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Poet Or Law-giver?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2013
Extract
Few Greek statues are so famous as the draped marble figure, somewhat larger than life, known under the name of ‘Sophocles,’ which has been for many years the chief attraction of the Lateran Museum (Figs. 1, 2). Indeed it was on account of this statue, and on the occasion of its discovery, that Pope Gregory XVI ordered a part of the Lateran Palace to be converted into a Museum, wishing to provide the gem with a worthy shrine of its own.
Nor is such fame undeserved.
The calm and dignified attitude, the high-spirited head, the clever and harmonious arrangement of the drapery, the careful, broad and supple workmanship—everything combines to make our statue not only a masterpiece of Greek art, but the classical type of an Athenian gentleman shown in the bloom of full manhood, as he may have been met with sauntering about the theatre or agora in the fifth century B.C.
Though all do not agree that we have here, as has been often said, the finest lifesize portrait which has come down to us from Hellenic sculpture, at any rate, since the first day of its appearance, artists and archaeologists have been unanimous in its praise.
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- Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1922
References
1 I completely share the doubts expressed by Wieseler, (Gött. gel. Anzeigen, 1848, p. 1220sq.)Google Scholar concerning the usual interpretation of a corrupted passage in the anonymous Vita Sophoclis (Westermann, Βιογράφοι, p. 128Google Scholar = Overbeck, 1413), from which archaeologists have inferred the existence of an older statue erected to Sophocles, soon after his death, by his son Iophon—of whom, by the way, the learned gossip knew little else than his sad quarrels with bis father. Here is the text of the MSS. as corrected by Meineke: ἔσχε δέ καὶ τὴν τοῦ Ἅλωνος (Ἅλκωνος Meineke; but cf. Schmidt, E., Ath. Mitt. xxxviii. 73Google Scholar) ἱερωσύνην, ὃς ἥρως ᾖν μετ' Ἀσκληπιοῦ παρὰ Χείρωνι <τραφεὶς? add. Mein. > … (desunt quaedam) ἱδρυνθεὶς ὑπ' Ἰοφῶντος τοῦ υἱοῦ μετὰ τὴν τελευτήν. This seems to point to a statue, not of Sophocles, but of the hero Alcon, a statue vowed by Sophocles but set up, after his death, by his son (Comp. Lycurgus I. 147, 43: ἥρωες κατὰ πολιν—ἱδρύμενοι). I have my doubts about the insertion of τραφείι. The sense may be that the statue of Alcon, with that of Asclepios, were both set up near the statue of Chiron: so we would have here a group of three statues. In this case αὐτοῦ ought to be inserted before or after τελευτήν.
2 Sat., i. 5, 26.
3 Martial, v. 1; Suet. Galba 14. Cp. La Blanchère, , Terracine (1884).Google Scholar
4 La Blanchère, p. 136 and Pl. II. He gives, however, for the discovery the wrong date 1846, and quotes no authority for the particulars above mentioned.
4a Whether the scrinium was rightly restored is a difficult question. According to Birt, (die Buchrolle in der Kunst, p. 292)Google Scholar this does not appear before the Hellenistic age. If, as shown later, the effigy is that of Solon, an ἄξων would have been the proper accessory.
5 See, however, Reinach, Sal. on Clarac, , Répertoire, I. p. lix, Pl. 510, No. 3Google Scholar: ‘n'est pas Sophocle.” I remember also doubts expressed by Prof. Heuzey in his lessons on Greek costume at the École des Beaux-Arts.
6 Amelung, , Moderner Cicerone, p. 341.Google Scholar
7 Found 1778; first published by Visconti, , Museo Pio Clementino, vi. Pl. 27.Google Scholar
8 Annali dell' Instituto, 1846, p. 129 foll.
9 See, for instance, the well-known stele of Prokles and Prokleides in Athens, with two heads of this style.
10 Iconogr. grecque, i. 107.
11 1st publication: Ursinus, , Imagines (1570), p. 25Google Scholar; 2nd publication: Ursinus, , Illustrium Imagines (1598), Pl. 136.Google Scholar See Hülsen, , Die Hermeninschriften, etc., in Ath. Mitth. xvi. (1901), p. 123 follGoogle Scholar; No. 40.
11a To the list (21 numbers) given by Bernoulli (I. 129 foll.) Arndt adds now two new instances in private collections at Jaffa and Munich.
12 I say probably, because, strange to say, Euripides is also sometimes associated with Solon (his countryman from Salamis, and, like him, a Sage); for instance, in a herm of Velletri, now at Naples (Bernoulli, i. p. 38).
13 Delbruck, , Antike Porträts (1912).Google Scholar
14 Winter.
15 If any one still insists on the distant analogy of the Vatican bust, we shall answer that such a trivial work, which must have been ordered from some cheap figure carver, by a Roman amateur, eager to get a set of literary busts with more or less arbitrary inscriptions, cannot seriously be taken into account in an iconographic problem. Moreover, under its slovenly workmanship, in which all distinctive features are blurred, we have nevertheless noticed above several details, especially the design of the eyebrows, showing characters more akin to the Farnese series than to the Lateran statue.
16 Hist. Nat. xxxv. 9.
17 Reliefs of Euripides in Constantinople, of Menander in the Lateran; statues of Poseidippos (Vatican), Moschion (Naples), Sappho (Constantinople, mentioned by Christodorus), etc.
18 By imitation this attitude was perpetuated in works of art until Roman times (see, for instance, the statue of Epidaurus, , Collignon, , Rev. arch. 1915, i. p. 40Google Scholar). On the ‘motif’ in general compare Bulle in his commentary of the statue of Eretria (Brunn-Bruckmann, No. 519), who goes, however, quite astray in the dating of the Lateran statue.
19 Robert, , Archäol. Hermeneutik, p. 131.Google Scholar
20 Dio Chrysostom. xxxvi. 7, and other passages quoted by Sittl, , Gebärden, p. 7.Google Scholar
21 Plut. Phoc. 4. Here and elsewhere, as is shown by Quintilian (below), χείρ means arm, not hand.
22 Orat. At. ii. 34, § 25 Did.
23 οὕτω σώφρονες.
24 
25 Instit. Orat. xi. 3, 130.
26 περιζωσάμενος (Const. Ath. 28). Cp. Plut. Nicias, 8: 
27 
28 Pericles, 5; Praec. ger. reip. 4.
29 De falsa legat. 251: 
30 De falsa legat. 255.
31 De coron. 129.
32 Formerly called Aristides, identified in 1834 by Visconti, L., thanks to the Vatican (inscribed) herm, Sala delle Muse, 502.Google Scholar
33 La Blandière, op. cit., p. 137. But he ought not to have added that the attitude is similar to one of a man ‘putting his hands in his pockets.’
34 Const. Ath. 28.
35 C. Leptin. 70 (Overbeck, 1393). The private statues of the fifth century, from which derive the herms of Themistoeles, Pericles, Alcibiftdes, are all helmeted.
36 It is first mentioned by the Pseudo-Demosthenes, (C. Aristog. ii. 23, p. 807)Google Scholar in a speech delivered under Alexander. The words used point to a recent dedication; the statue probably did not exist at the time of Aeschines's speech against Timarchus.
37 
38 Diog. La. i. 62.
39 De falsa leg. 251.
40 Dio Chrys., xxxvii, (ii. 293, Dind., Overbeck, 1397). This man, who had certainly never seen the statue, believes it (as Aeschines led his audience to believe) to be contemporary with Solon: 
41 Dütschke, , Antike Bildwerke, etc., iii. 179Google Scholar, No. 363.
42 Insc. Sicil. 1209. Cf. C. I. G. 6110.
43 Dütschke (entfernte Aehnlichkeit).
44 Icon. i. pp. 38 and 39.
45 Iconog. gr. i. Pl. IX. a, p. 143.
46 Bullettino, 1847, p. 21.
47 Some critics may wonder at the flap of drapery which hangs down the left shoulder and is not continued on the right. But (1) the same arrangement appears on the herm of ‘Antisthenes’ (Naples, 6155), which is of one block; (2) most likely the right shoulder (left from the spectator) has been badly restored, and should be squarer, showing a bit of drapery twisted round the neck as on the Euripides herm (Naples 6135).
48 Villa Albani, Coffee House, No. 731 (Bernoulli, p. 137, No. 4).
49 These are, in addition to the Florence and Albani herms, two herms of the Capitol (Sala dei Filosofi, 33 and 34), one with the modern inscription 
and a bronze bust in Florence, Museo Archaeologico.
50 Eranos, p. 142. Substantially reproduced in his Praxiteles, p. 48, and his Geschichte der griechischen Kunst., ii. 243.
51 xxxiv. 87; Overbeck, 1137.
52 Milchhöfer, Gurlitt, etc. It was adopted by Collignon (ii. 184), who, however, did not draw the necessary inference.
53 Cicero, , Verr. iv. 57, 126Google Scholar (Overbeck, 1355).
54 erecta would be the proper word. See, however, Ammianus, xxvi. 2, 5: elata prospere dextra.
55 Statues of Augustus (Primaporta), Titus (Vatican); Gallienus on medals, etc. Comp. Sittl, , Gebärden, p. 303.Google Scholar The arringatore at Florence is of doubtful interpretation.
56 See the Marsyas of Myron, the Blacas vase, the Heracles vase of Assteas, etc. Vainly did Milchhöfer try to find an orator in the Arcadian relief, Ath. Mitt. vi. 51; Sittl, loc. cit.
57 Instit. orat. xi. 3, 117. Comp. Augustine, , In Iohannem, 87, 2.Google Scholar
58 Milchhöfer, , Festechrift für Brunn, p. 39.Google Scholar
59 Ovid, , Fast. vi. 412Google Scholar (pede velato). In prose (Livy, v. 21) as well as in poetry, velatus stands for amictus.
60 The career of Kephisodotos, according to Pliny (01.102, 372–69 B.C.), culminated perhaps in this work. In fact he must have been then an old man.
61 Commonly dated 374 (on account of the sacrifices instituted for Eirene, Isocrat. xv. 109; Nepos, , Timoth. 2Google Scholar), but this date is now disputed by many (Klein, op cit., Ducati, , Rev. arch. 1906, i. p. 111Google Scholar), who go back as far as 403.
62 Hist. ii. 184.
63 The old hypothesis, founded on the name of one of Praxiteles's sons, is more likely than Furtwängler's theory, which makes Kephisodotos the elder brother of Praxiteles. If such was the case, why should historians give Phocion as the brother-in-law of Kephisodotos (Plut. Phoc. 19) rather than of the far more famous Praxiteles?
64 Compare, among others, the Byzantine ivory ap. Cahier, , Mélanges, iv. 75Google Scholar, a figure in the cemetery of Praetextatus, another one on a sarcophagus of the fourth century at Clermont (these two quoted by Bréhier, , L'art chrétien, p. 53Google Scholar, who aptly compares them with the Lateran statue), the Christ on a sarcophagus of the ‘Sidamara type’ in the Berlin Museum (Post, History of Sculpture, Fig. 1), etc. Bréhier shows that this same type was adopted for the figure of Buddha on early Greco-indian monuments of Gandhara and Bactriana, such as the gold coin of (Kanishka), Kanerkes, Br. Mus. Cat. of Indian Coins, Pl. XXVI, 8.Google Scholar