Page:Greek Buildings Represented by Fragments in the British Museum (1908).djvu/130

 114 THE PARTHENON AND ITS SCULPTURES. on the Acropolis, as indicated by an olive tree and a pillar, watch- ing from afar the fall of Troy. " She has laid aside her helmet, and rests triumphant at the conclusion of the war." (Fig. 113.) The figure itself, on the vase, almost seems to be drawn from the Athena of the eastern frieze. Compare also the figure of Athena seated on a rock watching a battle on the frieze of the Theseum, which I find that Sauer has restored as holding her helmet in her hand. Before seeing this, I had come to the con- clusion that this was probably the action of the Athena of the Parthenon metope. (See Fig. 1 12, from a vase.) The messenger on this metope resembles a figure on the Theseum, from the last of the series representing the Labours of Hercules. If we accept it that the last metope on the north represents the rock of the Acropolis, then the warrior on No. i west, who never •^^»>fc^ X Y Fig. 114. — W. Pediment : from Carrey's sketch ; and Suggestion as to Right-hand Group. seems to have been opposed to an enemy, may be supposed to be riding out from Athens to join the battle. It is worth some tiresome concern with minute points, to bring out the result that the western metopes which were first seen on approaching the temple were a memorial of the victory over the Persians, and that those on the north, which were passed in reaching the entrance, recalled the War of Troy, while the less seen south side cele- brated the primitive legendary battle of Athenians and Centaurs. Those of the east were the deeds of the gods themselves. The Pediments. Most of the surviving sculptures of those which once filled the pediments are now in the British Museum. They are, by common admission, the noblest images wrought in all time.