Sarcophagi of Sidon.
This may be the most appropriate place for mentioning the remarkable
find made at Sidon in 1886 of a number of sarcophagi, which once
doubtless contained the remains of kings of Sidon. They are now in the
museum of Constantinople, and are admirably published by Hamdy Bey and
T. Reinach (_Une Necropole royale a Sidon_, 1892-1896). The sarcophagi
in date cover a considerable period. The earlier are made on Egyptian
models, the covers shaped roughly in the form of a human body or mummy.
The later, however, are Greek in form, and are clearly the work of
skilled Greek sculptors, who seem to have been employed by the grandees
of Phoenicia in the adornment of their last resting-places. Four of
these sarcophagi in particular claim attention, and in fact present us
with examples of Greek art of the 5th and 4th centuries in several of
its aspects. To the 5th century belong the tomb of the Satrap, the
reliefs of which bring before us the activities and glories of some
unknown king, and the Lycian sarcophagus, so called from its form, which
resembles that of tombs found in Lycia, and which is also adorned with
reliefs which have reference to the past deeds of the hero buried in the
tomb, though these deeds are represented, not in the Oriental manner
directly, but in the Greek manner, clad in mythological forms. To the
4th century belong two other sarcophagi. One of these is called the
Tomb of Mourning Women. On all sides of it alike are ranged a series of
beautiful female figures, separated by Ionic pillars, each in a somewhat
different attitude, though all attitudes denoting grief (fig. 45). The
pediments at the ends of the cover are also closely connected with the
mourning for the loss of a friend and protector, which is the theme of
the whole decoration of the sarcophagus. We see depicted in them the
telling of the news of the death, with the results in the mournful
attitude of the two seated figures. The mourning women must be taken,
not as the representation of any persons in particular, but generally as
the expression of the feeling of a city. Such figures are familiar to us
in the art of the second Attic school; we could easily find parallels to
the sarcophagus among the 4th-century sepulchral reliefs of Athens. We
can scarcely be mistaken in attributing the workmanship of this
beautiful sarcophagus to some sculptor trained in the school of
Praxiteles. And it is a conjecture full of probability that it once
contained the body of Strato, king of Sidon, who ruled about 380 B.C.,
and who was _proxenos_ or public friend of the Athenians.
More celebrated is the astonishing tomb called that of Alexander, though
there can be no doubt that, although it commemorates the victories and
exploits of Alexander, it was made not to hold his remains, but those of
some ruler of Sidon who was high in his favour. Among all the monuments
of antiquity which have come down to us, none is more admirable than
this, and none more characteristic of the Greek genius. We give, in two
lines, the composition which adorned one of the sides of this
sarcophagus. It represents a victory of Alexander, probably that of the
Granicus (fig. 46). On the left we see the Macedonian king charging the
Persian horse, on the right his general Parmenio, and in the midst a
younger officer, perhaps Cleitus. Mingled with the chiefs are
foot-soldiers, Greek and Macedonian, with whom the Persians are mingled
in unequal fray. What most strikes the modern eye is the remarkable
freshness and force of the action and the attitudes. Those, however, who
have seen the originals have been specially impressed with the
colouring, whereof, of course, our engraving gives no hint, but which is
applied to the whole surface of the relief with equal skill and
delicacy. There are other features in the relief on which a Greek eye
would have dwelt with special pleasure--the exceedingly careful symmetry
of the whole, the balancing of figure against figure, the skill with
which the result of the battle is hinted rather than depicted. The
composition is one in which the most careful planning and the most
precise calculation are mingled with freedom of hand and expressiveness
in detail. The faces in particular show more expression than would be
tolerated in art of the previous century. We are unable as yet to assign
an author or even a school to the sculptor of this sarcophagus; he comes
to us as a new and striking phenomenon in the history of ancient art.
The reliefs which adorn the other sides of the sarcophagus are almost
equally interesting. On one side we see Alexander again, in the company
of a Persian noble, hunting a lion. The short sides also show us scenes
of fighting and hunting. In fact it can scarcely be doubted that if we
had but a clue to the interpretation of the reliefs, they would be found
to embody historic events of the end of the 4th century. There are but a
few other works of art, such as the Bayeux tapestry and the Column of
Trajan, which bring contemporary history so vividly before our eyes. The
battles with the Persians represented in some of the sculpture of the
Parthenon and the temple of Nike at Athens are treated conventionally
and with no attempt at realism; but here the ideal and the actual are
blended into a work of consummate art, which is at the same time, to
those who can read the language of Greek art, a historic record. The
portraits of Alexander the Great which appear on this sarcophagus are
almost contemporary, and the most authentic likenesses of him which we
possess. The great Macedonian exercised so strong an influence on
contemporary art that a multitude of heads of the age, both of gods and
men, and even the portraits of his successors, show traces of his type.
We have yet to mention what are among the most charming and the most
characteristic products of the Greek chisel, the beautiful tombs,
adorned with seated or standing portraits or with reliefs, which were
erected in great numbers on all the main roads of Greece. A great number
of these from the Dipylon cemetery are preserved in the Central Museum
at Athens, and impress all visitors by the gentle sentiment and the
charm of grouping which they display (Gardner, _Sculptured Tombs of
Hellas_).
[Illustration: Hamdy et Reinach. _Necropole a Sidon_, Pl. 30.