Essays in Portraiture (16-20)

POLYSTRATUS Then inasmuch as culture must stand at the head of all that is fair, and particularly all that is acquired by study, let us now create its likeness, rich, however, in colours and in modelling, that even in this point we may not fall short of your achievement in sculpture. So let her be pictured as possessing all the good gifts that come from Helicon. Unlike Clio, Polymnia, Calliope, and the others, each of whom has a single accomplishment, she shall have those of all the Muses, and in addition those of Hermes and Apollo. For all that poets have set forth with the embellishment of metre or orators with the might of eloquence, all that historians have related or philosophers recommended shall give beauty to our picture, not simply to the extent of tinting its surface, but staining it all deeply with indelible colours till it will take no more. And you must pardon me if I can show no ancient model for this picture; for tradition tells us of nothing similar in point of culture among the men of olden times. But in spite of that, if you approve, it too may now

LYCINUS It is very beautiful, to be sure, Polystratus, and every line of it correctly drawn.

POLYSTRATUS Next we must delineate her wisdom and understanding. We shall require many models there, most of them ancient, and one, like herself, Ionic, painted and wrought by Aeschines, the friend of Socrates, and by Socrates himself,[*] of all craftsmen the truest copyists because they painted with love. It is that maid of Miletus, Aspasia, the consort of the Olympian,[*] himself a marvel beyond compare. Putting before us, in her, no mean pattern of understanding, let us take all that she had of experience in affairs, shrewdness in_ statescraft, quick-wittedness, and penetration, and transfer the whole of it to our own picture by accurate measurement; making allowance, however, for the fact that she was painted on a small canvas, but our figure is colossal in its scale.

LYCINUS What do you mean by that?

POLYSTRATUS I mean, Lycinus, that the pictures are not of equal size, though they look alike; for the Athenian state of those days and the Roman empire of to-day are not equal, nor near it. Consequently, although

The second model and the third shall be the famous Theano[*] and the Lesbian poetess, and Diotima[*] shall be still another. Theano shall contribute her high-mindedness, Sappho the attractiveness of her way of living, and Diotima shall be copied not only in those qualities for which Socrates commended her, but in her general intelligence and power to give counsel. There you have another picture, Lycinus, which may be hung also.

LYCINUS Yes, Polystratus, for it is marvellous. But paint more of them.

POLYSTRATUS That of her goodness and loving-kindness, my friend, which will disclose the gentleness of her nature and its graciousness to all those who make demands upon her? Then let her be compared with that Theano who was wife of Antenor,[*] and with Arete,[*] and Arete’s daughter Nausicaa, and with any other who in high station behaved with propriety in the face of her good fortune.

Next in order, let her modesty be portrayed, and her love for her consort, in such a way as to be most like the daughter of Icarius, described by