and toclmiqup requisite for the free exposition
of the sculptor's ideal.
To the opening of the marlile qunrries of Xaxos and Pares we owe niueh. 'J'he marlilc thence ob- tained is a wonderfully lit material, easily worked, and in its very hue imitating human Mesh. Tlic earlier material had been wood or coarse limestone, the so-called "poros," which could not be given fine carving, and needed to be jjainted in order to show details. The early mar- ble statues show that the technique of wood-carv- ing, easily available for the softer "poros," was at first used for the new and harder material, ' and at all times color was largely employed in (ireek sculpture.
Of inestiniablc value for the study of the sculptures of this period are the archaic statues ! discovered on the Acropolis of Athens, which cer- tainly antedate (how much we cannot say) the Persian invasion of u.c. 480. The tyranny of Pi- sistratus in the Sixth Century certainly formed an epoch in the artistic as well as literary life of _ Athens, only to be paralleled by the Periclean Age. Material and style show that we have to do with various schools, partly the marble scul])(ors from the islands, partly the native Attic artists, developing along the lines of the heavier "poros" style, but largely influenced by the more delicate and elaborate Ionian developments. For an account of the painted decoration of some of the female statues, cf. an illustrated article by Russell Sturgis, in Harper's .l/ajro^ine for Sep- tember, 1890.
But the development of the period was not confined to Attica alone, nor merely to sculpture in the round. The pedimental groups of the gigantonuiehy from the Megarian treasure-house at Olynipia, and of "Heracles and the Hydra" from the Acropolis of Athens, wrought in high relief from 'poros,' a sort of tufa, and, like all such work, stuccoed and painted, are also of special note, together with the early metopes of Selinus in Sicily; while the elaborate grave- steloe of the "Warrior of Marathon" type (Stele of Aristion), with complete and minute poly- chrome decoration supplementing the details of the bas-relief, are the forerunners of the exqui- site monuments of the Ceramicus to be mentioned hereafter. To this period also belong the pedi- ment sculptures of .-Egina ( see ^Eginetan Sculp- TUBE.S) and the reliefs from the treasuries of Cnidus and Athens at Delphi.
Figures like the winged Victory of Archermus, and the sphin.x, if not also the lion, show the inlluence of the East, particularly of the Asiatic Orient, in the sculpture of this epoch. But we feel, in contemplating the Acropolis statues, that we are on Greek ground, and that the artists are rapidly bringing in a nobler native art. We have hardly entered upon the list of these important monuments: but it nuist suffice for this place to have indicated to some degree their relations, and we now pass to the mention of the kindred class of bronze works.
Together with the rude terra-cotta dedicatory figurines of early workmanship, we find also many small bronzes, which exhibit a gradual development from the rvule and primitive to the delicate and refined. An elaborate aiul truly rcnuirkal)!c technique, however, is manifested in such consununate works of archaic Greek art as the bearded bronze head found on the .Acropolis, or the similar head of Zeus from Olynipia. The art of hollow easting in bronze, long known in Egj'pt, seems to have been brought to Greece by Samian artists, and by the end of the Sixth Cen- tury was adopted for larger works. .-Egina early attained fame for its artists in bronze, of whom (Jnatas was the chief, and the inlluence of this technique, with its sharp lines and fine engrav- ing, is plainly seen in the marble .sculptures of the -Eginetan temple. The new art came to be regarded as more noble than the cutting of marble, and was especially cultivated in the .rgive and Sicyonian schools.
To the period under discussion belongs another develo])ment in metal- work, namely, the minting of coins. The earliest coins, properly so called, seem to date from about the beginning of the Seventh Century B.C., and to have been struck by the Lydian monarchs (possibly first by Gyges). Their material is electrum, or "w'hite gold," a native alloy of gold and silver, in about the proportion of three to one. Phidon of Argos, a tyrant of uncertain date, but not earlier than the Seventh Century, is said to have been the first to issue coins among the Greeks, ,Egina being the seat of their mintage, and the name "tortoises" being bestowed upon them from the figure on the obverse, the reverse (which was the side struck by the upper die in minting) having upon it the familiar "incuse-square," or punch-nuirk so prevalent in archaic coinage. In Greece Proper, sprang up, subsequent to the .Eginetan, a coinage at Corinth, the so-called "colts," from the Pegasus on the obverse, and at Athens the so-called "maidens," or "virgins," from the Athena-head of the obverse, or "owls" from the type of the reverse. We see in all these tj'pes a sacred symbolism, which continues un- broken in coinage till the Macedonian Period. The greatest Greek cities in this early period were the Acha'an colonies of Magna Grfecia, fore- most among which was Sybaris, afterward over- thrown by her great rival Croton. The coinage of the Aeluean Confederacy, which seems to have existed in this region, is far superior in artistic workmanship to that of Eastern Hellas, and is distinguished by having, instead of an incuse- square on the reverse, an incuse type, generally the same as that of the obverse (Poseidon, bull, boar, etc. ) .
Sicilian coinage, notably that of Syracuse, which in the Fifth and Fourth centuries reached • so high an artistic position, also began in the Sixtli Century.
All the coinage here mentioned, except the Lydian, is of silver. For a full discussion of ancient coins, with exhaustive bibliography, con- sult Head's Historia Xumorum (Oxford, 1887) : also particularly Percy Gardner's admirable Ti/pes of Greek Coins (Cambridge, 1883). The period here outlined corresponds to Head's ar- chaic period, B.C. 700 - 480. • See also NuMis- JIATICS.
The minting of money became gradually dif- fused through the Greek world, so that there was hardly a town of any consequence without a coinage, some towns being known to us only from their coins.
Intimately connected with die-cutting is gem- engraving, for the details of which see the work of Middleton. The Eiu/raved Gems of Classical Times (Cambridge, 1891).
IV. PEKion OF Hellenic Prime. The period which we now enter upon is naturally subdivided
