ACROLITHI
ACROLITHI (
ἀκρόλιθοι), statues
of which the extremities (face, feet, and hands, or toes and fingers only)
were of marble, and the remaining part of the body either gilt or, what
seems to have been more used, covered with drapery. The word occurs only in
the Greek Anthology (Brunck,
Anal. iii. p. 155, No. 20;
Anth. Pal. 12.40), and in Vitruvius (
2.8.11); but statues of the kind are frequently
mentioned by Pausanias (
2.4.1;
6.25.4;
7.21.4 or
10; 7.23.5; 8.25.4 or 6; 8.31.1 or 2, and § 3 or 6; 9.4.1). It is a
mistake to suppose that all the statues of this kind belonged to an earlier
period. They continued to be made at least down to the time of Praxiteles.
(Comp. Jacobs,
Comment. in Anthol. Graec. vol. iii. pt. 1, p.
298; Winckelmann,
Gesch. der Kunst, P. 1.100.2.13;
Müller,
Archäol. § 69.)
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P.S]
