Conceiving as she slept, her fruitful womb I cannot quit this head without taking notice of a line in Seneca the tragedian : Primus emergit solo SEN. Edip. act. 3. Dextra ferocem cornibus premens taurum Zetus. First Zetus rises through the ground, Bending the bull's tough neck with pain, I cannot doubt but the poet had here in view the posture of Zetus in the famous group of figures, which represents the two brothers binding Dirce to the horns of a mad bull. I could not forbear taking particular notice of the several musical instruments that are to be seen in the hands of the Apollos, muses, fauns, satyrs, bacchanals, and shepherds, which might certainly give a great light to the dispute for preference between the ancient and modern music. It would, perhaps, be no impertinent design to take off all their models in wood, which might not only give us some notion of the ancient music, but help us to pleasanter instruments than are now in use. By the appearance they make in marble, there is not one string-instrument that seems comparable to our violins, for they are all played on either by the bare fingers or the plectrum, so that they were incapable of adding any length to their notes, or of varying them by those insensible swellings, and wearings away of sound upon the same string, which give so wonderful a sweetness to our modern music. Besides that, the string-instruments must have had very low and feeble voices, as may be guessed from the small pro portion of wood about them, which could not contain air enough to render the strokes, in any considerable measure, full and sonorous. There is a great deal of difference in the make, not only of the several kinds of instruments, but even among those of the same name. The syringa, for example, has sometimes four, and sometimes more pipes, as high as the twelve. The same variety of strings may be observed on their harps, and of stops on their tibiæ, which shows the little foundation that such writers have gone upon, who, from a verse perhaps in Virgil's Eclogues, or a short passage in a classic author, have been so very nice in determining the precise shape of the ancient musical instruments, with the exact number of their pipes, strings, and stops. It is, indeed, the usual fault of the writers of antiquities, to straiten and confine themselves to particular models. They are for making a kind of stamp on everything of the same name; and if they find thing like an old description of the subject they treat on, they take care to regulate it on all occasions, according to the figure it makes in such a single passage as the learned German author, quoted by monsieur Bardelot, who had probably never seen anything of a household god, more than a canopus, affirms roundly, that all the ancient lares were made in the fashion of a jug-bottle. In short, the antiquaries have been guilty of the same fault as the system writers, who are for cramping their subjects into as narrow a space as they can, and for reducing the whole extent of a science into a few general maxims. This a man has occasion of observing more than once, in the several fragments of antiquity that are still to be seen in Rome. How many dresses are there for each particular deity? What a variety of any shapes in the ancient urns, lamps, lachrymary vessels, priapuses, household gods, which have some of them been represented under such a particular form, as any one of them has been described within an ancient author, and would probably be all so, were they not still to be seen in their own vindication? Madam Dacier, from some old cuts of Terence, fancies that the larva, or the persona of the Roman actors, was not only a vizard for the face, but had false hair to it, and came over the whole head like a helmet. Among all the statues at Rome, I remember to have seen but two that are the figures of actors, which are both in the Villa Matthei. One sees on them the fashion of the old sock and larva, the latter of which answers the description that is given of it by this learned lady, though I question not but several others were in use; for I have seen the figure of Thalia, the comic muse, sometimes with an entire head-piece in her hand, sometimes with about half the head, and a little friz, like a tower, running round the edges of the face, and sometimes with a mask for the face only, like those of a modern make. Some of the Italian actors wear at present these masks for the whole head. I remember formerly I could have no notion of that fable in Phædrus, before I had seen the figures of these entire head-pieces: Personam tragicam fortè vulpes viderat : Lib. i. Fab. 7. As wily renard walk'd the streets at night, I find madam Dacier has taken notice of this passage in Phædrus, upon the same occasion; but not of the following one in Martial, which alludes to the same kind of masks: Non omnes falles: scit te Proserpina canum: Lib. iii. ep. 43. Why shouldst thou try to hide thyself in youth? In the Villa Borghese is the bust of a young Nero, which shows us the form of an ancient bulla on the breast, which is neither like a heart, as Macrobius describes it, nor altogether resembles that in cardinal Chigi's cabinet; so that without establishing a particular instance into a general rule, we ought, in subjects of this nature, to leave room for the humour of the artist or wearer. There are many figures of gladiators at Rome, though I do not remember to have seen any of the Retiarius, the Samnite, or the antagonist to the Pinnirapus. But what I could not find among the statues, I met with in two antique pieces of Mosaic, which are in the possession of a cardinal. The Retiarius is engaged with the Samnite, and has had so lucky a throw, that his net covers the whole body of his adversary from head to foot, yet his antagonist recovered himself out of the toils, and was conqueror, according to the inscription. In another piece is represented the combat of the Pinnirapus, who is armed like the Samnite, and not like the Retiarius, as some learned men have supposed: on the helmet of his antagonist are seen the two pinnæ, that stand up on either side like the wings in the petasus of a Mercury, but rise much higher, and are more pointed. There is no part of the Roman antiquities that we are better acquainted with than what relates to their sacrifices. For as the old Romans were very much devoted to their religion, we see several parts of it entering their ancient basso relievos, statues, and medals, not to mention their altars, tombs, monuments, and those particular ornaments of architecture which were borrowed from it. An heathen ritual could not instruct a man better than these several pieces of antiquity, in the particular ceremonies and punctilios that attended the different kinds of sacrifices. Yet there is much greater variety in the make of the sacrificing instruments, than one finds in those who have treated of them, or have given us their pictures. For, not to insist too long on such a subject, I saw in signior Antonio Polito's collection, a patera without any rising in the middle, as it is generally engraven, and another with a handle to it, as Macrobius describes it, though it is quite contrary to any that I have ever seen cut in marble; and I have observed, perhaps, several hundreds. I might here enlarge on the shape of the triumphal chariot, which is different in some pieces of sculpture from what it appears in others; and on the figure of the discus, that is to be seen in the hand of the celebrated Castor at Don Livio's, which is perfectly round, and not oblong, as some antiquaries have represented it; nor has it anything like a sling fastened to it, to add force to the toss: Protinus imprudens, actusque cupidine ludi, De Hyacinthi disco. Ov. Met. lib. 10. |