which we find many traces in Asia Minor. (See the Imperial coins of Smyrna and Ephesus-the frieze of a temple from Magnesia, now at Paris-the coins of Plarasa, Nysa, Mylasa, and Tripolis in Caria-and those of Mausolus and other kings of Caria, where Zeus Labrandenus, or Zeus bearing the Labra, or Amazonian bipennis, is represented.) It is possible that this myth of the Amazons may contain a real vestige of history, and may relate to the invasion of Asia Minor by some Scythian nation, among whom, as in the case of the Massagetæ in the time of Cyrus, women had the right of sovereignty.

Besides the marbles just described, there are some other objects which are ranged near them in the same room, as having been found within the precinct of the ancient walls of Halicarnassus. These are, a circular altar, with a subject in bas-relief, which formerly stood on the sea-shore of Halicarnassus; a draped female statue, wanting the head, which was inserted into the walls of the Budrún fortress; two bas-reliefs, representing gladiatorial combats; and two others, votive offerings to Pluto or Esculapius.

ELGIN ROOM.

THIS ROOM contains :

I. THE SCULPTURES FROM THE PARTHENON AT ATHENS.

IL FRIEZE FROM THE TEMPLE OF NIKE APTEROS

ATHENS.

III. THE SIGEAN BAS-RELIEF.

IV. CASTS FROM THE THESEION AT ATHENS.

AT

V. CASTS FROM THE CHORAGIC MONUMENT OF LYSICRATES.
AT ATHENS.

VI. MISCELLANEOUS STATUES, RELIEFS, &C., ARRANGED
UNDER EIGHT HEADS.

I. THE SCULPTURES FROM THE PARTHENON.

1. The Statues which decorated the Eastern and Western Pediments.

2. The Alti-rilievi which were placed in the Metopes, alternating with the Triglyphs.

3. The Bassi-rilievi, arranged round the exterior of the Cella, as a frieze.

Before we describe the sculptures of the Parthenon, it may be as well to give some account of the Temple for which they were designed.

The Parthenon, or Hecatompedon as it was sometimes called, was erected by Ictinus on the site of an older and smaller Sacred building, between the years B. c. 448-442. It was constructed entirely of white marble from Mount Pentelicus, and consisted of a cell, surrounded by a peristyle, with eight Doric columns at the two ends, and seventeen on each of the sides. The height of the temple above the platform on which it stood was about 65 feet. Within the peristyle, or outer range of columns, was placed an interior range of six columns, at each end of the cella, so as to form a vestibule to its

door there was an ascent of two steps into these vestibules from the Peristyle. The cell, which was 62 feet broad within, was divided into two chambers; the Eastern 98 feet 7 inches, and the Western 43 feet 10 inches long. The Western was called the Opisthodomos, or back chamber, and served as a kind of Treasury, where various articles of value were dedicated or left in deposit.

Sir George Wheler and Dr. Spon visited and described the Parthenon in the year 1676, two years previous to which the Marquis de Nointel had had drawings made of the sculptures with which it was adorned. These sketches, which were made by an artist named Jacques Carrey, are preserved in the Royal Library at Paris, and have been of the greatest value in the restoration of the compositions which once filled the two pediments.

In 1676 the main structure of the edifice was still entire all but the roof. A few years subsequently it sustained irreparable injury from the siege of Athens by the Venetian forces under Morosini and Coningsmark in 1687, and from the attempts subsequently made by Morosini to detach portions of the pedimental statues as spoils for his republic. During the siege, a shell fired from the opposite hill destroyed nearly half the fabric, the walls of the cella before the opisthodomos being almost wholly levelled, together with six columns of the Northern and five of the Southern peristyle. The Eastern portico itself appears to have escaped its influence, but the sculptures it contained were almost entirely destroyed.

The

The Parthenon was, as is well known, dedicated to Pallas Athene, the tutelary Goddess of the Athenian State. In the Greek and the ancient idolatries generally, the Temple of a Deity was considered as his dwelling-place; his statue within the cella, the symbol, and more than the symbol, of his bodily presence. Thus the name Parthenon means literally, the house of the Virgin Goddess. Within the cella stood the matchless statue of Pallas Athene, in gold and ivory, one of the two greatest works of Pheidias. whole of the decorations of the building formed, as we shall show, one great design or sculptured poem in her honour, tracing out her connection with the soil of Attica, celebrating her chief exploits, and indirectly blending her glory with that of the people of whom she was the tutelary Deity. We now proceed to describe the first of the three classes of sculptures mentioned above; those, namely, which belonged to the Eastern and Western Pedimental Compositions.

It has been supposed that there were originally no less than fort four statues on these pediments: of these, thirteen fragments

now in the Museum, and two occupy their ancient position on the temple. The sculptures which decorated the Pediments of Greek temples generally had reference either to the Deity to whom the temple was dedicated, or to the State by whom it was erected. In the whole composition, a certain symmetry was observed, the character of the design being in some degree modified by the necessities of the architectural structure which formed its frame. Thus the number of figures introduced upon the Pediments appears to have depended on the number of columns which formed the front of the edifice, and was proportioned to the size of the order to which the Temple itself belonged. In the Parthenon, which was Octostyle (i.e., had eight columns in front), from twenty to twenty-five figures were inserted in the Temple of Jupiter at Olympia, which was Hexastyle (i.e., had six columns in front), the number was from eleven to fifteen: the same rule had been previously adopted in the Temple of Zeus Panhellenios at Ægina, which belonged to the same order, and was erected about a hundred years before the Parthenon. The principal figures in the design were placed under the apex of the pediment: here was the culminating point of the action, to which all other parts of the composition converged. The subordinate figures were ranged on each side of this group, in a standing, sitting, or reclining attitude, according as the slope of the pediment permitted. Colour was doubtless employed both in the architecture and the sculpture of Greek temples generally, so as to draw attention to the main lines of the structure, to detach more clearly the whole composition from its back-ground, and to distinguish figure from figure in the groups, and flesh from drapery in single figures. The weapons, the reins of the horses, and other accessories were of metal, and the eyes of some of the principal figures were inlaid.

1. Sculptures from the Eastern and Western Pediments. The Sculptures of the Pediments of the Parthenon were not quite perfect, even when Carrey drew them, before the Venetian siege; the middle portion of the Eastern was altogether lost, and a portion of the right of the centre of the Western. A large group near the principal figure in this Pediment had fallen, and, with several of the statues near it, had for security's sake been built up with later masonry. Many, too, of the heads and of the accessory symbols had either perished, or are so imperfectly rendered in his drawings that the identification of many of the figures and the restoration of the missing portions of the compositions must necessarily be conjectural,

the more so as the only description of the designs left us by the ancients is the scanty and cursory notice of Pausanias, who contents himself with giving the titles of the two compositions, and with telling us that in the Eastern Pediment all had reference to the birth of Athene, while in the Western the subject was the contest of Poseidon with Athene for the soil of Attica. This passage must be regarded as the key to the various systems of interpretation which the ingenuity of Archæologists, from Visconti downwards, has applied to the illustration of these sculptures. Want of space will of course preclude us from stating these theories at length: in the explanation therefore of the several figures the most probable conjecture will be adopted.

We will now proceed to describe the Sculptures from the Eastern pediment. The subject of these being the birth of Athene, and the scene Olympus, we must suppose this mythic heaven to be contained within the triangular area of the pediment, and to be bounded by figurative representations of Day on the one hand, and of Night on the other. These two figures were placed by Pheidias in opposite angles, and, according to the symmetrical arrangement which governed pedimental composition, made to balance each other. In the Pediment of the Temple of Zeus at Elis, another of the works of Pheidias, the same arrangement was observed.

If we commence with the angle at the left, the first figure to be described is No. 91, Hyperion, or the God of Day, who is represented rising from the ocean; his head, arms, and shoulders have emerged from the waves, which are conventionally sculptured upon the plinth, in parallel rows like overlapping tiles. His arms are stretched forward to guide the reins of his coursers, but the hands are gone; his head also has perished. The surface of this figure having been protected by the cornice above, has preserved its original polish, from which we may form a judgment of the execution