The Ram in Aeginetan Sculpture

Abstract

Pausanias (X. 17, 6) seeks to convey a definite notion of the rams in Sardinia by saying that they had the form which an Aeginetan sculptor would give a wild ram, except for a shagginess on the breast which was too thick for Aeginetan art. The spareness of form implied here, and still more distinctly in the extraordinary swiftness which he ascribes to these rams, seems to agree very well with what remains of the sculpture of Aegina; and in calling attention to this circumstance (Greek Sculpture, p. 187) I supposed that Pausanias had in his mind only the general characteristic of the Aegina school, to which he refers on other occasions. But it occurs to me now that he may have been thinking specially of Onatas and the statue of Hermes Kriophoros, which he had seen at Olympia and described (v. 27,8). Onatas receives great praise from Pausanias (v. 25, 7), and no doubt was to him a representative of the school of Aegina.