The Law Code of Gortyn

in 44o; yet as the sculptor of the Hephaestus (dated 421/416) Alcamenes is credited, like Phidias on the Acropolis, with the general supervision of the whole design of the building. Possibilities too often appear as certainties, sometimes in contexts that suggest recorded fact, like the attribution of the Artemision to the architect Pytheos. This draws attention to another urge, to harmonize incompatibles. 'Pliny preserves a description of Myron's work ... [appraisal of Myron's variety and proportions]. Furthermore, he paid more attention to the physical appearance than to the spiritual factors behind it; nevertheless he caught incomparably in bronze the animated life of both man and animal.' We are here given a piece of ancient art-criticism that may be a little self-contradictory but justifies us in discovering fine characterization in Myron's works. But let us look up the passage. 'Furthermore' corresponds to tamen, and 'nevertheless' masks the end of Pliny's critique and the introduction of a very different comment from Petronius. What then is Petronius up to ? His speaker is the old gasbag Eumolpus, who is citing instances of the self-sacrificing devotion to the arts and science that is so lacking in the modern age. Every example that we can check is handpicked for its inappropriateness. Democritus and Eudoxus were men of the world, and the latter (who 'grew old on a mountain top') seems in fact to have died in his prime. Lysippus 'died of poverty while worrying over the lines of one single statue'; how could that be when the standard anecdote was that his money-box was found to contain 1,500 gold pieces--one for each statue he had made? Myron, qui paene animas hominum ferarumque aere comprehenderat, non invenit heredem is Eumolpus' comment here; of the last three words it suffices to remark that Myron had a son, Lycius, who is also known to us as a sculptor, and the preceding clause disagrees equally with our established authority (animi sensus non expressisse). Petronius does not correct or supplement the art historians' verdict on Myron; on the contrary, through the mouth of his bungler he confirms it. This book then has the faults of a congestive rather than critical approach; and its tensions are not resolved. So to the general reader, for whom the series is designed, it may cause perplexity and misunderstanding. On the other hand, specialists can learn a lot from it and they will be rewarded with new insights, especially into the last hundred years of classical art. The photographs are excellent, with a good balance struck between the new and the familiar.