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A Statue of the Youthful Asklepios

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Warwick Wroth
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The marble statue of a youthful male figure holding in his left hand a snake-encircled staff, which is reproduced in the accompanying plate, was found by Smith and Porcher at Cyrene, and is now in the collection of the British Museum. By its original discoverers this figure was named Aristaeus: an attribution which has been adopted, though with some hesitation, in the Museum Guide to the Graeco-Roman Sculptures. As, however, this attribution seems more than doubtful, it may be well to lay before the readers of the Hellenic Journal some additional remarks upon the subject, and to direct special attention to a statue which is not among those photographed in the History of Discoveries at Cyrene, and which has not, hitherto, been figured elsewhere.

The statue now to be described is four feet five and a half inches in height, and represents a young and beardless male figure standing facing. His right hand rests upon his hip, and under his left arm is a staff round which is coiled a serpent. The lower half of the body is wrapt in a himation, the end of which falls over the left shoulder, leaving the chest and the right arm uncovered. The hair is wavy and carefully composed, but does not fall lower than the neck: around the head is a plain band, above which has been some kind of crown or upright headdress: the top of the head has been worked flat. On the feet are sandals, and at the side of the left foot is a conical object which has been called a rude representation of the omphalos, but which is, in all probability, a mere support.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 4 , November 1883 , pp. 46 - 52
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1883

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References

page 46 note 1 History of Discoveries at Cyrene, by Capt. Smith, and Commander Porcher, . London, 1864, p. 103, No. 74Google Scholar.

page 46 note 2 Part ii. (1876), p. 48, No. 114. The statue is at present in the Graeco-Roman Basement.

page 47 note 1 Smith and Porcher, op. cit., p. 77.

page 47 note 2 Smith and Porcher, p. 102, f.

page 48 note 1 Eckhel, , Num. Vet. Anecd., p. 107Google Scholar; Müller, G. C., De Corcyraeorum Republicâ, p. 55Google Scholar.

page 48 note 2 See the article ‘Aristaeus’ in Daremberg and Saglio, Dict. des Ant. A bronze statue found in Sardinia representing a young and nude male figure, on whose body are bees, has been explained as Aristaeus; see Spano, , Bull, Sardo, 1855Google Scholar.

page 48 note 3 Griech. Plastik (3rd edition), vol. i. p. 274.

page 48 note 4 Overbeck, Schriftquellen, No. 1599.

page 48 note 5 Overbeck, (Griech. Plast. i. 274, 3rd ed.Google Scholar) incidentally remarks that Praxiteles represented Asklepios youthful, but I cannot find any authority for this statement. No doubt it is a slip of the pen for Skopas.

page 49 note 1 Paus. ii. 10, 3. Cp. Overbeck, , Griech. Plast. (3rd ed.), i. 217–222Google Scholar.

page 49 note 2 Cp. the relief in the Ἀθήναιον, vol. v., p. 318, No. 39, and Lenormant, , Les Origines de l'Hist. d'après la Bible (2nd ed.), p. 84 (note)Google Scholar.

page 49 note 3 Paus. ii. 13, 5.

page 49 note 4 Paus. viii. 28, 1. Cp. Urlichs, , Skopas, p. 15 f., and p. 39 f.Google Scholar; Overbeck, (on Skopas), Griech. Plast. (3rd ed.), vol. ii. p. 11 f.Google Scholar

page 49 note 5 Skopas also made a statue of Asklepios for the Temple of Athene Alea in Tegea (Paus. viii. 47, 1). It is not stated by Pausanias whether or not it was beardless. At Titane there was a marble statue of Asklepios called Γορτύνιος (Paus. ii. 11, 8), and because the Asklepios of Gortys in Arcadia was beardless, it is supposed by Curtius (Peloponnesos, i. p. 35) and by Panofka (Asklepios) that this statue was likewise beardless.

page 49 note 6 Panofka, in his Asklepios (Taf. v. n. 6), engraves the reverse type of a similar coin of Phlius (obv. head of Sept. Severas; = Mion. Supp. iv. 1044, p. 159), but from an extremely bad specimen. The coin here reproduced is taken from a cast kindly sent me by M. Babelon of the Bibliothèque Nationale. In the case of the youthful seated figure feeding a serpentre presented on a silver coin of Zacynthus, it is hazardous to determine whether Apollo or the young Asklepios be intended. (See Mionnet, t. ii. p. 206, n. 8; Planches, Pl. lxxiii, n. 3; cp. Prof. Gardner's, P.Types of Greek Coins, Pl. viii. No. 33.Google Scholar)

page 50 note 1 Mus. de Sculpt. Pl. 549, N. 1139; (tom. iv. text, p. 10): Pl. 545, No. 1145 (tom. iv. text, p. 3, No. 1145).

page 51 note 1 Tacit., Ann. xiv. 18. Müller, L., Numismatique de l'ancienne Afrique, vol. i. (Coins of the Cyrenaica), pp. 163–164Google Scholar. A figure probably of Hygeia (‘art very late and coarse’) was found at Cyrene in the Temple of Apollo (Smith and Porcher, p. 100, No. 12), as well as a statuette (‘sculpture late and bad’) probably of Asklepios. (Cyrene, find-spot not noted. Smith and Porcher, p. 107, No. 127.) ‘Le serpent d'Esculape est aussi placé comme type sur les monnaies [of the Cyrenaica] de l'époque romaine.’ Müller, op. cit. p. 111.

page 51 note 2 iii. 131.

page 51 note 3 On autonomous coins of the Cyrenaica the serpent occurs as an accessory symbol. Müller (op. cit. p. 110; Cp. Suppl., p. 3) would refer it to the cultus of Asklepios.

page 51 note 4 ii. 26, 7. Cp. Barth, , Wanderungen durch die Küstenländer des Mittelmeeres, vol. i. pp. 415–416 and p. 432Google Scholar.