We Know The Contrary, From Their
Medals, Busts, And Historians.
Without all doubt, the limbs and
proportions of this statue are elegantly formed, and accurately
designed, according to the nicest rules of symmetry and
proportion; and the back parts especially are executed so
happily, as to excite the admiration of the most indifferent
spectator.
One cannot help thinking it is the very Venus of
Cnidos by Praxiteles, which Lucian describes. "Hercle quanta
dorsi concinnitas! ut exuberantes lumbi amplexantes manus
implent! quam scite circumductae clunium pulpae in se
rotundantur, neque tenues nimis ipsis ossibus adstrictae, neque
in immensam effusae Pinguedinem!" That the statue thus described
was not the Venus de Medicis, would appear from the Greek
inscription on the base, KLEOMENIS APPOLLODOROI ATHINAIOS
EPOESEI. Cleomenes filius Apollodori fecit; did we not know that
this inscription is counted spurious, and that instead of
EPOESEI, it should be EPOIESE. This, however, is but a frivolous
objection, as we have seen many inscriptions undoubtedly antique,
in which the orthography is false, either from the ignorance or
carelessness of the sculptor. Others suppose, not without reason,
that this statue is a representation of the famous Phryne, the
courtesan of Athens, who at the celebration of the Eleusinian
games, exhibited herself coming out of the bath, naked, to the
eyes of the whole Athenian people. I was much pleased with the
dancing faun; and still better with the Lotti, or wrestlers, the
attitudes of which are beautifully contrived to shew the
different turns of the limbs, and the swelling of the muscles:
but, what pleased me best of all the statues in the Tribuna was
the Arrotino, commonly called the Whetter, and generally supposed
to represent a slave, who in the act of whetting a knife,
overhears the conspiracy of Catiline. You know he is represented
on one knee; and certain it is, I never saw such an expression of
anxious attention, as appears in his countenance. But it is not
mingled with any marks of surprise, such as could not fail to lay
hold on a man who overhears by accident a conspiracy against the
state. The marquis de Maffei has justly observed that Sallust, in
his very circumstantial detail of that conspiracy, makes no
mention of any such discovery. Neither does it appear that the
figure is in the act of whetting, the stone which he holds in one
hand being rough and unequal no ways resembling a whetstone.
Others alledge it represents Milico, the freedman of Scaevinus,
who conspired against the life of Nero, and gave his poignard to
be whetted to Milico, who presented it to the emperor, with an
account of the conspiracy: but the attitude and expression will
by no means admit of this interpretation. Bianchi, [This
antiquarian is now imprisoned for Life, for having robbed the
Gallery and then set it on fire.] who shows the gallery, thinks
the statue represents the augur Attius Navius, who cut a stone
with a knife, at the command of Tarquinius Priscus. This
conjecture seems to be confirmed by a medallion of Antoninus
Pius, inserted by Vaillant among his Numismata Prestantiora, on
which is delineated nearly such a figure as this in question,
with the following legend.
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