Elgin Marbles (Volume 1-2) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1816. Excerpt: ... MEMOIR ON A GREEK EPIGRAM. The palaeographical monuments, which are connected with facts celebrated in the Grecian history, of which the remembrance has been transmitted to us by the great historians of that nation, are extremely rare, and merit all the attention of philologists, of critics, and of antiquaries. Among the sculptured and engraved marbles which the Earl of Elgin has saved from impending destruction, and which he has removed to England, we observe some Greek inscriptions of high antiquity. Several of them belong to the same age, which witnessed the magic power of the chisel of Phidias, in the production of so many sublime pieces of sculpture which we admire in this inestimable Collection. Among these inscriptions, I shall now select one for examination before the Class of the Institute. It is a poetical epitaph on the Athenians who lost their lives in the battle fought under the walls of Potidaea, in the year 452 B. C This action, of which the time is fixed with the greatest precision by Thucydides himself, as having been the oth month of the magistracy of the eponrmous Archon of Athens, Pythodorus, is found minutely described in the first book of this historian, 62 and 63. Aristeus, the son of Adimantus, a distinguished citizen of Corinth, had brought a considerable force from the Peloponnesus, in order to defend this Corinthian colony of Pallene against the Corsini Fasti Attici, vol. 1. p. 95. vol. 8. p. 227. . Athenians, who, commanded by Callias, the son of Calliades, endeavoured to force it to detach itself from the interests of the mother country. Aristeus proposed to place between two fires, according to the modern expression, the Athenian army, which was encamped between Potidaea and Olynthus. When this army advanced tow...