Page:1902 Encyclopædia Britannica - Volume 25 - A-AUS.pdf/630

 580

ARCHAEOLOGY

(CLASSICAL)

limits of the metope exclude any elaborate grouping. The subjects are provided by the twelve labours of Hercules; the figures introduced in each metope are but two or at most three; and the action is simplified as much as possible. The example figured (Fig. 27) represents Her-

cules holding up the sky on a cushion, with the friendly aid of a Hesperid nymph, while Atlas, whom he has relieved of his usual burden, approaches, bringing the apples which it was the task of Hercules to procure. Another of the fruits of the excavations of Olympia is

the floating Victory by Paeonius, unfortunately faceless (Fig. 28), which was set up in all probability in memory of the victory of the Athenians and their Messenian allies at Sphacteria in 425 B.c. The inscription states that it was dedicated by the Messenians and people of Naupactus from the spoils of their enemies, but the name of the enemy is not mentioned in the inscription. The statue of Paionius, which comes floating down through the air with drapery borne backward, is of a bold and innovating type,

them. In style the figure is very notable, tall and slight beyond all contemporary examples. The contrast between the conventional decorousness of face and drapery and the lifelike accuracy of hands and feet is very striking, and indicates the clashing of various tendencies in art at the time when the great style was formed in Greece. On the works of Phidias recent discovery has thrown some light, though but little which is direct. Much interest was aroused in 1880 by the find- PhJdias ing at Athens of a marble reduction, a yard high, of the great Parthenos statue of Phidias (Fig. 30);

Pig. 27.—Metope : Olympia ; restored. Olympia, iii. 45. and we may trace its influence in many works of the next ageAmong the discoveries at Delphi none is so striking and valuable to us as the life-size, statue in bronze of a charioteer holding in his hand the reins. This Charioteer. ^ias ^een shown by M. Homolle to be part of a chariot-group set up by Polyzalus, brother of Gelon and Hieron of Syracuse, in honour of a victory won in the chariot-race at the Pythian games at Delphi (Fig. 29). The charioteer is evidently a high-born youth, and is clad in the long chiton which was necessary to protect a driver of a chariot from the rush of air. The date would be about 480-470 b.c. Bronze groups representing victorious chariots with their drivers were among the noblest and most costly dedications of antiquity; the present figure is our only satisfactory representative of

Pig. 28.—Nike of Paeonius ; restored. Olympia, iii. 48. but cooler consideration has forced us to allow that though the new statuette may be an authority as to some details of the Phidian statue, such as the decoration of the helmet, the attitude of the small figure of Victory, and the position of the snake, it is not to be implicitly trusted. The pillar which is introduced to support the weight of the figure of Victory seems to most artists a device unworthy of the genius of Phidias, though there is other evidence of its actual existence. In any case, this statuette cannot serve to give us any adequate notion of the great statue as a whole. Prof. Furtwangler has of late largely contributed to Phidian literature. He believes