Menela'us
a pupil of Stephanus, was the sculptor of a marble group in the villa Ludovisi at Rome, which bears the inscription
ΜΕΝΕΛΑΟΣ ΣΤΕΦΑΝΟ*Υ ΜΑΘΗΤΗΣ ΕΠΟΙΕΙ.
The group, which consists of a male and female figure, the size of life, has been differently explained.
It used to be taken to refer to the story of Papirius and his mother. (Aul.
Gel. 1.23.) Thiersch maintains that it is impossible not to recognise the Roman matron in the female figure, and in both the expression of maternal and filial love; and he supposes that it represents some scene from the family life of the Caesars, probably Octavia and Marcellus, "Tu Marcellus eris, manibus date lilia plenis," &c. (
Epochen, pp. 295, 296.) Winckelmann at first took it for Phaedra and Hippolytus (
Geschichte d. Kunst, Vorrede, § 5); but he afterwards explained it as representing the recognition of Orestes by Electra (bk. 11.2.29), and this supposition has been generally adopted. Thiersch
l.c.) refers the work to the Augustan age. [Compare STEPHANUS.]
[
P.S]
