Æthiopians, for instance, or in African negroes. Among the rich series of portraits from the temple of Apollo at Cyrene, the finest is the bronze head of an African in the Bronze Room (No. 268). Here the racial type is given without exaggeration; the technique is masterly; and, as in the Mausolus, the artist has passed beyond the limits of Hellenic pride and represented the barbarian' as he is. Though of fourth-century date, this bronze, as seems only natural from its African provenance, possesses traits in common with the Græco-Egyptian mummy portraits on wood or linen which so vividly illustrate the Greek handling of foreign types. This class of picture, familiar through the great series found by Prof. Flinders Petrie in the Fayoum, is well represented in the Egyptian collections on the first floor of the Museum, where, among many excellent examples, the exquisitely lovely portrait of the young Artemidorus, in its brilliant red sheath, at once commands attention (No. 21,810), Few if any of hese panels are earlier than the Principate of Claudius; at the school held its own down to the third century .D., and provides an incomparable gallery of portraits rom the Græco-Roman world. On the one hand, as the Russian archæologist, M. de Grueneisen, shows in his able monograph Le Portrait,' it is linked up with the lost portrait painting of the Greeks, and on the other with the portrait art of the later Empire, both Pagan and Christian.

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The transformations of Hellenistic portrait painting under the Roman Empire form no part of my present subject, but we may in conclusion glance at the final phase. The impressive portraiture of the Catacombs, such as the lady Turtura from the catacomb of Commodilla (A.D. 523), and the great Imperial groups in mosaic, like those at Ravenna of Justinian and Theodora surrounded by their court, bear witness to a new efflorescence of portraiture in the sixth century A.D., in which the dominating element is once more essentially Greek. The desire on the part of artists for what De Grueneisen calls formulas of simplification,' had, so far back as the second century, tended to the creation of a new decorative style of portraiture, of which the leading characteristic was a return to the frontal view of primitive Greek art. That is to say, 'frontality' became, as in

the archaic periods, the basic principle of composition; but individual traits that could lend character or animation to figure, gesture, or even pose, continued to be carefully studied. And that the graces of naturalism were not disowned is clear from the appealing beauty of the Theodora in the San Vitale group. It is as if the art of the old Ionian masters had come to life again in these imperial mosaics, enriched by the experience of the intervening centuries in the rendering of likeness and expression.

With the introduction of Christianity, portrait statues had been gradually banned as too suggestive of the cult of images forbidden by Christian dogma. Hence Greek portraiture, which began in sculpture, may be said to have ended in painting; but the last phase is no less glorious and significant than the first. So late as the eighth century, a school with an unbroken Greek tradition behind it produced the imposing throng of Popes and other ecclesiastical personages depicted on the walls of Santa Maria Antiqua in the Forum. But here we are on the threshold of Carolingian art and the period of Charlemagne, and thus find, at the moment of transition from the old world to the new, the spirit of the ancient Greek portraitists active and vital still.

EUGÉNIE STRONG.

Art. 3.-THE GOLDEN ASS OF APULEIUS.

1. The Golden Ass of Apuleius, translated out of Latin by William Adlington, anno 1566. With an introduction by Charles Whibley (Tudor Translations). Nutt, 1893.

David

2. The Golden Asse of Apuleius. Done into English by William Adlington. With an introduction by Thomas Seccombe. Grant Richards, 1913.

3. The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura. Translated by H. E. Butler. Oxford University Press,

1909.

4. Apulei Apologia. With introduction and commentary by H. E. Butler and A. S. Owen. Oxford University Press, 1914.

IN Latin literature two works of prose fiction, and only two, have survived. One is the 'Satyricon' of Petronius, the other The Golden Ass' of Apuleius. Their fates have been widely different. In originality the two writers can hardly be compared. By the side of Petronius, Apuleius may seem to be little more than an ingenious decorator of borrowed material. Yet, for centuries, the literary world neglected the humorous realism of the 'Satyricon' for the picturesque romanticism of The Golden Ass.' Few if any works of prose fiction have enjoyed so great and continuous a popularity as the Latin romance; none have entered more largely into serious and momentous discussions.

More fortunate than the 'Satyricon,' 'The Golden Ass' has been handed down in its entirety. It owed its preservation, partly, no doubt, to accident, partly to its intrinsic interest as a story, partly to the local celebrity of its author as an Admirable Crichton of learning and eloquence, partly, and most of all, to his reputation as a wonder-working magician. His miraculous powers were ranked in popular estimation with those of Apollonius of Tyana. They were the boast of the champions of paganism. In his own person-for Apuleius identified himself with the adventures of his hero-the author had been transformed into an ass and recovered his human shape. Christianity itself could boast no greater miracle. On these and other grounds, 'The Golden Ass' has played