Page:Anecdotes of painters, engravers, sculptors and architects, and curiosities of art (IA anecdotesofpaint01spoo).pdf/35

 inlaid work—the shield of Achilles. Its rich design could not have been imagined, unless the arts necessary to produce it had arrived to a high degree of perfection in his country at the time he wrote, though we may doubt whether, at the period of the Trojan war, three hundred years before Homer, there existed artificers capable of executing it.

Within a century after the taking of Troy, the Greeks had founded many new colonies in Asia Minor, and the Heraclidæ finally regained their ancient seats in the Peloponnesus. It is worthy of remark that about that period, David built his house of cedars, and Solomon adorned Jerusalem with her magnificent first temple, and that Hiram, king of Tyre, sent to Solomon "a cunning man, endued with understanding," to assist him in the building of the temple, but more especially to superintend the execution of the ornaments. (1st Kings, vii, 13, and 2d Chron., ii, 14.)

THE PŒCILE AT ATHENS.

The stoa or celebrated Portico at Athens, called the Pœcile on account of its paintings, was the pride of the Athenians. Polygnotus, Mycon, and Pantænus adorned it with pictures of gods, heroes, benefactors, and the most memorable acts of the Athenians, as the incidents of the siege and sacking of Troy, the battle of Theseus against the Amazons, the battle between the Athenians and Lacedæmonians at Œnoe in Argolis, the battle of Marathon, and