578
ARCHAEOLOGY
and ending at the barbarian invasions of the 4th century a.d. Notable among the 6th-century stone-sculpture of Olympia are the pediment of the treasury of the people of Megara, in which is represented a battle of gods and giants, and a huge rude head of Hera (Fig. 22), which seems to be part of the image worshipped in the Herseum. Its flatness and want of style are noteworthy. Among the temples of Greece proper the Heraeum of Olympia stands almost alone for antiquity and interest, its chief rival, besides the temples of Athens, being the other temple of Hera at Argos. It appears to have been originally constructed of wood, for which stone was by slow degrees, part by part, sub^ • stituted. In the time ni of Pausamas one of the pillars was still of oak, and at the present day the varying diameter of the columns and other structural irregularities bear witness to the process of constant renewal which must have taken place. The early small bronzes of Olympia form an important series, figures of deities standing or striding, warriors in their armour, athletes with exaggerated muscles, and women draped in the Ionian fashion, which did not become unpopular in Greece until after the Persian wars. Excavations at Sparta have not produced any sculptures admirable in an artistic way; but they have revealed interesting monuments belonging to the worship of ancestors, which seems in the conservative Dorian states of Greece to have been more strongly developed than elsewhere. On some of these stones, which doubtless belonged to the family cults of Sparta, we see the ancestor seated holding a wine-cup, accompanied by his faithful horse or dog; on some we see the ancestor and ancestress seated side by side (Fig. 23), ready to receive the gifts of their descendants, who appear in the corner of the relief on a much smaller scale. The male figure holds a wine-cup, in allusion to the libations of wine made Fig. 23.—Spartan tombstone : Berlin. tomb. The female figure holds her veil and the pomegranate, the recognized food of the dead. A huge serpent stands erect behind the pair. The style of these sculptures is as striking as the subjects; we see lean rigid forms with severe outline carved in a very low relief, the surface of which is not rounded but flat. The name of Selinus in Sicily, an early Megarian colony, has long been associated with some of
(CLASSICAL) the most curious of early sculptures, the metopes of ancient temples, representing the exploits of Hercules and of Perseus. Even more archaic metopes have in recent years been brought to light, one representing a seated sphinx, one the journey of Europa over the sea on the back of the amorous bull (Fig. 24), a pair of dolphins swimming beside her. In simplicity and in rudeness of work these reliefs remind us of the limestone pediments of Athens (Fig. 18), but yet they are of another and a severer style ; the Ionian laxity is wanting. When the results of the recent French excavations at Delphi are published, there is no doubt that we shall be able to add a new and important chapter to the DeIphi history of 6th-century art. Of three treasurehouses, those of Sicyon, Cnidus, and Athens, the sculptural adornments have been in great part recovered. These sculptures form a series almost covering the century 570470 b.c., and include representations of some myths of which we have hitherto had no example. Although the results of the excavations at Delphi are not yet published, we say here a few words as to the sculpture which has been discovered, leaving to the article Delphi an account of the topography and the buildings of the sacred site. Of the
Fig. 24.—Metope ; Europa on Bull: Palermo. archaic temple of Apollo, built as Herodotus tells us by the Alcmmonidie of Athens, the only sculptural remains which have come down to us are some fragments of the pedimental figures. Of the treasuries which contained the offerings of the pious at Delphi, the most archaic of which there are remains is that belonging to the people of Sicyon. To it appertain a set of exceedingly primitive metopes. One represents Idas and the Dioscuri driving off cattle ■ another, the ship Argo ; another, Europa on the bull; others merely animals, a ram or a boar. The treasury of the people of Cnidus (or perhaps Siphnos) is in style some half a century later. To it belongs a long frieze representing a variety of curious subjects: a battle, perhaps between Greeks and Trojans, with gods and goddesses looking on; a gigantomachy in which the figures of Poseidon, Athena, Hera, Apollo, Artemis, and Cybele can be made out, with their opponents, who are armed like Greek hoplites ) Athena and Hercules in a chariot; the carrying off of the daughters of Leucippus by Castor and Pollux; Aeolus holding the winds in sacks. The Cnidian treasury was restored in the French Exposition of 1900. The cornice of the front was supported by two archaic figures of Caryatids; a sphinx and two running Victories stand on the top of the pediment as acroteria, while within the pediment is represented the struggle between Apollo and Hercules for the possession of
