Scopas in Chryse

Abstract

Certain passages in Overbeck are generally supposed to refer to a statue by Scopas of Apollo Smintheus, an aspect of the god to which classical students were probably introduced in Strabo's time as they are to-day by the old priest's prayer in the first book of the Iliad. It seems at first a not very serious suggestion that one at least of these passages reads as though the mouse alone, not the statue, were the work of Scopas. But further investigation indicates that the ambiguity is a little more than apparent, indeed real enough to have sheltered a few scholars in their endeavour to escape the difficulties and confusion of reconciling the usual interpretation of the Strabo passage with coin types of Alexandria Troas, and with what can be surmised of Scopas's style.