Page:The Dramas of Aeschylus (Swanwick).djvu/66

lvi by the sculptor to the manifestation of Divine Wisdom in the person of the Virgin Goddess; while in the grand composition of the western pediment, which set forth the contention of Poseidon and Athena for supremacy over the country of Attica, we trace, as in the Eumenides, the association of interests purely local and national with truths of higher significance. Thus the contending divinities have been regarded as typifying the antagonism between agricultural and maritime pursuits, which formed one main feature of Athenian life; and also as reflecting the conflicting powers of land and sea, as exhibited in the topography of the interior and the coast. I doubt not, however, that there rose also before the mental vision of Phidias the grand old allegory of the battle between the Titans and the Gods, which may be regarded as the mythical expression of that eternal struggle between the lower and higher elements of being, of which the drama of the Eumenides affords so impressive and magnificent a symbol: this hypothesis appears the more plausible when we consider the intimate mythological connection which obtained between Poseidon and Demeter-Erinys.

Another most interesting illustration of the intimate association which, in classical times, existed between Poetry and her sister arts is to be found in the paintings of Polygnotus in the Lesche at Delphi, of which