree of beauty they gave their human figures; and the reason that Dionysius could paint nothing but men, and was therefore called pre-eminently the anthropographist, was that he copied too slavishly, and could not rise into the domain of the ideal beneath which it would have been blasphemy to represent gods and heroes.

Note 3, p. 11.

The serpent has been erroneously regarded as the peculiar symbol of a god of medicine. But Justin Martyr expressly says (Apolog. ii. p. 55, edit. Sylburgh), παρά παντὶ τῶν νομιζομένων παρ’ ὑμῖν θεῶν, ὄφις σύμβολον μέγα καὶ μυστήριον ἀναγράφεται; and a number of monuments might be mentioned where the serpent accompanies deities having no connection with health.

Note 4, p. 12.

Look through all the works of art mentioned by Pliny, Pausanias, and the rest, examine all the remaining statues, bas-reliefs, and pictures of the ancients, and nowhere will you find a fury. I except figures that are rather symbolical than belonging to art, such as those generally represented on coins. Yet Spence, since he insisted on having furies, would have done better to borrow them from coins than introduce them by an ingenious conceit into a work where they certainly do not exist. (Seguini Numis. p. 178. Spanheim, de Præst. Numism. Dissert. xiii. p. 639. Les Césars de Julien, par Spanheim, p. 48.) In his Polymetis he says (dial. xvi.): “Though furies are very uncommon in the works of the ancient artists, yet there is one subject in which they are generally introduced by them. I mean the death of Meleager, in the relievos of which they are often represented as encouraging or urging Althæa to burn the fatal brand on which the life of her only son depended. Even a woman’s resentment, you see, could not go so far without a little help from the devil. In a copy of one of these relievos, published in the ‘Admiranda,’ there are two women standing by the altar with Althæa, who are probably meant for furies in the original, (for who but furies would assist at such a sacrifice?) though the copy scarce represents them horrid enough for that character. But what is most to be observed in that piece is the round disc beneath the centre of it, with the evident head of a fury upon it. This might be what Althæa addressed her prayers to whenever she wished ill to her neighbors, or whenever she was going to do any very evil action. Ovid introduces her as invoking the furies on this occasion in particular, and makes her give more than one reason for her doing so.” (Metamorph. viii. 479.)

In this way we might make every thing out of any thing. “Who but furies,” asks Spence, “would have assisted at such a sacrifice?” I answer, the maid-servants of Althæa, who had to kindle and feed the fire. Ovid says (Metamorph. viii.):—

“The mother brought the brand and commands torches to be placed upon the pieces, and applies hostile flame to the pile.”

Both figures have actually in their hands these “tædas,” long pieces of pine, such as the ancients used for torches, and one, as her attitude shows, has just broken such a piece. As little do I recognize a fury upon the disc towards the middle of the work. It is a face expressive of violent pain,—doubtless the head of Meleager himself (Metamorph. viii. 515).

“Meleager, absent and unconscious, is consumed in that fire, and feels his bowels parched with the unseen flames; yet with courage he subdues the dreadful pains.”

The artist used this as an introduction to the next incident of the same story,—the death of Meleager. What Spence makes furies, Montfaucon took to be fates, with the exception of the head upon the disc, which he also calls a fury. Bellori leaves it undecided whether they are fates or furies. An “or” which sufficiently proves that they are neither the one nor the other. Montfaucon’s further interpretation should have been clearer. The female figure resting on her elbows by the bed, he should have called Cassandra, not Atalanta. Atalanta is the one sitting in a grieving attitude with her back towards the bed. The artist has very wisely turned her away from the family, as being only the beloved, not the wife, of Meleager, and because her distress at a calamity of which she had been the innocent cause must have exasperated his family.

Note 5, p. 14.

He thus describes the degrees of sadness actually expressed by Timanthes: “Calchantem tristem, mæstum Ulyssem, clamantem Ajacem, lamentantem Menelaum.” Ajax screaming would have been extremely ugly, and since neither Cicero nor Quintilian, when speaking of this picture, so describe him, I shall venture with the less hesitation to consider this an addition with which Valerius has enriched the canvas from his own invention.

Note 6, p. 15.

We read in Pliny (lib. 34, sect. 19): “Eundem [Myro] vicit et Pythagoras Leontinus, qui fecit statiodromon Astylon, qui Olympiæ ostenditur: et Libyn puerum tenentem tabulam, eodem loco, et mala ferentem nudum. Syracusis autem claudicantem: cujus hulceris dolorem sentire etiam spectantes videntur.” “Pythagoras Leontinus surpassed him (Myro). He made the statue of the runner, Astylon, which is exhibited at Olympia, and in the same place a Libyan boy holding a tablet, and a rude statue bearing apples; but at Syracuse a limping figure, the pain of whose sore the beholders themselves seem to feel.” Let us examine these last words more closely. Is there not evident reference here to some person well known as having a painful ulcer? “Cujus hulceris,” &c. And shall that “cujus” be made to refer simply to the “claudicantem,” and the “claudicantem,” perhaps, to the still more remote “puerum?” No one had more reason to be known by such a malady than Philoctetes. I read, therefore, for “claudicantem,” “Philoctetem,” or, at least, both together, “Philoctetem claudicantem,” supposing that, as the words were so similar in sound, one had crowded out the other. Sophocles represents him as στίβον κατ’ ἀνάγκην ἕρπειν, compelled to drag his limping gait, and his not being able to tread as firmly on his wounded foot would have occasioned a limp.

Note 7, p. 24.

When the chorus perceives Philoctetes under this accumulation of miseries, his helpless solitude seems the circumstance that chiefly touches them. We hear in every word the social Greek. With regard to one passage, however, I have my doubts. It is this:—

Lit.: I myself, my only neighbor, having no power to walk, nor any companion, a neighbor in ill, to whom I might wail forth my echoing, gnawing groans, bloodstained.

The common translation of Winshem renders the lines thus:—

The translation of Thomas Johnson differs from this only in the choice of words:—

One might think he had borrowed these words from the translation of Thomas Naogeorgus, who expresses himself thus (his work is very rare, and Fabricius himself knew it only through Operin’s Catalogue):—

If these translations are correct, the chorus pronounces the strongest possible eulogy on human society. The wretch has no human being near him; he knows of no friendly neighbor; even a bad one would have been happiness. Thomson, then, might have had this passage in mind when he puts these words into the mouth of his Melisander, who was likewise abandoned by ruffians on a desert island:—

To him, also, the society of ruffians was better than none. A great and admirable idea! If we could but be sure that Sophocles, too, had meant to express it! But I must reluctantly confess to finding nothing of the sort in him, unless, indeed, I were to use, instead of my own eyes, those of the old scholiast, who thus transposes the words:—Οὐ μόνον ὅπου καλὸν οὐκ εἶχέ τινα τῶν ἐγχωρίων γείτονα, ἀλλὰ οὐδὲ κακόν, παρ’ οὗ ἀμοιβαῖον λόγον στενάζων ἀκούσειε. Brumoy, as well as our modern German translator, has held to this reading, like the translators quoted above. Brumoy says, “Sans société, même importune;” and the German, “jeder Gesellschaft, auch der beschwerlichsten, beraubt.” My reasons for differing from all of these are the following. First, it is evident that if κακογείτονα was meant to be separated from τιν’ ἐγχώρων and constitute a distinct clause, the particle οὐδέ would necessarily have been repeated before it. Since this is not the case, it is equally evident that κακογείτονα belongs to τίνα, and there should be no comma after ἐγχώρων. This comma crept in from the translation. Accordingly, I find that some Greek editions (as that published at Wittenberg of 1585 in 8vo, which was wholly unknown to Fabricius) are without it, but put a comma only after κακογείτονα, as is proper. Secondly, is that a bad neighbor from whom we may expect, as the scholiast has it, στόνον ἀντίτυπον, ἀμοιβαῖον? To mingle his sighs with ours is the office of a friend, not an enemy. In short, the word κακογείτονα has not been rightly understood. It has been thought to be derived from the adjective κακός, when it is really derived from the substantive τὸ κακόν. It has been translated an evil neighbor, instead of a neighbor in ill. Just as κακόμαντις means not an evil, in the sense of a false, untrue prophet, but a prophet of evil, and κακότεχνος means not a bad, unskilful painter, but a painter of bad things. In this passage the poet means by a neighbor in ill, one who is overtaken by a similar misfortune with ourselves, or from friendship shares our sufferings; so that the whole expression, οὐδ’ ἔχων τιν’ ἐγχώρων κακογείτονα, is to be translated simply by “neque quenquam indigenarum mali socium habens.” The new English translator of Sophocles, Thomas Franklin, must have been of my opinion. Neither does he find an evil neighbor in κακογείτων, but translates it simply “fellow-mourner.”

Note 8, p. 34.

Saturnal. lib. v. cap. 2. “Non parva sunt alia quæ Virgilius traxit a Græcis, dicturumne me putatis quæ vulgo nota sunt? quod Theocritum sibi fecerit pastoralis operis autorem, ruralis Hesiodum? et quod in ipsis Georgicis, tempestatis serenitatisque signa de Arati Phænomenis traxerit? vel quod eversionem Trojæ, cum Sinone suo, et equo ligneo cæterisque omnibus, quæ librum secundum faciunt, a Pisandro pene ad verbum transcripserit? qui inter Græcos poetas eminet opere, quod a nuptiis Jovis et Junonis incipiens universas historias, quæ mediis omnibus sæculis usque ad ætatem ipsius Pisandri contigerunt, in unam seriem coactas redegerit, et unum ex diversis hiatibus temporum corpus effecerit? in quo opere inter historias cæteras interitus quoque Trojæ in hunc modum relatus est. Quæ fideliter Maro interpretando, fabricatus est sibi Iliacæ urbis ruinam. Sed et hæc et talia ut pueris decantata prætereo.”

Not a few other things were brought by Virgil from the Greeks, and inserted in his poem as original. Do you think I would speak of what is known to all the world? how he took his pastoral poem from Theocritus, his rural from Hesiod? and how, in his Georgics, he took from the Phenomena of Aratus the signs of winter and summer? or that he translated almost word for word from Pisander the destruction of Troy, with his Sinon and wooden horse and the rest? For he is famous among Greek poets for a work in which, beginning his universal history with the nuptials of Jupiter and Juno, he collected into one series whatever had happened in all ages, to the time of himself, Pisander. In which work the destruction of Troy, among other things, is related in the same way. By faithfully interpreting these things, Maro made his ruin of Ilium. But these, and others like them, I pass over as familiar to every schoolboy.

Note 9, p. 35.

I do not forget that a picture mentioned by Eumolpus in Petronius may be cited in contradiction of this. It represented the destruction of Troy, and particularly the history of Laocoon exactly as narrated by Virgil. And since, in the same gallery at Naples were other old pictures by Zeuxis, Protogenes, and Apelles, it was inferred that this was also an old Greek picture. But permit me to say that a novelist is no historian. This gallery and picture, and Eumolpus himself, apparently existed only in the imagination of Petronius. That the whole was fiction appears from the evident traces of an almost schoolboyish imitation of Virgil. Thus Virgil (Æneid lib. ii. 199–224):—

And thus Eumolpus, in whose lines, as is usually the case with improvisators, memory has had as large a share as imagination:—

The main points are the same in both, and in many places the same words are used. But those are trifles, and too evident to require mention. There are other signs of imitation, more subtle, but not less sure. If the imitator be a man with confidence in his own powers, he seldom imitates without trying to improve upon the original; and, if he fancy himself to have succeeded, he is enough of a fox to brush over with his tail the footprints which might betray his course. But he betrays himself by this very vanity of wishing to introduce embellishments, and his desire to appear original. For his embellishments are nothing but exaggerations and excessive refinements. Virgil says, “Sanguineæ jubæ”; Petronius, “liberæ jubæ luminibus coruscant”; Virgil, “ardentes oculos suffecti sanguine et igni”; Petronius, “fulmineum jubar incendit æquor.” Virgil, “fit sonitus spumante salo”; Petronius, “sibilis undæ tremunt.” So the imitator goes on exaggerating greatness into monstrosity, wonders into impossibilities. The boys are secondary in Virgil. He passes them over with a few insignificant words, indicative simply of their helplessness and distress. Petronius makes a great point of them, converting the two children into a couple of heroes.

Who expects from human beings, and children especially, such self-sacrifice? The Greek understood nature better (Quintus Calaber, lib. xii.), when he made even mothers forget their children at the appearance of the terrible serpents, so intent was every one on securing his own safety.

The usual method of trying to conceal an imitation is to alter the shading, bringing forward what was in shadow, and obscuring what was in relief. Virgil lays great stress upon the size of the serpents, because the probability of the whole subsequent scene depends upon it. The noise occasioned by their coming is a secondary idea, intended to make more vivid the impression of their size. Petronius raises this secondary idea into chief prominence, describing the noise with all possible wealth of diction, and so far forgetting to describe the size of the monsters that we are almost left to infer it from the noise they make. He hardly would have fallen into this error, had he been drawing solely from his imagination, with no model before him which he wished to imitate without the appearance of imitation. We can always recognize a poetic picture as an unsuccessful imitation when we find minor details exaggerated and important ones neglected, however many incidental beauties the poem may possess, and however difficult, or even impossible, it may be to discover the original.

Note 10, p. 36.

Suppl. aux Antiq. Expl. T. i. p. 243. Il y a quelque petite différence entre ce que dit Virgile, et ce que le marbre représente. Il semble, selon ce que dit le poëte, que les serpens quittèrent les deux enfans pour venir entortiller le père, au lieu que dans ce marbre ils lient en même temps les enfans et leur père.

Note 11, p. 37.

Donatus ad v. 227, lib. ii. Æneid. Mirandum non est, clypeo et simulacri vestigiis tegi potuisse, quos supra et longos et validos dixit, et multiplici ambitu circumdedisse Laocoontis corpus ac liberorum, et fuisse superfluam partem. The “non” in the clause “mirandum non est,” should, it seems to me, be omitted, unless we suppose the concluding part of the sentence to be missing. For, since the serpents were of such extraordinary length, it would certainly be surprising that they could be concealed beneath the goddess’s shield, unless this also were of great length, and belonged to a colossal figure. The assurance that this was actually the case must have been meant to follow, or the “non” has no meaning.

Note 12, p. 39.

In the handsome edition of Dryden’s Virgil (London, 1697). Yet here the serpents are wound but once about the body, and hardly at all about the neck. So indifferent an artist scarcely deserves an excuse, but the only one that could be made for him would be that prints are merely illustrations, and by no means to be regarded as independent works of art.

Note 13, p. 40.

This is the judgment of De Piles in his remarks upon Du Fresnoy: “Remarquez, s’il vous plaît, que les draperies tendres et légères, n’étant données qu’au sexe féminin, les anciens sculpteurs ont évité autant qu’ils out pu, d’habiller les figures d’hommes; parce qu’ils ont pensé, comme nous l’avons déjà dit qu’en sculpture on ne pouvait imiter les étoffes, et que les gros plis faisaient un mauvais effet. Il y a presque autant d’exemples de cette vérité, qu’il y a parmi les antiques, de figures d’hommes nuds. Je rapporterai seulement celui du Laocoon, lequel, selon la vraisemblance, devrait être vêtu. En effet, quelle apparence y a-t-il qu’un fils de roi, qu’un prêtre d’Apollon, se trouvât tout nud dans la cérémonie actuelle d’un sacrifice? car les serpens passèrent de l’île de Tenedos au rivage de Troye, et surprirent Laocoon et ses fils dans le temps même qu’il sacrifiait à Neptune sur le bord de la mer, comme le marque Virgile dans le second livre de son Enéide. Cependant les artistes qui sont les auteurs de ce bel ouvrage, ont bien vu qu’ils ne pouvaient pas leur donner de vêtements convenables à leur qualité, sans faire comme un amas de pierres, dont la masse ressemblerait à un rocher, au lieu des trois admirables figures, qui ont été, et qui sont toujours, l’admiration des siècles. C’est pour cela que de deux inconveniens, ils out jugé celui des draperies beaucoup plus fâcheux, que celui d’aller contre la vérité même.”

Note 14, p. 42.

Maffei, Richardson, and, more recently, Herr Von Hagedorn. (Betrachtungen über die Malerei, p. 37. Richardson, Traité de la Peinture, vol. iii.) De Fontaines does not merit being reckoned in the same class with these scholars. In the notes to his translation of Virgil, he maintains, indeed, that the poet had the group in mind, but he is so ignorant as to ascribe it to Phidias.

Note 15, p. 44.

I can adduce no better argument in support of my view than this poem of Sadolet. It is worthy of one of the old poets, and, since it may well take the place of an engraving, I venture to introduce it here entire.

DE LAOCOONTIS STATUA JACOBI SADOLETI CARMEN.

So, from the depths of earth and the bowels of mighty ruins, the long-deferred day has brought back the returning Laocoon, who stood of old in thy royal halls and graced thy penates, Titus. The image of divine art, a work as noble as any produced by the learning of antiquity, now freed from darkness, beholds again the lofty walls of renovated Rome. With what part shall I begin as the greatest? the unhappy father and his two sons? the sinuous coils of the terrible serpents? the tails and the fierceness of the dragons? the wounds and real pains of the dying stone? These chill the mind with horror, and pity, mingled with no slight fear, drives our hearts back from the dumb image. Two gleaming snakes cover a vast space with their gathered coils, and move in sinuous rings, and hold three bodies bound in a many-twisted knot. Eyes scarce can bear to behold the cruel death and fierce sufferings. One gleaming seeks Laocoon himself, winding him all about, above, below, and attacks his groins at last with poisonous bite. The imprisoned body recoils, and you see the limbs writhe and the side shrink back from the wound. Forced by the sharp pain and bitter anguish, he groans; and, trying to tear out the cruel teeth, throws his left hand upon the serpent’s back. The nerves strain, and the whole body in vain collects its strength for the supreme effort. He cannot endure the fierce torture, and pants from the wound. But the slippery snake glides down with frequent folds, and binds his leg below the knee with twisted knot. The calves fall in, the tight-bound leg swells between the pressing coils, and the vitals grow tumid from the stopping of the pulses, and black blood distends the livid veins. The same cruel violence attacks the children no less fiercely, tortures them with many encircling folds, and lacerates their suffering limbs. Now satiated upon the bloody breast of one, who, with his last breath, calls upon his father, the serpent supports the lifeless body with the mighty circles thrown around it. The other, whose body has as yet been hurt by no sting, while preparing to pluck out the tail from his foot, is filled with horror at sight of his wretched father, and clings to him. A double fear restrains his great sobs and falling tears. Therefore ye enjoy perpetual fame, ye great artificers who made the mighty work, although an immortal name may be sought by better deeds, and nobler talents may be handed down to future fame. Yet any power employed to snatch this praise and reach the heights of fame is excellent. Ye have excelled in animating the rigid stone with living forms, and inserting living senses within the breathing marble. We see the movement, the wrath and pain, and almost hear the groans. Illustrious Rhodes begot you of old. Long the glories of your art lay hid, but Rome beholds them again in a second dawn, and celebrates them with many voices, in fresh acknowledgment of the old labor. How much nobler, then, to extend our fates by art or toil than to swell pride and wealth and empty luxury.

(Leodegarii a Quercu Farrago Poematum, T. ii.) Gruter has introduced this poem with another one of Sadolet into his well-known collection, but with many errors. (Delic. Poet. Italorum. Parte alt.)

Note 16, p. 45.

De la Peinture, tome iii. p. 516. C’est l’horreur que les Troïens ont conçue contre Laocoon, qui était nécessaire à Virgile pour la conduite de son poëme; et cela le mène à cette description pathétique de la destruction de la patrie de son héros. Aussi Virgile n’avait garde de diviser l’attention sur la dernière nuit, pour une grand ville entière, par la peinture d’un petit malheur d’un particulier.

Note 17, p. 51.

I say it is possible, but I would wager ten against one that it is not so. Juvenal is speaking of the early days of the republic, when splendor and luxury were yet unknown, and the soldier put whatever gold and silver he got as booty upon his arms and the caparisons of his horse. (Sat. xi.)

The soldier broke up the precious cups, the masterpieces of great artists, to make a she-wolf, a little Romulus and Remus to deck his helmet with. All is plain down to the last two lines, where the poet proceeds to describe such a figure on the helmets of the old soldiers. The figure is meant for the god Mars, but what can the term pendentis mean as applied to him? Rigaltius found in an old gloss the interpretation “quasi ad ictum se inclinantis.” Lubinus supposes the figure to have been on the shield, and, as the shield hung from the arm, the figure might be spoken of as hanging. But this is contrary to the construction, the subject of “ostenderet” being not “miles” but “cassis.” According to Britannicus, whatever stands high in the air may be said to hang, and the expression may be used of this figure perched above or upon the helmet. Some would read “perdentis” as a contrast to the following “perituro,” though none but themselves would think the contrast desirable. What does Addison say to this doubtful passage? He thinks all the commentators are wrong and maintains this to be the true meaning. “The Roman soldiers, who were not a little proud of their founder and the military genius of their republic, used to bear on their helmets the first history of Romulus, who was begot by the god of war and suckled by a wolf. The figure of the god was made as if descending upon the priestess Ilia, or, as others call her, Rhea Silvia. As he was represented descending, his figure appeared suspended in the air over the vestal virgin, in which sense the word ‘pendentis’ is extremely proper and poetical. Besides the antique basso-rilievo (in Bellori) that made me first think of this interpretation, I have since met with the same figures on the reverses of a couple of ancient coins, which were stamped in the reign of Antoninus Pius.” (Addison’s Travels, Rome, Tonson’s edition, 1745, p. 183.)

Since Spence considers this such a happy discovery on the part of Addison, that he quotes it as a model of its kind and as the strongest proof of the value of the works of the old artists in throwing light on the classic Roman poets, I cannot refrain from a closer examination of it. (Polymetis, dial. vii.) I must observe, in the first place, that the bas-relief and the coin would hardly have recalled to Addison the passage from Juvenal, had he not remembered reading in the old scholiast, who substituted “venientis” for “fulgentis” in the last line but one, this interpretation: “Martis ad Iliam venientis ut concumberet.” Now, instead of this reading of the old scholiast, let us accept Addison’s, and see if we have then the slightest reason for supposing the poet to have had Rhea in mind. Would it not rather be a complete inversion on his part, where he is speaking of the wolf and the boys, to be thinking of the adventure to which the children owe their life? Rhea has not yet become a mother, and the boys are already lying under the rock. Would an hour of dalliance be a fitting emblem for the helmet of a Roman soldier? The soldier was proud of the divine origin of the founder of his country, and that was sufficiently typified by the wolf and the children. What need of introducing Mars at a moment when he was any thing but the dread-inspiring god? His visit to Rhea may have been represented on any number of old marbles and coins: did that make it a fitting ornament for armor? What are the marbles and coins on which Addison saw Mars in this hovering attitude? The old bas-relief to which he appeals is said to be in Bellori, but we shall look for it in vain in the Admiranda, his collection of finest old bas-reliefs. Spence cannot have found it there or elsewhere, for he makes no mention of it. Nothing remains, therefore, but the coins, which we will study from Addison himself. I see a recumbent figure of Rhea, and Mars standing on a somewhat higher plane, because there was not room for him on the same level. That is all: there is no sign of his being suspended. Such an effect is produced very strongly, it is true, in Spence’s copy. The upper part of the figure is thrown so far forward as to make standing impossible; so that if the body be not falling, it must be hovering. Spence says this coin is in his possession. It is hard to question a man’s veracity, even in a trifle, but our eyes are often greatly influenced by a preconceived opinion. He may, besides, have thought it allowable for the good of the reader to have the artist so emphasize the expression which he thought he saw, that as little doubt might remain on our mind as on his. One thing is plain: that Spence and Addison refer to the same coin, which is either very much misrepresented by one or embellished by the other. But I have another objection to make to this supposed hovering attitude of Mars. A body thus suspended, without any visible cause for the law of gravitation not acting upon it, is an absurdity of which no example can be found in the old works of art. It is not allowable even in modern painting. If a body is to be suspended in the air, it must either have wings or appear to rest upon something, if only a cloud. When Homer makes Thetis rise on foot from the sea-shore to Olympus, Τὴν μὲν ἄρ’ Οὔλυμπον δὲ πόδες φέρον (Iliad, xviii. 148), Count Caylus is too well aware of the limitations of art to counsel the painter to represent her as walking unsupported through the air. She must pursue her way upon a cloud (Tableaux tirés de l’Iliade, p. 91), as in another place he puts her into a chariot (p. 131), although exactly the opposite is stated by the poet. How can it be otherwise? Although the poet represents the goddess with a human body, he yet removes from her every trace of coarse and heavy materiality, and animates her with a power which raises her beyond the influence of our laws of motion. How could painting so distinguish the bodily shape of a deity from the bodily shape of a human being, that our eyes should not be offended by observing it acted upon by different laws of motion, weight, and equilibrium? How but by conventional signs, such as a pair of wings or a cloud? But more of this elsewhere; here it is enough to require the defenders of the Addison theory to show on the old monuments a second figure floating thus unsupported in the air. Can this Mars be the only one of its kind? why? Were there some particular conditions handed down by tradition which would necessitate such exceptional treatment in this one case? There is no trace of such in Ovid (Fast. lib. i.), but rather proof that no such conditions ever could have existed. For in other ancient works of art which represent the same story, Mars is evidently not hovering, but walking. Examine the bas-relief in Montfaucon (Suppl. T. i. p. 183), which is to be found, if I am not mistaken, in the Mellini palace at Rome. Rhea lies asleep under a tree, and Mars approaches her softly, with that expressive backward motion of the right hand by which we warn those behind to stay where they are, or to advance gently. His attitude is precisely the same as on the coin, except that in one case he holds his lance in the right, in the other in the left hand. We often find famous statues and bas-reliefs copied on coins, and the same may well be the case here, only that the cutter of the die did not perceive the force of the backward motion of the hand, and thought it better employed in holding the lance. Taking all these arguments into consideration, what degree of probability remains to Addison’s theory? Hardly more than a bare possibility. But where can better explanation be had if this fails? Possibly among the interpretations rejected by Addison. But if not, what then? The passage in the poet is corrupted, and so it must remain. It certainly will so remain, if twenty new conjectures are invented. We might say that “pendentis” here was to be taken figuratively in the sense of uncertain, undecided. Mars “pendens” would then be the same as Mars “incertus” or Mars “communis.” “Dii communes,” says Servius (ad. v. 118, lib. xii. Æneid), are Mars, Bellona, and Victory, so called from their favoring both parties in war. And the line,—