Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

with figures which it seems almost impossible to ascribe to a mere freak of nature. Amongst those in the British Museum is one representing the head of Chaucer covered with the hood, as in his well-known portrait, the resemblance of which is most extraordinary; and yet the pebble is evidently in its original state, not even polished, but merely broken in two. In the Florence Cabinet is a red and yellow Agate, the shades of which admirably represent a Cupid running; and a few other similar natural pictures are shown in the same collection. Among the gems at Strawberry Hill was a “lusus naturæ, a rare Egyptian pebble representing Voltaire in his night-gown and cap, set in gold;" also " another representing, with the utmost exactness, the portrait of a woman in profile, a rock behind her, and sky before, set in gold, and accounted very curious." The examination of these "nature-paintings" supplies the explanation of an epigram by Claudian “On a table of Sardonyx-stone," which is somewhat obscure in consequence of its very flowery style of expression, and at first rather suggests the idea of a mosaic being intended by his description, though there can be no doubt it refers to the natural colours and veins of the stone tablet itself.

EPIGRAM XLIV.-In mensa de Sardonyche lapide.

"Mensa coloratis aquila sinuatur in alis

Quam floris distinguit honos, similisque figura
Texitur, implumem mentitur gemma volatum."

"The coloured veins that o'er its surface stray,
An eagle's form with dusky wings portray;
With native hues trac'd on the flower'd stone,
A life-like figure in perfection shown;
Form'd in the gem the picture seems to fly,

And wingless cheats the wond'ring gazer's eye."

1 Some others still more extraor- tion of the Hope Precious Stones,' dinary are specified in the 'Descrip- by B. Herz.

This epigram also supplies another instance of the vast size of the slabs of Sardonyx obtained by the Romans; and this must have been the "gem," two of which made the draughtboard, "tabula lusoria," carried in the Triumph of Pompey, and which was four feet long by three wide.

Dio records that the head of Augustus, engraved by Dioscorides, was the signet used by his successors until Galba substituted for it his own family device, a dog, looking forth from a ship's prow. Sylla's favourite seal was the surrender of Jugurtha, a subject no doubt represented thereon in the same manner as it is found on the reverse of one of his denarii, where the Roman general appears seated on an elevated platform, and before him are two men kneeling, one of them with his hands tied behind his back, while the other holds forth a branch, the emblem of a suppliant. According to Dio, xlii. 18, the Roman Senate refused to credit the news of the death of Pompey until Julius Cæsar produced before them his very signet-ring, which was engraved with three trophies, like that of Sylla's. The motive for selecting this device was the same in both cases, to commemorate the three principal triumphs of their military career. The Spaniard, whose father had fallen in a duel with Scipio Emilianus, was so proud of the fact that he used for his signet a stone engraved with a representation of the combat; whereupon Stilo wittily inquired, what would he not have done if his father had killed Scipio, instead of Scipio's killing his father? Augustus at first sealed with a sphinx, having found two intagli of this design, and perfectly alike, among the valuables of his mother; and one of these, when absent from Rome, he used to leave in the hands of his deputy to authenticate any letters or proclamations that might be suddenly required by any

2 Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxxvii.; my chief authority for the statements made in this chapter.

emergency to be issued in his name; but so many satirical remarks were made upon his use of a sphinx that he gave it up, and employed a head of Alexander the Great for his signet. That of Mæcenas was a frog, the sight of which, as announcing a contribution about to be levied, used to strike terror into people's minds. This famous patron of literature

[graphic][subsumed][merged small]

extended his favour to this branch of the fine arts, of which a testimony still exists in his portraits from the hand of Apollonius, of Solon, of Aulus, and above all of Dioscorides, which is the second in merit of the eight authentic surviving works of that engraver. How passionately Maecenas loved gems, doubtless not merely for themselves, but for the art enshrined within their substance, appears from his lines upon the departure of Horace, for which loss, he says, not even the sight of his darling collection could console him :

"Lugens, o mea vita, te, Smaragdos
Beryllos neque, Flacce, nec nitentes,
Nuper, candida margarita, quæro :
Nec quos Thynica lima perpolivit
Anellos nec Iaspios lapillos."

3 A Calcedony scarab in the Mertens - Schaafhausen Collection, engraved with a frog (both the beetle and the intaglio a highly finished work of an Etruscan artist of the best period), may be assigned, without much stretch of probabilities,

to some member of the powerful clan
MAIKNE, the "
regal ancestry" of
Horace's patron. That such devices,
like our heraldic crests, were here-
ditary, appears from Dio's notice of
Galba's hereditary seal.

"Whilst I thy absence, O my life, deplore,
Emeralds and lustrous Beryls charm no more;
No more, my Flaccus, can the brilliant white
Of Indian Pearls as once my eyes delight:
Nor can my favourite rings my grief beguile,

Nor Jaspers polished by the Thynian file."

Augustus also evidently alludes to his mania for collecting gems in the passage of a letter in which he thus mimics. his affected style:-" Vale mel gentium, metuelle, ebur ex Hetruria, laser Aretinum, adamas supernas, Tyberinum margaritum, Cilneorum smaragde, iaspis figulorum, berylle Porsennæ, carbunculum habeas" (corruption of Carbuncule Arabice).-Macrob. ii. 4. "Farewell my ivory statuette from Etruria, my Aretine spice, my diamond of the Upper Country, my pearl of the Tiber, my emerald of the Cilnian clan, my jasper of the potteries, my beryl of King Porsena, my ruby of Arabia," &c., joking him at once on his royal Etruscan descent (his weak point) and on this his favourite hobby. Ismenias, the celebrated flute-player in the reign of Alexander, having been informed that an Emerald, engraved with a figure of Amymone, was for sale at a town in Cyprus for six gold staters (six guineas exactly), commissioned a person to buy it for him, who made, as he thought, a good bargain, and brought back two gems for the same money; but Ismenias, instead of thanking him for his trouble, said that "he had done very wrong in lessening the dignity of the gem by beating down its price." Alexander would not allow his portrait to be engraved on gems by any artist except Pyrgoteles; and from the manner of Pliny's expressing himself, it would appear that the Emerald was the only stone selected for this honour. According to the account in Athenaeus, the sophist

* After his conquest of Asia, Alexander used the "ring of Da

rius" to seal his edicts to the Persians, his original signet for those

Athenion, on his return from his embassy to Mithridates, is carried in state into Athens, reclining upon a litter with silver legs and coverings of purple. He is lodged in the house of Dies, the richest man of the time, which is furnished for his reception with tapestry, pictures, statues, and a vast display of plate. Out of this house he used to strut, trailing behind him a splendid mantle, and wearing a gold ring engraved with a portrait of Mithridates. Here it may be observed that portraits of this king are of frequent occurrence on gems, for he seems to have been very popular in Greece, where he was no doubt hailed by the natives as a welcome deliverer from the burdensome yoke of Rome. His portrait appears, from the arrangement of the flowing locks, to be treated as one of Apollo, probably in allusion to his name, the equivalent of Heliodorus, "the gift of the Sun." He was certainly a prince who appreciated and encouraged the arts, for his coinage is amongst the most beautiful in the entire Greek series-a circumstance hardly to be expected at that late period; and

addressed to the Greeks. The device of this last was probably a lion, at least such was the figure on the signet with which Philip dreamed that he sealed up the womb of Olympias (a dream interpreted as the presage of the future greatness of the infant), and in commemoration of this dream, Alexander subsequently founded a city named Leontopolis. Moreover the sole coins, hemidrachms, bearing his actual portrait with the horn of Ammon, have a lion for the reverse. At this period every man had a fixed device for his signet, as well known, and as unvarying as a coatof-arms at present; for we read of a conspiracy being detected, in consequence of a letter being brought to a

Greek officer, bearing an unknown seal, and which proved to be one from an agent of Darius. (Quint. Curt.)

Unfortunately no author has mentioned what was the device on the siguet of Darius; although we labour under the "embarras de richesses" in the varying descriptions of the seal of Xerxes, authenticating his communications to Pausanias; for the scholiast on Thucydides, i. 129, says, "The signet of the King of the Persians bore, according to some, the portrait of the king himself; according to others, that of Cyrus the founder of the monarchy; and again, as others say, the horse of Darius, by reason of whose neighing he was made king."

Y

« ZurückWeiter »