Page:Greek Buildings Represented by Fragments in the British Museum (1908).djvu/109

 THE PARTHENON AND ITS SCULPTURES. 93 All the sculptures relate to Athena and the dependence of the Athenians upon her. The east pediment represents her birth, the west her taking the city and the land under her pro- tection. The eastern metopes show her amongst the gods battling with the powers of dark and ill, the other metopes con- tain the acts of the heroes done by her assistance. The pediments were stone books of Genesis and the Covenant, the metopes were chapters from the Books of Kings and Chronicles ; the frieze, representing the present relation of the gods to the chosen city at the great feast of Athena, was a sort of Psalm of rejoicing. On this band 524 feet long which surrounds and surmounts the cella walls, is sculptured a procession in honour of Athena, which progresses, in two streams, from the west front, to the middle of the east front where it is received by a group of gods assembled over the east door. On the west front is shown the preparation for the start. Both the north and the south sides have a general resemblance in the succession of groups of horsemen, chariots, and maidens, as if it were intended to represent the right and left flanks of the same advancing body, although there are considerable differences in the details. The eastern Fig. 79.— Frieze ; frieze falls into seven parts : i and 7 are Head of Apollo. the heads of the procession overlapping from both sides ; 2 and 6 are groups of magistrates who wait to receive them (Fig. 72); 3 and 5 consist of dignified seated figures of larger scale, obviously the gods, waiting and looking outwards (Fig. 73) ; 4 is a central group quiet and detached, which appears an anti- climax to the rest of the scene, beyond or outside. (Fig. 76). It is so completely divided off from the general action by the two groups of gods who turn their backs on it, and by being isolated in a bare space such as we find nowhere else on the frieze, that it seems probable that this part was thought of as within the temple itself There seem to be slight indica- tions of lines dividing off this group, as if this central panel had a background of a different colour from the rest. The general balance of the whole composition, and the isolation of the central