Imagines

LYCINUS Upon my word, Polystratus, those who saw the Gorgon must have been affected by it very much as I was recently when I saw a perfectly beautiful woman: I was struck stiff with amazement and came within an ace of being turned into stone, my friend, just as it is in the fable!

POLYSTRATUS Heracles! An extraordinary spectacle, that, and a terribly potent one, to astound Lycinus when it was only a woman. To be sure you are very easily affected in that way by boys, so that it would be a simpler matter to move all Sipylus from its base than to drag you away from your pretties and keep you from standing beside them with parted lips, yes, and not infrequently tears in your eyes, the very image of the daughter of Tantalus.[*](A double allusion. The Niobe story has already been introduced by the mention of Mount Sipylus, where Niobe was turned into stone; and now, by styling her the daughter of Tantalus, Polystratus compares the plight of Lycinus to that of Tantalus also. )_ But tell me about this petrifying Medusa, who she is and where she comes from, so that we, too, may have a look at her. You surely will not begrudge us the sight or be jealous, if we ourselves are going to be struck stiff at your elbow on seeing her!

POLYSTRATUS Don’t keep evoking fancies of miraculous loveliness, Lycinus, but tell me who the woman is.

LYCINUS Why, do you suppose that I am exaggerating? No, I am afraid that when you have seen her you will take me to be a poor hand at turning compliments, so far superior will she prove to be. Anyhow, I can’t say who she is, but she received mich attention, kept splendid state in every way, had a number of eunuchs and a great many maids, and, in general, the thing seemed to be on a greater scale than accords with private station.

POLYSTRATUS You didn’t learn even the name they gave her?

LYCINUS No; only that she comes from Ionia, for one of the onlookers glanced at his neighbour after she had passed and said: “Well, that is what Smiyrna’s beauties are like, and it is no wonder that the fairest

POLYSTRATUS Well, inasmuch as you really and truly behaved like a stone in one way, at least, since you neither followed her nor questioned that Smyrniote, whoever he was, at least sketch her appearance in words as best you can. Perhaps in that way I might recognize her.

LYCINUS Are you aware what you have demanded? It is not in the power of words, not mine, certainly, to call into being a portrait so marvellous, to which hardly Apelles or Zeuxis or Parrhasius would have seemed equal, or even perhaps a Phidias or an Alcamenes. As for me, I shall but dim the lustre of the original by the feebleness of my skill.

POLYSTRATUS Nevertheless, Lycinus, what did she look like? It would not be dangerously bold if you should show your picture to a friend, no matter how well or ill it may be drawn.

LYCINUS But I think I shall act in a way that involves less risk for myself if I call in some of those famous artists of old for the undertaking, to model me a statue of the woman.

POLYSTRATUS What do you mean by that? How can they come to you when they died so many years ago?

POLYSTRATUS You have but to ask.

LYCINUS Were you ever in Cnidus, Polystratus ?

POLYSTRATUS Yes indeed !

LYCINUS Then you certainly saw the Aphrodite there ?

POLYSTRATUS Yes, by Zeus! The fairest of the creations of Praxiteles.[*](Furtwängler, Greek and Roman Sculpture, pl. xxv, opposite p. 91. ) LYCINUS Well, have you also heard the story that the natives tell about it—that someone fell in love with the statue, was left behind unnoticed in the temple, and embraced it to the best of his endeavours? But no matter about that.[*](The story, which can be traced back to Posidonius, is told at greater length in the Amores. )_ Since you have seen her, as you say, tell me whether you have also seen the Aphrodite in the Gardens, at Athens, by Alcamenes ?[*](Furtwängler’s suggestion that the well-known “Venus Genetrix” is a copy of this work is generally accepted. The head is well reproduced in Mitchell, History of Ancient Sculpture, opposite p. 320. The Gardens lay outside the walls, on the bank of the Ilissos, opposite the Stadium. ) POLYSTRATUS Surely I should be the laziest man in all the world

LYCINUS One question, at all events, I shall not ask you, Polystratus—whether you have often gone up to the Acropolis to look at the Sosandra of Calamis ?[*](No copy of the Sosandra is known, nor is it clear whether she was a goddess or a woman. ) POLYSTRATUS I have often seen that, too.

LYCINUS So far, so good. But among the works of Phidias what did you praise most highly ?

POLYSTRATUS What could it be but the Lemnian Athena, on which Phidias deigned actually to inscribe his name?[*](For the beautiful head in Bologna that is believed to be copied from this statue (a work in bronze, dedicated on the Acropolis by certain Lemnians) see Furtwangler, Masterpieces of Greek Sculpture, pl. i-iii, and Fig. 3. ) Qh, yes! and the Amazon who leans upon her spear.[*](Copies of the Phidian Amazon have not been identified with any certainty. For the several types of Amazon statue that come into consideration, see Michaelis, Jahrbuch des k. deutschen Archaeologischen Instituts, i, p. 14.8qq., and Furtwangler, Masterpieces, p. 128 sqq. )

LYCINUS These are the most beautiful, my friend, so that we shall not need any other artists. Come now, out of them all I shall make a combination as best I can, and shall display to you a single portrait-statue that comprises whatever is most exquisite in each.

POLYSTRATUS How can that be done?

POLYSTRATUS Very well; by all means let him have a free hand and show us his powers, for I am eager to know what he really can do with the statues and how he can combine so many into one without making it discordant.

LYCINUS Well, he permits you to look upon the statue even now, as it comes into being; and this is the way he makes the blend. From the Cnidian he takes only the head, as the body, which is unclothed, will not meet his needs. He will allow the arrangement of the hair, the forehead, and the fair line of the brows to remain as Praxiteles made them; and in the eyes also, that gaze so liquid, and at the same time so clear and winsome—that too shall be retained as Praxiteles conceived it. But he will take the round of the cheeks and all the fore part of the face from Alcamenes and from Our Lady in the Gardens; so too the hands, the graceful wrists, and the supple, tapering fingers shall come from Our Lady in the Gardens. But the contour of the entire face, the delicate sides of it, and the shapely nose will be supplied by the Lemnian Athena and by Phidias, and the master will also furnish the meeting of the lips, and the neck, taking these from his Amazon. Sosandra and Calamis shall adorn her with

POLYSTRATUS Yes, surely, when it has been completed to the uttermost detail; for there is still, despite your unexampled zeal, one beauty that you have left out of your statue in collecting and combining everything as you did.

LYCINUS What is that ?

POLYSTRATUS Not the most unimportant, my friend, unless you will maintain that perfection of form is but little enhanced by colour and appropriateness in each detail, so that just those parts will be black which should be black and those white which should be, and the flush of life will glow upon the surface, and so forth. I fear we still stand in need of the most important feature !

LYCINUS Where then can we get all that? Or shall we call in the painters, of course, and particularly those who excelled in mixing their colours and in applying them judiciously? Come, then, let us call

We have Homer, the best of all painters, éven in the presence of Euphranor and Apelles. Let her be throughout of a colour like that which Homer gave to the thighs of Menelaus when he likened them to ivory tinged with crimson;[*](Iliad 4, 141 sqq. ) and let him also paint the eyes and make her “ox-eyed.” The Theban poet, too, shall lend him a hand in the work, to give her ‘violet brows.”[*](Pindar ; the poem in which he applied this epithet to Aphrodite (cf. p. 333) is lost. ) Yes, and Homer shall make her “laughter-loving” and “white-armed" and “rosy-fingered,” and, in a word, shall liken her to golden Aphrodite far more fittingly than he did the daughter of Briseus.[*](Iliad 19, 282. )

This, then, is what sculptors and painters and poets can achieve; but who could counterfeit the fine flower of it all—the grace; nay, all the Graces in company, and all the Loves, too, circling hand in hand about her?

POLYSTRATUS It is a miraculous creature that you describe, Lycinus; “dropt from the skies”[*](The Trojan Palladium was “dropt from the skies” according to the myth (Apollodorus 3, 12, 3); so also the image of Athena Tauropolos at Halae in Attica, that was thought to have been brought there from the country of the Taurians where it fell (Euripides, Iph. in Taur. 87, 977, 986). ) in very truth, quite like something out of Heaven. But what was she doing when you saw her?

LYCINUS She had a scroll in her hands, with both ends of it rolled up, so that she seemed to be reading the one part and to have already read the other.[*](Lucian’s expression amounts to saying that the book was open at the middle. In reading an ancient book, one enerally held the roll in the right Sand and took the end of it in the left, rolling up in that hand the part that one was done with. )— As she walked along, she was discussing something or other with one of her escorts; I do not know what it was, for she did not speak so that it could be overheard. But when she smiled, Polystratus, she disclosed such teeth! How can I tell you how white they were, how symmetrical and well matched? If you have ever seen a lovely string of very lustrous, equal pearls, that is the way they stood in row; and they were especially set off by the redness of her lips. They shone, just as Homer says, like sawn ivory.[*](Odyssey 18, 196. ) Nor could you say that some of them were too broad,

POLYSTRATUS Hold still! I perceive now quite clearly who the woman is that you describe; I recognize her by just these points and also by her country. Besides, you said that there were eunuchs in her following.

LYCINUS Yes, and several soldiers.

POLYSTRATUS It is the Emperor’s mistress, you simpleton —the woman who is so famous!

LYCINUS What is her name?

POLYSTRATUS Like herself, it is very pretty and charming. She has the same name as the beautiful wife of Abradatas. You know whom I mean, for you have often heard Xenophon praise her as a good and beautiful woman.[*](Panthea, “the woman of Susa, who is said to have been the fairest in Asia,” whose story is told in the Cyropaedia (4, 6, 11; 5, 1, 2-18; 6,1, 33-51; 6,4,2-11; 7,3, 2-16). Polystratus says “heard” because of the ancient practios of reading aloud, to which the Lessons of the Church bear present testimony. ) LYCINUS Yes, and it makes me feel as if I saw her when I reach that place in my reading; I can almost hear

POLYSTRATUS But, my friend, you caught sight of her just once, flying past like a flash, and naturally have praised only what was obvious—I mean, her person and her physical beauty. The good points of her soul you have not beheld, and you do not know how great that beauty is in her, far more notable and more divine than that of her body. I do, for I am acquainted with her, and have often conversed with her, being of the same nationality. As you yourself know, I commend gentleness, kindliness, high-mindedness, self-control, and culture rather than beauty, for these qualities deserve to be preferred over those of the body. To do otherwise would be illogical and ridiculous, as if one were to admire her clothing rather than her person. Perfect beauty, to my mind, is when there is a union of spiritual excellence and physical loveliness. In truth, I could point you out a great many women who are well endowed with good looks, but in every way discredit their beauty, so that if they merely speak it fades and withers, since it suffers by contrast and cuts a shabby figure, unworthily housing as it does with a soul that is but a sorry mistress. Such women seem to me like the temples of Egypt, where the temple itself is fair and great, built of costly stones and adorned with gold and with paintings, but if you seek out the god within, it is either a monkey or an ibis or a goat or a cat! Women of that sort are to be seen in plenty. ,

LYCINUS Well then, Polystratus, trade me description for description, giving, as the saying goes, measure for measure, or even better than that, since you can. Do a likeness of her soul and display it to me, so ‘that I need not admire her by halves.

POLYSTRATUS It is no light task, my friend, that you are setting me; for it is not the same thing to laud what is manifest to all, and to reveal in words what is invisible. I think that I too shall need fellow-workmen for the portrait, philosophers as well as sculptors and painters, so that I can make my work of art conform to their canons and can exhibit it as modelled in the style of the ancients.

Come now, imagine it made. It will be “gifted with speech,”[*](Like Circe (Odyssey10, 136). ) first of all, and “clear-voiced” ;[*](Like the Muse (Odyssey 24, 62). ) and Homer’s phrase “sweeter than honey from the tongue” applies to her rather than to that old man from Pylos.[*](Applied in Homer to the words of Nestor (Jliad 1, 249). ) The whole tone of her voice is as soft as can be; not deep, so as to resemble a man’s, nor very high, so as to be quite womanish and wholly strengthless, but like the voice of a boy still immature, delicious and winning, that gently steals into

And as for Orpheus and Amphion, who exercised so very potent a spell upon their auditors that even inanimate things answered the call of their song, they themselves in my opinion would have abandoned their lyres, had they heard her, and would have stood by in silence, listening. That scrupulous observance of time, so that she makes no mistakes in the rhythm, but her singing throughout keeps measure with a beat that is accurate in its rise and fall,[*](Compare Horace, Odes 4, 6, 36: Lesbium servate pedem, meique pollicis ictum. ) while her lyre is in full accord, and her plectrum keeps pace with her tongue; that delicacy of touch; that flexibility of modulations—how could all this be attained by your Thracian, or by that other who studied lyre-playing on the slopes of Cithaeron in the intervals of tending cattle ?[*](Orpheus and Amphion, respectively. )

Therefore, if ever you hear her sing, Lycinus, not only will you have learned by experience, through being turned into stone, what the Gorgons can do,

As to the precision of her language, and its pure Ionic quality, as to the fact that she has a ready tongue in conversation and is full of Attic wit— that is nothing to wonder at. It is an inherited trait in her, and ancestral, and nothing else was to be expected, since she partakes of Athenian blood through the settlement which they planted.[*](Athens and Theseus were thought to have had a hand in the foundation of Smyrna. Lucian’s contemporary Aristides makes much of this. ) Nor indeed am I disposed to wonder at the further fact that a countrywoman of Homer likes poetry and holds much converse with it.

There you have one picture, Lycinus, that of her exquisite speech and her singing, as it might be portrayed in an inadequate sort of way. And now look at the others—for I have decided not to exhibit a single picture made up, like yours, out of many. That is really less artistic, to combine beauties so numerous and create, out of many, a thing of many different aspects, completely at odds with itself.

LYCINUS It is a feast, Polystratus, a full banquet, that you promise! In fact, it appears that you really will give me back better measure. Anyhow, get on with your measuring ; there is nothing else that you can do which would please me more.

POLYSTRATUS Then inasmuch as culture must stand at the head of all that is fair, and particularly all that is acquired by study, let us now create its likeness, rich, however, in colours and in modelling, that even in this point we may not fall short of your achievement in sculpture. So let her be pictured as possessing all the good gifts that come from Helicon. Unlike Clio, Polymnia, Calliope, and the others, each of whom has a single accomplishment, she shall have those of all the Muses, and in addition those of Hermes and Apollo. For all that poets have set forth with the embellishment of metre or orators with the might of eloquence, all that historians have related or philosophers recommended shall give beauty to our picture, not simply to the extent of tinting its surface, but staining it all deeply with indelible colours till it will take no more. And you must pardon me if I can show no ancient model for this picture ; for tradition tells us of nothing similar in point of culture among the men of olden times. But in spite of that, if you approve, it too may now

LYCINUS It is very beautiful, to be sure, Polystratus, and every line of it correctly drawn.

POLYSTRATUS Next we must delineate her wisdom and understanding. We shall require many models there, most of them ancient, and one, like herself, Ionic, painted and wrought by Aeschines, the friend of Socrates, and by Socrates himself,[*](In the Aspasia, a Socratic dialogue by the philosopher Aeschines, not extant. ) of all craftsmen the truest copyists because they painted with love. It is that maid of Miletus, Aspasia, the consort of the Olympian,[*](Pericles. ) himself a marvel beyond compare. Putting before us, in her, no mean pattern of understanding, let us take all that she had of experience in affairs, shrewdness in_ statescraft, quick-wittedness, and penetration, and transfer the whole of it to our own picture by accurate measurement; making allowance, however, for the fact that she was painted on a small canvas, but our figure is colossal in its scale.

LYCINUS What do you mean by that?

POLYSTRATUS I mean, Lycinus, that the pictures are not of equal size, though they look alike; for the Athenian state of those days and the Roman empire of to-day are not equal, nor near it. Consequently, although

The second model and the third shall be the famous Theano[*](Wife, or disciple, of Pythagoras, herself a philosophical writer of note. ) and the Lesbian poetess, and Diotima[*](Diotima, a priestess of Mantinea, probably fictitious, for we hear of her only through Plato in the Symposium (201 p). Socrates says there that she was wise in Love, and ascribes to her the metaphysical rhapsody on Love in which the dialogue culminates. ) shall be still another. Theano shall contribute her high-mindedness, Sappho the attractiveness of her way of living, and Diotima shall be copied not only in those qualities for which Socrates commended her, but in her general intelligence and power to give counsel. There you have another picture, Lycinus, which may be hung also.

LYCINUS Yes, Polystratus, for it is marvellous. But paint more of them.

POLYSTRATUS That of her goodness and loving-kindness, my friend, which will disclose the gentleness of her nature and its graciousness to all those who make demands upon her? Then let her be compared with that Theano who was wife of Antenor,[*](Theano, priestess of Athena in Troy (Iliad 6, 298), brought up Pedacus, her husband's illegitimate child, as if he were her own son (Jliad 5, 69). ) and with Arete,[*](See Odyssey 7, 67 sq. ) and Arete’s daughter Nausicaa, and with any other who in high station behaved with propriety in the face of her good fortune.

Next in order, let her modesty be portrayed, and her love for her consort, in such a way as to be most like the daughter of Icarius, described by