Page:Greek Buildings Represented by Fragments in the British Museum (1908).djvu/160

 144 THE PARTHENON AND ITS SCULPTURES. says she held it in her left hand, which also supported the shield. The gem in question seems to me to be only a copy of a coin of Athens, where the spear is given this position for sake of clear definition. From the British Museum relief, which might with advantage be brought into the circle of Phidian material in the Parthenon room, and several others of the same class in which the goddess is shown conferring a wreath on some person, we may infer that the Victory-bearing Athena was conceived of as Giver of Victory to the Athenians. On the Berlin relief it is the Victory she holds which crowns a man.* The glowing gold of the garments and of her hair, which were doubtless of wrought goldsmith's work in tresses, the tinted ivory of her flesh, and her jewelled eyes, must not be thought as merely costly and splendid, they were that, but the gold had radiance, the ivory was flesh-like, the eyes actually flashed. Furtwangler, by an almost clairvoyant exercise of critical insight, sought in his " Masterpieces of Greek Sculpture " to- gather out from later copies those which derived from originals by Phidias. One of these, a figure at Dresden, he identified with the Lemnian Athena, a much-praised early work of the master's, which also occupied a place on the Acropolis. His reconstruction of the Lemnia is now widely accepted, although some writers are still unsatisfied, and one of the latest — Pottier — urges that the type of head is unlike any known work by Phidias. A close examination, however, of the seated Athena of the east frieze, has convinced me that in the design of the head and bust, and in general " feeling," this figure might be called a translation into relief of the statue which, Furtwangler claims, represents the Lemnian Athena. He remarks of the statue that it typified the Athena of Peace as a slim, young girl, almost boyish. The striking characteristics of the head were, the absence of the helmet, and "the short hair combed up at the back . . . wavy and curly, and tied with a fillet." This describes the head on the frieze perfectly, the outline of which, although the surface is badly injured, can be surely traced. specifically called that was built on the Acropolis is puzzling. Was it a_ symbol of the reaction ?
 * The Parthenon was the true Temple of Victory, and why another