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:
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 385 of 535
Words from 102934 to 103199
of 143308
