214 Roman Sculpture. imitations produced of the masterpieces of antiquity served but to prove the futility of any attempt to revive a school after the spirit which animated it is extinct. Among the number of works belonging to this age are the monuments found at Herculaneum and Pompeii. Of these the fine bronze statues of Hermes, the Sleeping Faun, and the Dancing Girls, all in the Museum of Naples, are considered the best. The famous Centaurs in black marble found in the villa of Hadrian, and now in the Capitoline Museum, are evidently copies of Greek originals. Some of the iconic statues excavated are also very fine and of great historic value. The Vatican contains an extremely fine statue, worthy of being called an ideal work, of Antinous (the favourite of Hadrian), who was drowned in the Nile, and enrolled by his regretful master amongst the gods. The museums of Europe contain many fine groups supposed to date from this time of exceptional artistic activity. Of these we must name the colossal marble Tiber and Nile — the former in the Louvre, the latter in the Vatican (Fig. 91) — in which the rivers are represented by two old men with flowing beards resting on the urns from which their waters flow, and surrounded by emblems and small symbolic figures : and the marble group of Cupid and Psyche in the Vatican. It was, however, in the monuments erected in honour of the emperors during the period under discussion that Roman sculpture attained to its highest excellence. We have spoken of the triumphal arches as works of architec- ture, and must now say a few words on the distinctive cha- racter of the reliefs with which they were covered. These were partly historical and partly symbolical, representing
