Page:Greek Buildings Represented by Fragments in the British Museum (1908).djvu/139

 THE PARTHENON AND ITS SCULPTURES. 1 23 seems complete. My only doubt had been in regard to the figures at the right hand angle, where the outer figure is a female turning back and conversing with a male. He is said to repre- sent a river, and she the fountain Callirrhoe. This difference between the two angle figures prevents our calling them "river-gods" ; and "a river-god and fountain nymph" is perhaps over elaborate. Furtwangler takes them to represent other primitive spectators. That such reclining figures need not represent Rivers is shown by Fig. 116, which seems to be founded on the Parthenon statue. Taking Furtwangler's scheme altogether, the reply of Dr Murray that the whole right hand Fig, 122. — E. Pediment : Other Two Fates. group of spectators might reasonably be taken " as nymphs or such like on the coasts of Attica " is not convincing. The strength of Furtwangler's interpretation is that the sculptures do not according to it represent the strife of Athena and Poseidon as a mere episode, with spectators accidentally drawn together, but it is the story of the Acropolis itself, of the Fathers of the people and of the covenant Athena made with them, the token of which was the sacred olive tree. " Phidias gave form to that which was in the heart of every Athenian." The subject which filled the eastern pediment, the birth of Athena, has been more irrecoverably destroyed in regard to the central statues than that of the western pediment, although the most perfect of all the remaining figures come from the angles