Grecian Marbles

Ancient Greek Culture
Bust of Antinoüs
AD 130-140
marble
(excavated in the Peloponnese)
National Archaeological Museum, Athens

Ancient Greek Culture
Herm of Hercules
2nd century BC
marble
(excavated at Pergamon)
Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Ancient Greek Culture
Acroteric Figure of Athena
175-150 BC
marble
(from the Pergamon Altar)
Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Ancient Greek Culture
Acroteric Figure of Poseidon
175-150 BC
marble
(from the Pergamon Altar)
Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Ancient Greek Culture
Cult Statue of Athena flanked by Figure of Victory and Warrior
50-25 BC
marble relief
(imitating archaic style)
Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Ancient Greek Culture
Alexander the Great
2nd century BC
marble fragment
Skulpturensammlung (Albertina), Dresden

Ancient Greek Culture
Draped Woman
175-150 BC
marble
(excavated at Pergamon)
Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Ancient Greek Culture
Enthroned Goddess
480-470 BC
marble
(excavated at Taranto in South Italy)
Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Ancient Greek Culture
Draped Woman
170 BC
marble
(excavated at Pergamon)
Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Ancient Greek Culture
Torso of Asklepios
2nd century AD
marble
(excavated at Pergamon)
Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Ancient Greek Culture
Torso of Dionysus
430-420 BC
marble
(excavated in Ionia)
Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Ancient Greek Culture
Torso of Kore
6th century BC
marble
(excavated at Pergamon)
Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Ancient Greek Culture
Torso of Kouros
550-540 BC
marble
(excavated on Naxos)
Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Ancient Greek Culture
Votive Relief - Offering to Artemis
329 BC
marble
(excavated at Piraeus)
Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen

Ancient Greek Culture
Votive Relief - Victorious Athlete
(crowning self with missing wreath)
460 BC
marble
(excavated in Sounion)
National Archaeological Museum, Athens

Ancient Greek Culture
Votive Relief - Victory in Chariot Race
400-390 BC
marble
(excavated in Attica)
Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

The Athenians, afflicted with the disease, and with the war now on foot and at the hottest, thought it a dangerous matter that Lesbos, which had a navy and was of strength entire, should thus be added to the rest of their enemies, and at first received not the accusations, holding them therefore the rather feigned because they would not have them true.  But after, when they had sent ambassadors to Mytilene [principal city of Lesbos] and could not persuade them to dissolve themselves and undo their preparation, they then feared the worst and would have prevented them, and to that purpose suddenly sent out the forty galleys made ready for Peloponnesus with Cleїppedes and two other commanders.  For they had been advertised that there was a holiday of Apollo Maloeis to be kept without the city and that to the celebration thereof the Mytilenaeans were accustomed to come all out of the town, and they hoped, making haste, to take them there unawares.  And if the attempt succeeded, it was well; if not, they might command the Mytilenaeans to deliver up their galleys and to demolish their walls; or they might make war against them if they refused.  So these galley went their way.  And ten galleys of Mytilene which then chanced to be at Athens, by virtue of their league to aid them, the Athenians stayed and cast into prison the men that were in them.  In the meantime a certain man went from Athens into Euboea by sea and then by land to Geraestus and, finding there a ship ready to put off, having the wind favourable, arrived in Mytilene three days after he set forth from Athens and gave them notice of the coming of the fleet.  Hereupon they not only went not out to Maloeis, as was expected, but also stopped the gaps of their walls and ports, where they were left unfinished and placed guards to defend them. 

– from The Peloponnesian War as written by Thucydides (5th century BC) and translated by Thomas Hobbes (1628) and edited by David Grene (1959)

Greek Heads

Ancient Greek Culture
Head of a Woman
540- 530 BC
marble
(excavated at Miletus in Ionia)
Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Ancient Greek Culture
Head of Hermes
450 BC
marble
Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel

Ancient Greek Culture
Head of Dionysus
350-300 BC
marble
(excavated in Athens)
Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Ancient Greek Culture
Head of a Woman
350-325 BC
marble
(excavated in Arcadia)
National Archaeological Museum, Athens

Ancient Greek Culture
Head of Alexander the Great (front)
3rd century BC
marble
(excavated in Alexandria)
Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen

Ancient Greek Culture
Head of Alexander the Great (side)
3rd century BC
marble
(excavated in Alexandria)
Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen

Ancient Greek Culture
Head of Berenice II, Ptolemaic Queen of Egypt
230 BC
marble
Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel

Ancient Greek Culture
Head of Hellenistic Ruler
3rd century BC
marble
Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden

Ancient Greek Culture
Head of Hellenistic Ruler
200-170 BC
marble
(excavated at Pergamon)
Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Ancient Greek Culture
Head of Artemis
190-180 BC
marble
(fragment of colossal cult statue
originally housed within an Arcadian temple)
National Archaeological Museum, Athens

Ancient Greek Culture
Head of the Titan Anytos
190-180 BC
marble
(fragment of colossal cult statue
originally housed within an Arcadian temple)
National Archaeological Museum, Athens

Ancient Greek Culture
Head of Zeus
150 BC
marble
(colossal statue fragment excavated in Aigera)
National Archaeological Museum, Athens

Ancient Greek Culture
Head of a Man
150 BC
marble
(statue fragment excavated at Pergamon)
Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Ancient Greek Culture
Head of a Woman
125-100 BC
marble
(excavated at Pergamon)
Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Ancient Greek Culture
Head of Dionysus
AD 95-105
marble
(colossal statue fragment excavated in Ionia)
Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden

Ancient Greek Culture
Head of a Man
AD 350-400
marble
(excavated in Athens)
National Archaeological Museum, Athens

[Danaus returns from the city]

Danaus:  Take courage, children: all is well so far as the natives are concerned.  A most decisive decree has been passed by the people.

Chorus:  Welcome, old father, you bring me splendid news.  Tell us what the final decision is that has been reached, and in what direction the majority of the people's sovereign vote went. 

Danaus:  The Argives have resolved, with no divided voice, but in such a way that my aged heart felt young again – for the air bristled with their aptly named right hands as the entire people ratified this proposal – that we shall have the right of residence in this land of freedom, with asylum and protection from seizure by any person; that no one, whether inhabitant or foreigner, may lay hands upon us; and that if force be applied, whoever among these citizens fails to come to our aid shall lose his civic rights and be driven into exile from the community.  The king of the Pelasgians persuaded them to make this decision by delivering a speech about us, in which he declared how great could be the wrath of Zeus god of suppliants, who might at a future time bring it heavily to bear against the city, and saying that the double pollution, in relation both to foreigners and to citizens, which the city would be bringing into being, would be an irremediable breeder of grief.  Hearing this, the Argive people resolved, without waiting to be called, that the motion should be carried.  The Pelasgian people had heard and obeyed the guidance* of the orator, and Zeus had brought about the decisive outcome.

[Danaus goes up to the shrine and again begins to keep a lookout, this time towards the sea] 

– Aeschylus, from Suppliants (ca. 470-460 BC), translated by Alan H. Sommerstein (2008)

*literally "turning" – the people are compared to a horse turning in obedience to the rein

Divine Shapes - IV

Ancient Roman Culture
Head of Eros
1st century BC - 1st century AD
marble
Walters Art Museum, Baltimore

Ancient Roman Culture
Bust of Venus
2nd century AD head
on 17th-century body
marble
Galleria Borghese, Rome

Ancient Roman Culture
Herm of Venus
AD 100-125
marble
Galleria Borghese, Rome

Ancient Roman Culture
Venus Genetrix
1st century AD
marble
Detroit Institute of Arts

Ancient Roman Culture
Venus
1st century AD body
with 17th-century head
marble
Galleria Borghese, Rome

Ancient Roman Culture
Venus and Cupid
2nd century AD torso of Venus and fragments of Cupid
elaborated and extended in the 17th century
marble
Galleria Borghese, Rome

Doccia Manufactory (Florence)
Venus plucking the Wings of Cupid
1745-46
porcelain
Detroit Institute of Arts

Riccio (Andrea Briosco)
Venus, Cupid and Vulcan
ca. 1500
bronze plaquette
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Master of the Berlin Nereid
Neptune
ca. 1520-30
bronze
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

Hubert Gerhard
Hebe
ca. 1590
bronze
Detroit Institute of Arts

Filippo and Ignazio Collino
Flora
ca. 1793
marble
Galleria Sabauda, Turin

Gianlorenzo Bernini
Abduction of Proserpina
1621-22
marble
Galleria Borghese, Rome

Ancient Roman Culture
Goddess Nemesis
1st-2nd century AD
marble
Národní Galerie, Prague

Doccia Manufactory (Florence)
Prometheus
1745-46
porcelain
Detroit Institute of Arts

Bartolomeo Ammanati
Mars Gradivus
1559
bronze
Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence

Ancient Etruscan Culture
Votive Figure of  the God Fufluns
480 BC
bronze
Gallerie Estense, Modena

Roger Casement

I say that Roger Casement

Did what he had to do,

He died upon the gallows
But that is nothing new.

Afraid they might be beaten
Before the bench of Time
They turned a trick by forgery
And blackened his good name.

A perjurer stood ready
To prove their forgery true;
They gave it out to all the world

And that is something new;

For Spring-Rice had to whisper it

Being their Ambassador,

And then the speakers got it

And writers by the score. 

Come Tom and Dick, come all the troop

That cried it far and wide,

Come from the forger and his desk,

Desert the perjurer's side;

Come speak your bit in public

That some amends be made
To this most gallant gentleman
That is in quick-lime laid.

– W.B. Yeats (1938)

[Excerpts from the so-called Black Diaries of Roger Casement were publicized by the British establishment shortly after he was hanged for treason in 1916.  A former diplomat, Casement attempted to secure German military support during World War I for the Independence Movement in Ireland (hence his appeal to Yeats's intense Irish patriotism).  The Diaries described a series of homosexual adventures in graphic detail.  Yeats's poem reflects the widespread liberal opinion in the decades after Casement's death that these writings were forged at the behest of the British government in order to deflect public criticism at the harshness of the death sentence.  Books and articles have continued to examine this controversy for more than a century without reaching a consensus, but the balance seems gradually to have shifted.  Before the rise of LGTB freedom movements in the 1960s and 70s, Casement's defenders largely agreed that the Diaries had been faked.  More recently, Casement has attracted new allies who hold the Diaries to be genuine and to justify promoting him as a gay martyr.  This stance would very likely have seemed unintelligible to Yeats.]               

Divine Shapes - III

Ancient Roman Culture
Asclepius
2nd century AD
marble
(assembled from non-matching ancient fragments
and newly-carved 17th-century extensions)
Galleria Borghese, Rome

Ancient Greek Culture
Torso of Asklepios
4th century BC
marble
(included among the Elgin Marbles)
British Museum

Ancient Roman Culture
Pan with Eagle and Ram
2nd century AD
marble
Galleria Borghese, Rome

Ancient Greek Culture
Herm of Pan
AD 10
marble
Galleria Borghese, Rome

Auguste Rodin
Bust of Athena
1905
marble
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon

Ancient Roman Culture
Athena
2nd century AD
marble
Gemäldegalerie, Dresden

Ancient Roman Culture
Athena
AD 150
marble
Gemäldegalerie, Dresden

Anonymous Emilian Artist
Centerpiece with Mercury surrounded by other Deities
19th century
glazed earthenware
Museo Civico di Modena

Ancient Roman Culture
Altar with Mercury and Athena
1st century BC - 1st century AD
marble
Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio

Ancient Roman Culture
Torso of Mercury
early 1st century AD
marble
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Ancient Roman Culture
Torso of Mercury
2nd century AD
marble
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
(Palace of the Legion of Honor)

Adolf von Hildebrand
Mercury at Rest
1886
plaster
Neue Pinakothek, Munich

Giambologna
River God (Euphrates)
ca. 1575
terracotta modello
Rhode Island School of Design, Providence

Giambologna-
River God (Euphrates)
ca. 1575
terracotta modello
Rhode Island School of Design, Providence

Ignaz Elhafen
Jupiter and Antiope
ca. 1690
ivory relief
Detroit Institute of Arts

Baccio Bandinelli
Jupiter
ca. 1547-48
marble
Giardino di Boboli, Florence

The Curse of Cromwell

You ask what I have found and far and wide I go,

Nothing but Cromwell's house and Cromwell's murderous crew, 
The lovers and the dancers are beaten into the clay,
And the tall men and the swordsmen and the horsemen where are they?
And there is an old beggar wandering in his pride
His fathers served their fathers, before Christ was crucified.

                O what of that, O what of that

                What is there left to say?

All neighbourly content and easy talk are gone,

But there's no good complaining, for money's rant is on,

He that's mounting up must on his neighbour mount

And we and all the Muses are things of no account.

They have schooling of their own but I pass their schooling by,

What can they know that we know that know the time to die?

                O what of that, O what of that

                What is there left to say?

But there's another knowledge that my heart destroys
As the fox in the old fable destroyed the Spartan boy's
Because it proves that things both can and cannot be;

That the swordsmen and the ladies can still keep company;
Can pay the poet for a verse and hear the fiddle sound,
That I am still their servant though all are underground.

               O what of that, O what of that
               What is there left to say?

I came on a great house in the middle of the night
Its open lighted doorway and its windows all alight,
And all my friends were there and made me welcome too;
But I woke in an old ruin that the winds howled through;

And when I pay attention I must out and walk
Among the dogs and horses that understand my talk.

              O what of that, O what of that

              What is there left to say?      

– W.B. Yeats (1938)