CHAP. 24.—THE FIRST STATUES OF GOLD.
The first statue of massive gold, without any hollowness
within, and anterior to any of those statues of bronze even,
which are known as "holosphyratæ,"[1] is said to have been
erected in the Temple of the goddess Anaïtis. To what particular
region this name belongs, we have already[2] stated, it
being that of a divinity[3] held in the highest veneration by
the nations in that part of the world. This statue was carried
off during the wars of Antonius with the people of Parthia;
and a witty saying is told, with reference to it, of one of the
veterans of the Roman army, a native of Bononia. Entertaining
on one occasion the late Emperor Augustus at dinner,
he was asked by that prince whether he was aware that the
person who was the first to commit this violence upon the
statue, had been struck with blindness and paralysis, and then
expired. To this he made answer, that at that very moment
Augustus was making his dinner off of one of her legs, for that
he himself was the very man, and to that bit of plunder he
had been indebted for all his fortune.[4]
As regards statues of human beings, Gorgias of Leontini[5]
was the first to erect a solid statue of gold, in the Temple at
Delphi, in honour of himself, about the seventieth[6] Olympiad:
so great were the fortunes then made by teaching the art of
oratory!
1. "Solid hammer-work," in opposition to works in metal, cast and hollow
within.
2. In B. v. c. 20, most probably. See also B. xvi. c. 64.
3. The worship of Anaitis was probably a branch of the Indian worship
of Nature. The Greek writers sometimes identify this goddess with their
Artemis and their Aphrodite.
4. Holland has strangely mistaken the meaning of the veteran's reply;
"Yea, sir, that it is; and that methinks you should know best, for even
now a leg of his you have at supper, and all your wealth besides is come
unto you by that saccage." He then adds, by way of Note, "For Augustus
Cæsar defeited Antonie, and was mightily enriched by the spoile
of him."
5. In Sicily. According to Valerius Maximus and other writers, a statue
of solid gold was erected by the whole of Greece, in the temple at Delphi,
in honour of Gorgias, who was distinguished for his eloquence and literary
attainments. The leading opinion of Gorgias was, that nothing had any
real existence.
6. The ninetieth Olympiad, about the year 420 B.C., is much more probably the correct reading; as it was about the seventieth Olympiad, or somewhat
later, that Gorgias was born.