such an inquiry. And yet I cannot quit Antinous without some
retrospect upon the most important of his portraits. Among the
simple busts, by far the finest, to my thinking, are the colossal
head of the Louvre, and the ivy-crowned bronze at Naples. The latter
is not only flawless in its execution, but is animated with a
pensive beauty of expression. The former, though praised by
Winckelmann, as among the two or three most precious masterpieces of
antique art, must be criticised for a certain vacancy and
lifelessness. Of the heroic statues, the two noblest are those of
the Capitol and Naples. The identity of the Capitoline Antinous has
only once, I think, been seriously questioned; and yet it may be
reckoned more than doubtful. The head is almost certainly not his.
How it came to be placed upon a body presenting so much resemblance
to the type of Antinous I do not know. Careful comparison of the
torso and the arms with an indubitable portrait will even raise the
question whether this fine statue is not a Hermes or a hero of an
earlier age. Its attitude suggests Narcissus or Adonis; and under
either of these forms Antinous may properly have been idealised. The
Neapolitan marble, on the contrary, yields the actual Antinous in
all the exuberant fulness of his beauty. Head, body, pose, alike
bring him vividly before us, forming an undoubtedly authentic
portrait. The same personality, idealised, it is true, but rather
suffering than gaining by the process, is powerfully impressed upon
the colossal Dionysus of the Vatican. What distinguishes this great
work is the inbreathed spirit of divinity, more overpowering here
than in any other of the extant [Greek: andriantes kai agalmata].
The basrelief of the Villa Albani, restored to suit the conception
of a Vertumnus, has even more of florid beauty; but whether the
restoration was wisely made may be doubted. It is curious to compare
this celebrated masterpiece of technical dexterity with another
basrelief in the Villa Albani, representing Antinous as Castor. He
is standing, half clothed with the chlamys, by a horse. His hair is
close-cropped, after the Roman fashion, cut straight above the
forehead, but crowned with a fillet of lotos-buds. The whole face
has a somewhat stern and frowning Roman look of resolution,
contrasting with the mild benignity of the Bacchus statues, and the
almost sulky voluptuousness of the busts. In the Lateran Museum
Antinous appears as a god of flowers, ho