Scanned text contains errors.
set up at Daphne by Antiochus IV., in imitation of that of Pheidias ; certain statues, in the temple of Zeus Olympius at Athens, which are praised, but not specified, by Pausanias: and even some of the Greek kings of the conquered states of Asia arrogated to themselves this highest honour that the piety of earlier times could pay to the gods ; for Pausanias saw, in the temple of Zeus at Olympia, an ivory statue of king Nicomedes (v. 12. § 5). The chief of the above works are fully described in the Dictionary of Biography, arts. Plieidias, Polydeitus.
The question respecting the mechanical execu-.tion of chryselephantine statues involves certain diffieulties, which have been very elaborately and ingeniously examined by Quatremere de Quincy, in his splendid work entitled " Le Jupiter Olym-pien, ou, I1 Art de la Sculpture Antique, conside’re sous un nouveau point de yue:" &c. Paris, 1.815, folio. A very slight consideration of the material employed will show the nature of the difficulties. From a log of wood or a block of marble the required figure can be elaborated by cutting away certain portions: clay can be moulded, and bronze
•or plaster cast, in the form, previously determined on-: but the material for an ivory statue is pre-
-sented in pieces which must be made to assume an entirely new form before the work can be commenced. Now De Quincy supposes that the ancients possessed the art, now lost, of cutting the curved parts of the elephant’s tusk into thin plates, varying in breadth up to 12 or even 20 inches, and bending them into the exact curves required by the various parts of the ‘figure to be covered. These plates, having been brought to their proper forms by comparison with a model, on which each of them was marked, were placed upon the core of the statue, which was -of wood, strengthened with metal rods, and were fastened to it and to each other chiefly by isinglass ; and of courss the whole surface was polished. (An excellent account of the process, according to De ‘Quincy’s views, is given in the work entitled Menageries^ vol.- ii. c. 13.) The ivory was used for the flesh parts, that is, in the colossal statues of the deities, the face, neck, breast, arms, hands, and feet. The other parts of the wooden core were covered with thin beaten gold, to represent the hair and drapery, which was affixed to the statue in such a manner as to be taken off at pleasure, as, ultimately, it was. The gold was in many places embossed and chased ; and colours were freely employed. The eyes were formed either of precious stones or of coloured marbles. To preserve the ivory from injury, either from too much or too little moisture, oil was poured over it in the first case, vater in the second. (Comp. Diet, of Biog. art. Plieidias, and M tiller, Arch. d. Kunst, § 312.) The prodigious quantities of ivory required for these works were imported, in the time of Pheidias, chiefly from Africa. (Hermipp. ap. Atli. i. p. 27.)
The other uses of ivory in the arts were chiefly the making of statuettes and other small objects, which could be carved at once out of the solid part of the tusk ; and for such purposes it seems to have been employed from a very early period. Thus on the chest of Cypselus there were ivory figures in relief (Pans. v. 17. §2). Various small works in ivory have come down to us, belonging to all periods of the art, among the most interest-
ELEUSINIA.
ing of which are writing tablets (SeAror, libri ele~ pliantini)) with two, three, five, or more leaves (diptycha, triptycha, pentaptycha, &c.), either entirely of ivory, or with the leaves of parchment and the covers of ivory : the covers are carved in relief. "These tablets -are chiefly of the later ages of Rome, and are divided into two classes, Consularia and
•Eeclesiastica, which are distinguished by the carv ings on their covers ; those on the former being figures of consuls at the pompa Circensis, missiones^ and so forth, those on the latter representing bibli cal subjects (Miiller, L c. n. 3). The teeth of the hippopotamus were sometimes used as a substi tute for ivory in works of art. (Pans. viii. 46. § 2.) [P. S.]
ELEUSINIA (‘E€V(rivia a festival and mysteries, originally celebrated only at Eleusis in Attica, in honour of Demeter and Persephone. .(Ancloc. De Myst. 15.) All the ancients who have occasion to mention the Eleusinian mysteries, or ‘the mysteries, -as they were sometimes called, agree
•that they were the holiest and most venerable of all that were celebrated in –Greece. (Aristot. Rhet. ii. 24 ; Cic. De Nat. Deor. i. 42.) Various traditions were current among the Greeks respecting the author of these mvsteries : for, while some con-
«/ 7 ‘
sidered Eumolpus or Musaeus to be their founder, others stated that they had been introduced from Egypt by Erechtheus, who at n time -of scarcity provided his country with corn from Egypt, and imported from the same quarter the sacred rites and mysteries of Eleusis. A third tradition attributed the institution to Demeter herself, who, when wandering about in search of her daughter, Persephone, was believed to have come to Attica, in the reign of Erechtheus, to have supplied its inhabitants with corn, and to have instituted the TeAercu and mysteries at Eleusis. (Diocl. Sic. i. 29 ; Isocrat. Paneyyr. p. 46, ed. Steph.) This last opinion seems to have been the most common among the ancients, and in subsequent times a stone, called aye-Aacrros Trerpa (triste saxum), was shewn near the well Callichoros -at Eleusis, on which the goddess, overwhelmed with grief and fatigue, was believed to have rested on her arrival in Attica. (Apollod. Diblioth. i. 5 ; Ovid. Fast. iv. 502, &c.) Around the well Callichoros, the Eleusinian women were said to have first performed their chorus, and to have sung hymns to the goddess. (Pans. i. 38. § 6.) All the accounts and allusions in ancient writers seem to warrant the conciusion that the legends concerning the introduction of the Eleu-sinia are descriptions of a period when the inhabitants of Attica were becoming acquainted with the benefits of agriculture, and of a regularly constituted form of society. (Cic. De Leg. ii. 14, in Verr. v. 14.)
In the reign of Erechtheus a war is said to have broken out between the Athenians and Eleusinians (Hermann, Polit. Antiq. of Greece, §91. note 9), and when the latter were defeated, they acknowledged the supremacy of Athens in every thing except the TeAercu, which they wished to conduct and regulate for themselves. (Thucyd. ii. 15 ; Paus. i. 38. § 3.) Thus the superintendence remained with the descendants of Eumolpus [Eu-molpid.ae], the daughters of the Eleusinian king Celeus, and a third class of priests, the Ker}rces, who seem likewise to have been connected with the family of Eumolpus, though they themselves traced their origin to Hermes and Aglauros.
