Page:Greek Buildings Represented by Fragments in the British Museum (1908).djvu/137

 THE PARTHENON AND ITS SCULPTURES. 121 Catalogue, shows that this theory has entirely broken down, and it is now admitted that the figure is that represented on Carrey's sketch, close by Poseidon's charioteer. In the Hellenic Journal, November 1907, Dr Cecil Smith writes, that accord- ing to the letters of Lord Elgin's agents, the figure was found under the west front. It is suggested that the figure cannot be a Victory, as it is on the side of Poseidon, and Discord is proposed.* However, Furtwangler, seeing the Victory diffi- culty, had said, that, as Athena had Hermes for a supporter, so Poseidon had Iris, and he gave instances of this parallelism between Iris and Hermes.f The interpretation of the scheme of the sculptures by Furtwangler, which accepts and restores figures in both the gaps of the pediment, seems to me the most consistent and dramatic. Both gods claim the same land, and both are standing as nearly as possible on the same spot. Both produce their tokens of power, and both draw back. Difficulty of interpretation arises in respect to the side figures, the spectators of the main action. According to Furtwangler, as it was done in the sight of men, the side figures represent the wit- nesses — the primitive dwellers on the Acropolis. The germ of this theory is already found in Visconti, who conjectured that the figure near the car of the goddess might be Cecrops, " the native hero of the Athenians, whom they revered as a god, and who bore witness to the prodigy." Leake, who, after all, may be found to have been the observer who made the most identifications of the whole mass of Parthenon sculptures, extended and, to a large degree, rightly applied this theory. He named the man's figure next to the left hand gap, Cecrops ; and the women between him and the chariot, his daughters. " According to one version of the fable," he writes, " Cecrops testified that he had seen the olive planted by Athena; accord- ing to another version, not only Cecrops but his successors, Cranaus and Erechtheus, were present. It is this last form of the story which Phidias had represented." As he accepted " Vases," 30). t That the figure is probably Iris is allowed in the last edition of the Museum Catalogue.
 * The only late Discord I know is not winged (Furtwangler's