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He probably represents a Persian, and appears to have received a wound from his antagonist, which is causing him to sink to the ground. This gem was found at Curium in Cyprus by General Di Cesnola. Another, found at the same place, exhibits a warrior, or a hunter, going forth to battle or to the chase in his chariot. A large quiver full of arrows is slung at each side of his car.
This gallant act was seen by his general, who, meeting him on his return, said: 'Colonel, you are a brave man; you are released from arrest; and, taking his own sword from his side, handed it to the colonel, saying: 'Here is my sword; wear it in honor of this day! In the next charge Colonel Cesnola fell, desperately wounded, and was taken prisoner.
We have a beautiful collection at the Art Museum in Fourteenth street of jewelry, objets d'art, and a good ceramic display, all clustered round the Di Cesnola sculptures and pottery.
A bas-relief of peculiar interest was discovered at Athienau by General Di Cesnola, and has been represented both by him and by the Italian traveller Ceccaldi. It represents Hercules capturing the cattle of Geryon from the herdsman Eurytion, and gives us reason to believe that that myth was a native Phoenician legend adopted by the Greeks, and not a Hellenic one imported into Phoenicia.
Colonel Cesnola, of the Fourth New York Cavalry, had that morning, through mistake, been placed under arrest, and, his sword being taken from him, was without arms. But in one of these wild charges, made early in the contest, his regiment hesitated.
Ruskin placed £1,000 at his disposal. General di Cesnola was able, in April, 1875, to announce that in spite of the confiscation of half the treasure-trove by the local Government, he had shipped a cargo of antiquities, including many vases, terra-cottas, and fragments of sculpture. Whence, precisely, these relics came is now doubtful.
One, found by General Di Cesnola at Curium in Cyprus, exhibited at the two ends heads of lions, which seemed to threaten each other. The execution of the heads left nothing to be desired. Some others, found in Phoenicia Proper, in a state of extraordinary preservation, were of similar design, but, in the place of lions' heads, exhibited the heads of bull, with very short horns.
A sarcophagus, on which the relief is low, has been described and figured by Di Cesnola, who discovered it in the same locality as the sculpture which has just engaged our attention. The sarcophagus, which had a lid guarded by lions at the four corners, was ornamented at both ends and along both sides by reliefs. The four scenes depicted appear to be distinct and separate.
In the year 1867 the sloop-of-war , to which I was attached, was cruising in the Levant, touching now and again at Canea or at Suda Bay to see how the Turks and the Cretans were getting on with their war, or at Larneka to lend the "influence of the flag" to that pleasant gentleman, General di Cesnola, then in the full tide of archæological research in Cyprus.
M. Gerhard also added, beyond the sacrarium, an apse, of which General Di Cesnola found no traces, but which may possibly have disappeared in the course of the sixty years which separated the observations of M. Gerhard's informants from the researches of the later traveller.
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