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PHIGALEIAN SALOON.

THE room called the PHIGALEIAN SALOON contains four distinct collections of Sculpture (either casts or originals) which we shall now describe in their order of date. They are as follows::

1. THE CASTS OF THE METOPES FROM SELINUS.

2. THE CASTS OF SCULPTURES OF THE TEMPLE OF

ATHENE IN EGINA.

3. THE BAS-RELIEFS FROM THE TEMPLE OF APOLLO
EPICURIUS AT PHIGALEIA IN ARCADIA.

4. THE BAS-RELIEFS FROM THE MAUSOLEUM AT
HALICARNASSUS (Budrún).

1. Casts of Metopes from Selinus.

These Metopes were originally the ornament of the east front of two temples at Selinus, in Sicily, and were discovered in 1823 by Messrs. Angell and Harris, by whom these casts were presented to the Museum. The originals are preserved at Palermo. These fragments consist of four portions. The first was from the central temple on the Eastern hill, and consisted formerly of two blocks of stone attached to each other by metal clasps. Of these the lower part only now remains, containing a combat between a warrior and a female. The warrior is in a kneeling posture, and yields to the superior force or skill of his adversary. The second is from the central temple on the Western hill, and represents Heracles carrying off two robbers called the Cercopes. He is naked, and has perhaps once had a lion's hide of gilded bronze. The third, from the same temple, has for its subject Perseus, with the petasus and talaria, Athene in the Peplos, and Medusa with Pegasus. The fourth contains the subject of a

quadriga and three figures; one is a youth standing in a car, holding the reins in his left hand, the right hand being wanting, as well as the upper part of the body and the neck of the figure. The horses are in very high relief, the heads, necks, and fore-legs being quite detached from the ground of the Metope. The second and third of these sculptures are executed in a rude, archaic style, probably as early as the 50th Ol., B.C. 580. The coins of Enos illustrate the form of Perseus's cap. The fourth is a later example of the same archaic school of art. It will be observed that the proportions in these figures are short, and the forms clumsy and loaded with muscle.

It is interesting to know that the exertions of the first discoverers of these curious relics of archaic art led to further discoveries a few years later. In 1831 the Duca di Serra di Falco found portions of five additional Metopes (now preserved at Palermo), which formed part of the decorations of the pronaos and posticum of the temple nearest the sea. The bodies of the figures are of calcareous tufa, with remains of a coating of paint: the extremities only being of marble. Such statues were called Acroliths. The flesh of the female figures only is represented white, as is the case on the more. archaic vase pictures. These later discoveries belong to a period more than a century and a half subsequent to the elder ones described above. They show a freer and livelier treatment, somewhat modified by the architectural severity which still maintained its ground in Sicily later than in Greece Proper.

2. Casts from the Tympana of the Temple of Athene in Egina.

These Æginetan sculptures were discovered by Mr. Cockerell, the Chev. Bröndsted, Von Stackelberg, and others, in the year 1811, at which time careful excavations were made on the spot, by means of which all the members of the cornice and mouldings have been ascertained; minute and accurate measurements were also taken, so that it might be possible to reconstruct the pediments as they once were. From the notes then made, and from long and careful subsequent study, Mr. Cockerell composed groups similar to those now exhibited in this room. Owing to the great violence of the earthquake by which the temple was thrown down, almost all the statues were found shattered into numerous pieces, so that it was in many cases hopeless to attempt to reunite them. These statues were purchased by the Prince (and subsequently King) of Bavaria, and conveyed to Munich. At Munich they were entrusted to the hands of Thorwaldsen, who has judiciously put together all that could be

restored, and they are now among the most interesting monuments at the Glyptothek.

The slabs themselves originally formed two corresponding groups in the Tympana of the Temple of Athene, of which that to the West was the most complete; but the Eastern the larger and the better executed. The subject of the Eastern pediment has been supposed to be the expedition of the Æacidæ (or Æginetan warriors) against Troy, under the guidance of Athene herself: that of the Western is probably the Contest of the Greeks and the Trojans over the body of Patroclus. Ajax, assisted by Teucer and Diomed, éndeavours to recover the body; Hector, Paris, and Æneas to carry it off. There is a certain parallelism between the groups on these two pediments: thus in the Eastern one, Heracles stands in the same relation to Telamon, the acid-the archer to the heavy-armed soldier-that Teucer does to Ajax in the West. The form and costume of Heracles remind us of his type on the coins of Thasos. Paris wears the archer costume, described in different places in Herodotus.' Originally gilded bronze was attached to the marble, the holes which still remain enabling us to determine how and where it was placed. The hair also has been partly composed of wire, and traces of colour remain on the weapons, clothes, eyeballs, and lips. The disposition of the figures is simple and regular, and the anatomy carefully and faithfully rendered, but the artist had not yet acquired that mastery over his material which gives to the works of PHEIDIAS such ease and grace of movement. The date of the execution of these sculptures is probably about Ol. 75, B.C. 480. The Temple which they decorated was built of yellowish sandstone, the roof and cornice of marble. The cella was painted red; the tympanum blue, with yellow and green foliage on the architrave. On the Acroteria stood females in antique drapery and attitude. It was probably erected shortly after the Victory over the Persians at Salamis.

To what Deity this temple was dedicated has been a subject of much dispute; and many have asserted that the worship of Zeus Pan-Hellenios was celebrated within it. We are inclined, however, to doubt the correctness of this view, and to think that Dr. Wordsworth, who has examined the localities with the eye of a scholar and historian, has satisfactorily demonstrated that the marbles came from the Temple of Athene, and not from that of

Her. i. 71; v. 49; vii. 61.

Zeus Pan-Hellenios. There appear to have been three principal Temples in the Island of Ægina: the 1st on the shore, of which only a single shaft still stands, and which Dr. Wordsworth determines, from two inscribed stones which he found there, to be not earlier than the Peloponnesian War; the 2nd, the beautiful ruin from which these marbles have been procured, which was situated at the N.E. corner of the island; and the 3rd, on the summit of the only high hill in the island, which Dr. Wordsworth has, we think, shown to have been the site of the real temple of Zeus PanHellenios.

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Dr. Wordsworth argues in favour of the second temple being that of Athene, on the ground, 1. That in these sculptures that Goddess is evidently the prominent personage, while no figure exists which can be identified with Zeus. 2. Because he discovered in its immediate neighbourhood a slab built into a modern Greek church, containing the words HΟΡΟΣ ΤΕΜΕΝΟΣ ΑΘΕΝΑΙΑΣ— The limit of the Sacred precinct of Athene;" and 3. That the position of the building, which is eight miles from the principal town, exactly opposite to Athens, leads to the natural inference that it was erected by the Athenians when in possession of the island—a fact which the above inscription, written not in the native Doric, but in Attic Greek, would lead one to anticipate.'

3. Bas-reliefs from the Temple of Apollo at Phigaleia in Arcadia.

These sculptures were found by Mr. Cockerell and other gentlemen in the year 1812, a short distance from the modern town of Paulizza, which is believed to be at present the site of the ancient Phigaleia. The ancient name of the place where the temple was situated was Bassæ, on the slopes of Mount Cotylium. It was originally about 125 feet in length, and 48 in breadth, and had six columns at either front, and 15 on either side.

1 Indeed, the only evidence in favour of the temple, which we have called that of Pallas, being the Pan-Hellenion, consists in a tradition that the words ΔΙΙ ΠΑΝΕΛΛΗΝΙΩΙ were once inscribed on its portico. But if this be true, the dialect would show the inscription to have been a forgery. The Greek Deities did not write their names over the doors of their temples, "comme les marchands les leurs sur les portes de leur boutiques." Dio. Chrysost. remarking - τοὺς Θεοὺς (ἓν τοῖς ἱεροῖς ἐπιγράφειν οὐκ ἔστιν ἐικὸς.

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