sculpture which have been preserved to us are partly original
Greek works, partly copies executed in Roman times from Greek
originals. Originals, and especially important originals, are
scarce. The statues of gold and ivory have left not a vestige
behind. Those of bronze, once numbered by thousands, went long
ago, with few exceptions, into the melting-pot. Even sculptures in
marble, though the material was less valuable, have been thrown
into the lime-kiln or used as building stone or wantonly mutilated
or ruined by neglect. There does not exist to-day a single
certified original work by any one of the six greatest sculptors
of Greece, except the Hermes of Praxiteles (see page 221). Copies
are more plentiful. As nowadays many museums and private houses
have on their walls copies of paintings by the "old masters," so,
and far more usually, the public and private buildings of imperial
Rome and of many of the cities under her sway were adorned with
copies of famous works by the sculptors of ancient Greece. Any
piece of sculpture might thus be multiplied indefinitely; and so
it happens that we often possess several copies, or even some
dozens of copies, of one and the same original. Most of the
masterpieces of Greek sculpture which are known to us at all are
known only in this way.

The question therefore arises, How far are these copies to be
trusted? It is impossible to answer in general terms. The
instances are very few where we possess at once the original and a
copy. The best case of the kind is afforded by Fig. 75, compared
with Fig. 132. Here the head, fore-arms, and feet of the copy are
modern and consequently do not enter into consideration. Limiting
one's attention to the antique parts of the figure, one sees that
it is a tolerably close, and yet a hard and lifeless, imitation of