Silvae IV.6 (Mozley): The Hercules Statuette of Novius Vindex

One day when putting aside my tasks with heart unburdened by Phoebus I was wandering aimlessly at sundown in the broad spaces of the Enclosure, kind Vindex took me off to dine. That feast sank deep into the recesses of my soul, and remains unconsumed. For it was no wanton dainties of the belly that we devoured, no sweetmeats sought under distant suns, no wines whose ages rival our continuous Annals. Unhappy they whose delight is to know how the bird of Phasis differs from a crane of wintry Rhodope, what kind of goose has the largest liver, why a Tuscan boar is richer than an Umbrian, on what seaweed the slippery shell-fish most comfortably recline: as for us, real affection and discourse fetched from the heart of Helicon and merry jests persuaded us to sit out a winter’s night and to banish soft sleep from our eyes, until the other Twin looked forth from Elysium, and Tithonia laughed at yesterday’s banquet. O night of bliss! would it had been Tirynthian, with moon added to moon! a night to be marked with the Erythraean gems of Thetis, a night to be long told of, a night whose spirit will live for ever! There and then did I learn of a thousand beauties of bronze and ancient ivory, and deceiving shapes of wax on the verge of speech. For who ever rivalled the keen glance of Vindex in recognizing the hand of an old master and telling the author of an untitled work? ’Tis he who will show you on what bronzes cunning Myron spent anxious vigils, what marbles the chisel of untiring Praxiteles has made to live, what ivories the thumb of the Pisaean has smoothed, what statues have been bidden breathe in Polyclitus’ furnaces, what lines confess from afar the old Apelles; for this, whensoe’er he puts his lyre from him, is his leisure, this passion calls him from Aonian dells.

Amid these treasures was a Hercules, the deity and guardian of his frugal board, with which I fell deeply in love; nor, though long I gazed, were my eyes sated with it; such dignity had the work, such majesty, despite its narrow limits. A god was he, ay, a god! and he granted thee to behold him, Lysippus, small to the eye, yet a giant to the mind! And though his stature be marvellously confined within a foot’s height, yet will you be fain to cry, as you cast your eyes o’er his limbs: “This is the breast that crushed the ravager of Nemea, these the arms that bore the deadly club, and broke the oars of Argo.” To think that a tiny frame should hold the illusion of so mighty a form! What preciseness of touch, what daring imagination the cunning master had, at once to model an ornament for the table and to conceive in his mind mighty colossal forms! No such work could Telchines in the caves of Ida, or dull Brontes or the Lemnian who makes bright the armour of the gods have playfully fashioned from some small lump of metal. No wrathful likeness was it, unsuited to the gaiety of the feast, but in such mood as the home of thrifty Molorchus marvelled to behold, or the Tegean priestess in Alea’s groves; or as when, sent heavenward from Oeta’s ashes, he joyfully drank the nectar, though Juno still frowned: with even so kindly a countenance, as if rejoicing from his heart, doth he cheer the banquet. One hand holds his brother’s tipsy goblet, but the other forgets not his club; a rocky seat supports him, and the Nemean lionskin drapes the stone.

So divine a work had a worthy fate. It was a deity revered at the merry banquets of the Pellaean monarch, and alike in East and West it bore him company; gladly did he set it before him, with that same hand that had given crowns and taken them away, and had ruined mighty cities. From it he sought courage for to-morrow’s battle, to it he related, triumphant, the glorious fight, whether he had despoiled Bromius of fettered Indians, or with his strong spear had burst the enclosing walls of Babylon, or overwhelmed in war the lands of Pelops and Pelasgian freedom; and of all that tale of mighty deeds he is said to have asked pardon only for his Theban triumph. He too, when the Fates cut short his prowess, and he drank the deadly draught, in the very gloom and heaviness of death, was afraid at the altered face of his favourite deity, and at the bronzes that dripped sweat at that last banquet.

Next its marvellous beauty was possessed by the Nasamonian chief; and Hannibal, that ruthless warrior, haughty and treacherous in fight, paid honours to the valiant god. Yet the god hated him, drenched in Italian blood and threatening Roman homes with terrible flame, ay, even when he set feasting and gifts of wine before him; in sorrow did the god go forth with that cursed troop, especially when his own shrines were impiously fired, when the homes and temples of innocent Saguntum were outraged, and its people filled with righteous frenzy.

And after the death of the Sidonian leader ’twas no plebeian house obtained the peerless bronze. Ever wont to enter famous houses and blest in the lineage of its lords it adorned the feasts of Sulla.

Now too, if deities care to know the hearts and souls of men, no palace, no royal pomp surrounds thee, O Tirynthian, but thy master’s soul is pure and innocent of error; old-world loyalty is his, and the unfailing bond of a friendship once begun. Vestinus knows it, who even in youth equalled his mighty sires, and whose spirit Vindex breathes by night and day, and lives in the embrace of that beloved shade. Here then hast thou a welcome resting-place, Alcides, most valiant of gods, nor beholdest battles or savage fights, but the lyre and chaplets and music-loving bays. Here in solemn chant will he recount to thee in what might thou didst terrify Getic and Ilian homes and snowy Stymphalus and Erymanthus with its streaming ridges; how the owner of the Iberian herd, how the Mareotic guardian of the cruel shrine endured thy power; he will sing of the gates of Death penetrated and spoiled by thee, of the weeping maids of Libya and of Scythia. Neither the ruler of the Macetae nor barbarous Hannibal nor the uncouth accents of fierce Sulla could e’er have celebrated thee in such strains. And of a surety thou, Lysippus, the author of the gift, wouldst not have chosen to be approved by other eyes than these.