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The Throne of Zeus at Olympia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Extract

The title of this paper may appear too wide, since its main object is to establish, if possible, the position of the paintings by Panaenus; but discussion of this one point necessarily involves consideration of certain others —themselves far from unimportant—and thus a more comprehensive designation is needed. It need hardly be said that no theory of reconstruction of the Throne as a whole is here attempted.

It may be convenient to state at the outset the evidence used, and to comment generally upon it. In the first place we have the literary evidence, the account by Pausanias: careful, detailed, and, in my opinion, the work of an eye-witness. Its great shortcoming is that it leaves undecided the relation of the parts and details to one another. Secondly, there is numismatic evidence, which is of high value.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1908

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References

1 J.H.S. xiv. pp. 233 sqq.

2 But not necessarily (as I am reminded); e.g. Pausanias uses ἄγαλμα in speaking of the figure of Dryops at Asine, which appears to have been a relief (see Corolla Numismatica p. 156).

3 Prof. P. Gardner was kind enough to examine the photographic reproduction of the coin in his ‘Types of Greek Coins’ (Pl. XV. No. 19) with me, and agreed that the projections were distinctly visible, although they hardly appear in the half-tone illustration here given (Fig. 1). The line reproduction in Bötticher's Olympia over-emphasises this feature.

4 Another instance of Pheidias' knowledge of optical laws is supplied by the Lemnian Athena: cf. Furtwängler, , Masterpieces (Eng. Trans.), p. 21Google Scholar.

5 Since writing the above, I notice that Mr.Frazer, , in his translation of the passage (Paus. v. 11. 6)Google Scholar, adopts this rendering.