In the British Museum there is a very early specimen of
it,--a large egg-shaped vessel, fitted together of several pieces,
the projecting pins or rivets, forming a sort of diadem round the
middle, being still sharp in form and heavily gilt. That method gave
place in time to a defter means of joining the parts together, with
more perfect unity and smoothness of surface, the art of soldering;
and the invention of this art--of soldering iron, in the first
instance--is coupled with the name of Glaucus of Chios, a name which,
in connexion with this and other devices for facilitating the
mechanical processes of art,--for perfecting artistic effect with
economy of labour--became proverbial, the "art of Glaucus" being
attributed to those who work well with rapidity and ease.
[233] Far more fruitful still was the invention of casting, of
casting hollow figures especially, attributed to Rhoecus and
Theodorus, architects of the great temple at Samos. Such hollow
figures, able, in consequence of their lightness, to rest, almost
like an inflated bladder, on a single point--the entire bulk of a
heroic rider, for instance, on the point of his horse's tail--admit
of a much freer distribution of the whole weight or mass required,
than is possible in any other mode of statuary; and the invention of
the art of casting is really the discovery of liberty in
composition.
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