XVI.—The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. The probable arrangement and signification of its principal Sculptures

Edmund Oldfield Esq.

doi:10.1017/S0261340900014417

XVI.—The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. The probable arrangement and signification of its principal Sculptures

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 January 2012

Edmund Oldfield Esq.

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In the paper on the Mausoleum which I read before the Society on 14th June, 1893, and which has since been published in Archaeologia, I stated my intention to investigate two distinct questions relating to that celebrated building:

I. What appeared from the best literary and monumental evidence to have been its architectural form?

II. What was the most probable arrangement of its principal sculptures?

The first of these questions I have sufficiently dealt with in the paper referred to, subject to one correction, which I ask leave now to submit. Since the appearance of my scheme in Archaeologia, I have been led to adopt a slight modification of the architectural arrangement there suggested for the interior of the Pteron.

Type: Research Article
Information: Archaeologia , Volume 55 , Issue 2 , 1897 , pp. 343 - 390

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261340900014417 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1897

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^{page 343 note a} Archaeologia, liv. pl. xxii.

^{page 344 note a} This modification of my original scheme I made known in the Builder of 7 March, 1896, p. 214.

^{page 348 note a} See fig. 2; cf. Archaeologia, liv. pl. xxv.

^{page 348 note b} The projecting portion is shown in fig. 3, and in vol. liv. pl. xxiii. (Half elevation of south side.)

^{page 350 note a} Newton, , A History of Discoveries at Halicarnassus, Cnidus, and Branchidœ (London, 1862), ii. 251.Google Scholar

^{page 350 note b} Ibid. ii. 252.

^{page 350 note c} Geographica, lib. xiv. p. 56; lib. viii. p. 374.

^{page 350 note d} Pausanias, ii. 30, § 8.

^{page 350 note e} Vitruvius, De Architectura lib. ii. 8. Herodotus also, vii. 99, though not noticing any of these myths, describes the Halicarnassians distinctly as Trœzenians.

^{page 350 note f} No. 3 in the official Guide to the Mausoleum Room.

^{page 351 note a} Plutarch, Questiones Grœcœ, xlv.

^{page 351 note b} Gardner, Types of Greek Coins, pl. x. 22. Cf. Mionnet, Description des Medailles Antiques Grecques et Romaines, iii. 349 (Halicarnasse).

^{page 352 note a} See fig. 3; cf. Archaeologia, liv. pl. xxi. (plan), and pl. xxiii. (section).

^{page 352 note b} Archaeologia, liv. pl. xxii.; cf. supra, fig. 1.

^{page 352 note c} See Visconti's explanation of the hippodrome at Olympia, founded on the description of Pausanias in lib. vi. c. 20, Museo Pio Clem. v. 58–267.

^{page 353 note a} Sir Charles Newton himself described them at first, unadvisedly, as women. Travels and Discoveries in the Levant (London, 1865), ii. 132–3.Google Scholar

^{page 353 note b} In Gerhard's Auserlesene Griechische Vasenbilder, theil II. taf. cvii., a young man is shown as charioteer, who, besides wearing a similar tunic, has a long plait of hair, like a woman's, hanging down his back.

^{page 353 note c} See above, fig. 3; cf. Archaeologia, liv. pl. xxiii. xxiv. (sectional views). Mr. Murray has suggested, in a lecture before the Glasgow Archaeological Society in 1894, and since brought to my notice, that these panels may perhaps have been fitted into some of the coffers in the ceiling of the peristyle. Such an arrangement, however, seems to me hardly likely to have satisfied the sculptors of the Mausoleum. Small groups of figures, in a series comprehending various unconnected subjects, require a near and clear view to be even intelligibly made out; and their workmanship, if, like these, highly finished, needs ample facility for inspection. To place them in ceiling recesses which have no direct light, which are perpendicularly over the spectator's head, and at least 30 feet above it, would be virtually sacrificing works evidently intended for the fullest examination. I prefer, therefore, the different destination here assigned for them.

^{page 355 note a} A History of Discoveries at Halicarnassus, Cnidus, and Branchidœ, ii. 249.

^{page 355 note b} Related by Plutarch, Vita Lysandri, c. xviii., on the authority of the historiographer Duris, who said that Lysander was the first Greek who ever received such a tribute.

^{page 355 note c} Diodorus Siculus, lib. xvii. c. 115.

^{page 356 note a}

Homer, Iliad, lib. v., v. 840.

^{page 356 note b} Clio (I.), 60

^{page 356 note c} The courageous speech in which Callisthenes opposed the deification of the living Alexander, as recorded by Arrian, contains the following reference to Heracles: Ὀυδὲ αὐτῷ τῷ Ἡρακλεῖ ζῶντι ἐτὶ θεῖαι τιμαὶ παρ᾽ ῾Ελλήνων ἐγένοντο, ἀλλ᾽ οὐδὲ τελευτήσαντι πρόσθεν ἢ πρὸς τοῦ ἐν Δελφοῖς ἐπιθεσπισθῆναι ὡς θεὸν τιμᾶν Ἡρακλὲα. Anabasis, lib. iv. ii. 7. The whole speech explains very clearly the ideas of the Greeks on the religious question.

^{page 356 note d} Vol. iii. No. 1.

^{page 357 note a} Fab. 30.

^{page 357 note b} Pausanias, vi. 13, § 4, s. 7; 18, § 1.

^{page 357 note c} According to a scholist on Aristophanes (Aves, 574), wings were first given to Victories by Archermus of Chios, whom C. O. Müller places about the middle of the sixth century B.C. See Ancient Art and its Remains (English edition), 394. That they were at least so applied, if not invented, by that sculptor, is shown by the recent discovery in Delos of an archaic winged statue of the goddess, having an inscription on its pedestal, which is read as containing the name of Archermus. See Murray, History of Greek Sculpture, i. 5; ii. 187; and Handbook of Greek Archaeology, 247-8. The wingless type, however, was not at once abandoned, for Calamis, who is believed to have lived 100 years later than Archermus, made a Victory without wings for the Mantineans to dedicate at Elis, which Pausanias (V. 26, § 5) says was an imitation of an early statue at Athens. Nevertheless, wings had become by the middle of the fifth century the characteristic attribute of Victory, as may be seen from the celebrated statue by Pæonius discovered at Olympia, on which the mark of the lost wings still remains on the shoulders. In the series of reliefs also from the Temple of the so-called Nike Apferos at Athens, every figure of Victory is represented as winged.

^{page 358 note a} Καλὸς ἦν καὶ μέγας. v. Dialogi Mortuorum, xxiv. (Diogenis et Mausoli.)

^{page 359 note a} The explanation of this alteration, and the arguments by which it is proved, are fully set out in my former paper, in Archaeologia, liv. 294–298.

^{page 359 note b} Mr. J. J. Stevenson, in a paper read before this Society on 7th May, 1896, and afterwards published in the Builder (29th August, 1896), in endeavouring to disprove my contention that the work of Pythis was really a modification of the original apex of the pyramid, resorts to the somewhat singular argument that after the death of Artemisia there would be no one to pay for so expensive a work as I suggest; as if Idrieus and Ada, inheriting the throne and the wealth of Halicarnassus, would have been unable to defray the cost of such a memorial of their brother and sister!

^{page 359 note c} For examples of this subject v. Gerhard's Auserlesene Griechische Vasenbilder (Hochzeitwagen) iv. pls. cccx.–cccxv.

^{page 360 note a} See the accompanying plate, taken from photographs from the original marbles

^{page 361 note a} In repairing and setting up in the Museum this marble, which is made up of broken parts with some necessary restorations, the head has been hardly brought sufficiently over the foot on which the weight of the body rests, so that a certain indecision of balance appears now in the whole figure. A better idea of the pose intended by the sculptor may be gathered from the plate in Sir Charles Newton's Travels and Discoveries in the Levant, ii. 116, pl. 10. That plate was photographed from a drawing by Mrs. Newton, who, with a true artistic instinct, represented the figure as it no doubt originally stood. Unfortunately, it has not been found practicable to obtain a photographic copy either of Mrs. Newton's drawing, or of the plate published in her husband's work, to illustrate the argument above stated.

^{page 363 note a} Examples of this may be seen on the slabs marked 40, 41, and 44, 45, in the Elgin Room; as well as on painted vases (from one of which the illustration in the text is taken) too numerous for citation.

^{page 365 note a} Archaeologia, liv. pi. xxiii.–iv.–v.

^{page 365 note b} See figs. 2 and 3.

^{page 365 note c} Vol. XIII. (1892–3).

^{page 365 note d} This theory seems to have been first suggested by Stark (Philolog. xxi. 464); and Mr. Gardner states that it was accepted by Wolters, and, with some reserve, by Overbeck.

^{page 367 note a} It is unnecessary, for the present discussion, to take notice of the very different interpretation given by many archæologists to the horse on these tablets, treating it merely as an indication of knightly rank.

^{page 368 note a} On this proportion, as a matter of fact, there seems a curious contrariety of opinion between the two learned critics, one of whose views we are now discussing, and both of whom, from their official connection, present or past, with the Museum, might be considered authoritative experts. Mr. Murray thinks that the two semi-colossal statues, when raised to their place, proved so much too large, or at least too broad, for the chariot, that the drapery of Mausolus had to be hacked away at the side, before it could be got into the car; whilst Professor Gardner thinks both statues were so much too small both for the chariot and the horses, that they could not originally have belonged to the quadriga group at all. In medio tutissimus ibis, I venture to say.

^{page 369 note a} Gargiulo, Recueil des Monuments du Musée Royal Bourbon, iii. pl. 51.

^{page 369 note b} Mionnet, Medailles Grecques, pl. lxvii. 1, 3, 5 (Syracuse); Gardner, Types of Greek Coins, pl. vi. 25–28 (Syracuse); ditco, 29 (Catana).

^{page 370 note a} Such a horse is represented on a coin of Philip II. of Macedon, where the rider's foot barely reaches down to the line of his belly. See Gardner, Types of Greek Coins, pl. vii. 39; cf. also a coin of Tarentum, ditto, pl. xi. 4. As an illustration of the breed of Asia Minor I may refer to the Lycian Tomb, now in the British Museum, which has on its roof a bas-relief of Bellerophon in a quadriga pursuing the Chimæra, where the horses, judging from their proportion to the human figures, must have been fully 15 or 16 hands high.

^{page 370 note b} As to the identification of Pythis with Phyteus, see my former paper in Archaeologia, liv. 298–300.

^{page 371 note a} The earliest work of which the date can be fixed on which Scopas was employed was the Temple of Athene at Tegea; rebuilt after the fire in B.C. 394, where he was both architect and sculptor. But this, being a commission of great importance, is hardly likely to have been given him, if he was then very young. The latest work which can with certainty be referred to him is that of the Mausoleum, begun between 353 and 351. Idrieus reigned from 351 to 344, Ada thenceforward to 340. For the date of Scopas, see Sillig, Dictionary of Artists, s.v.

^{page 374 note a} It must be admitted, however, that the Zeus of Labranda is an exception to this rule.

^{page 376 note a} Pausanias gives instances of states out of servility conferring this honour on living warriors or statesmen whom it was expedient to propitiate. Thus, after the battle of Ægos-Potami, the Ephesians placed statues of Lysander and certain of his comrades in the Temple of Artemis; and the Samians not merely erected a statue of Lysander in the temenos of Zeus at Olympia, but with characteristic versatility dedicated figures of Alcibiades, and afterwards of Conon and Timotheus, in their own Temple of Hera. Pausanius, vi. c. iii. 15.

^{page 376 note b} The latter of these alternatives seems to me more probable; for there is a considerable difference between the two compared heads in style of execution, however similar their subjects. The Mausoleum head is n a broader and grander, but less elaborate and refined, manner than the other.

^{page 377 note a} This inscription was mentioned by Mr. A. S. Murray in a lecture at the Royal Academy. Builder, 15 April, 1893.

^{page 377 note b} Τῶν ὀκτὼ πόλεων τὰς ἓξ Μαύσωλος εἰς μίαν τὴν ᾽Λλικαρνασσὸν συνήγαγεν, ὡς Καλλισθένης ἱστορεῖ. Συάγγελα δὲ καὶ Μύνδον διεφυλαξε. Geographica, xiii. c. 1. 59. Strabo does not give the names of the towns included by Mausolus. According to Pliny, v. 29, Alexander the Great annexed to Halicarnassus the following towns: Theangela, Sibda, Medmassa, Euranium, Pedasum, and Pelmessus. But Cramer suggests, and no doubt rightly, that Pliny has here confused Alexander with Mausolus, and that the towns he names are really the same as those referred to by Strabo. See Cramer, Asia Minor, ii. 180.

^{page 379 note a} An arrangement of hair very similar to the present may be seen on a vase published in Miiller's Denkmäler, vol. i. pl. xlvi. 211a.

^{page 379 note b} A list of such coins is to be found in Rasche, Lexicon universœ Rei Nummariœ, tom. v. P. ii. p. 786. An interesting bas-relief, representing Corcyra as a veiled woman, joining alliance with the demos of Athens, is published by Duruy, Histoire des Grecs, iii. 22.

^{page 379 note c} No. 47 in the official Guide.

^{page 379 note d} Iconographie Grecque, i. pl. 16.

^{page 379 note e} No. 50.

^{page 380 note a} A very competent judge, whom I have not received permission to name, but who examined the head with me, thought that it really represented some female personage. The absence of any kind of head-dress or ornament, however, seems to nie against that view.

^{page 380 note b} No. 49.

^{page 380 note c} No. 51.

^{page 381 note a} The chief difference, or apparent difference, is that the Philippeum was net a sepulchral monument, but a species of trophy erected in Philip's lifetime, immediately after the victory at Chæronea. In the opinion of some archæologists, however, including apparently Sir C. Newton (A History of Discoveries at Halicarnassus, Cnidus, and Branchidœ, ii. 35), the Mausoleum also was begun in the lifetime of the person in whose honour it was erected, though its subsequent magnificence might have been due to the piety of his widow.

^{page 381 note b} Pausanias, v. 20, § 5.

^{page 381 note c} Archaeolojia, liv. 353.

^{page 382 note a} No. 40.

^{page 382 note b} No. 47.

^{page 382 note c} No. 50.

^{page 382 note d} No. 42. See A History of Discoveries at Halicarnassus, Cnidus, and Branchidœ, ii. 128.

^{page 383 note a} No. 49.

^{page 383 note b} No. 51.

^{page 384 note a} Diodorus describes these as Λέοντες χρυσοῖ δεδορκότες πρὸς εἰσπορευομένους. xviii. 27.

^{page 384 note b} Vitruvius, lib. vii. præf. 8.

^{page 384 note c} “Hodieque certant manus.” Pliny, lib. xxxvi. c. 5.

^{page 385 note a} Ὁ᾽ Ελευσινιακὸς λίθος πρὸς ᾧ τὰ ζῶα v. line 41–2 of this inscription, the whole of which is published (more correctly than in the work of its original discoverer, Chandler) in Rose's Inscriptiones Grœcœ Vetustissimœ, 180–206, and in the later edition of Stuart's Antiquities of Athens, &c. ii. 64–6.

^{page 385 note b} Rose (quoting Wilkins), 187, N. 5; Leake, , Topography of Athens (2nd edition), i. 577Google Scholar.

^{page 386 note a} No. 51.

^{page 386 note b} The authorities for these four names are given by Clinton, Fasti Hellenici, ii. 287.

^{page 388 note a} Lib. xvii. c. 115.

^{page 388 note b} Cf. Quatremère de Quincy, Monumens et ouvrages d'art antiques restituès, and Dictionnaire historique d'Architecture, s.v. Mausolée; Donaldson, Architectura Numismatica, 177.

^{page 389 note a} Newton, Travels and Discoveries in the Levant, ii. 114.

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XVI.—The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. The probable arrangement and signification of its principal Sculptures

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