These sculptures, of the era of Phidias, decorated the outside of the Parthenon, and consisted in bas-reliefs, in bold reliefs with half figures, and in full round figures of colossal dimensions, all unsurpassed master-pieces of the Athenian chisel.

The principal entrance of the temple being at the Eastern front, the ornamental groups of full, round colossal figures in the Eastern pediment represented the birth of Minerva, while that on the West contained the famous contest between Minerva and Neptune about the possession of Attica. A highly poetical and fanciful conception, characterizing the Athenian people and the age of Perikles, was embodied in each of these masterly groups, which may be considered as figurative types of the religion and traditions of Attica.

The Eastern pediment was consecrated entirely to religion, representing the assembly of the great Olympian Gods, receiving the Goddess of Wisdom;-the Western, on the contrary, was dedicated to the local traditions of Attica, with its. local divinities, the river-gods of Ilissos and Kephissos, the founder Kekrops and the Attic heroes, all assisting in the decision of the great contest and the victory of Minerva.

On the East we have Jupiter, the father of gods and men in all his majesty, seated upon his throne as in the centre of the world, between day and night, the beginning and the end, as denoted by the rising and the setting sun. He was surrounded by the Genethlic divinities or those who preside over birth, assisting the father of the universe in producing the di

"exists in Rome; but in Athens, the temple of the Olympian Jove, and another temple with eight columns in front, are both Hypathral."

This very indefinite description made the celebrated French author, Quatremere de Quincy, and other architects, suppose that Vitruvius hinted at the Parthenon, this being the only existing temple in Athens with eight columns in front, and they accordingly constructed it with a Hypothron or a large opening in the middle of the roof. But Prof. Lewis Ross of Halle has lately published an interesting treatise with the somewhat presuming title ". Away with all Hypethral Temples!"-in which he attempts to prove that no such openroofed temples ever existed, that Vitruvius only mentioned the roofless, and at that time still unfinished Olympeion and other open, roofless sanctuaries ;. and lastly that this temple with eight columns at Athens, was not the Parthenon on the Akropolis,-but another unfinished temple of Apollo, a ruin from the times of Persistratus. Though the assertion of the learned antiquarian is bold, yet many weighty reasons speak in favor of his hypothesis and the general opinion of the architects in Athens, at present, is, that the Parthenon was completely covered with a marble roof and that the Eastern Cell or Virgin Hall re-ceived its light only from portals of the pronaos.

vine Athene, who, rising above the god in all the splendor of her golden armor, filled with her crested helmet the apex of the pediment. Ares, (Mars) the companion of the warlike goddess, and other deities, followed next.

On the right of Jupiter the Horo or Seasons, Eunomia, Dike and Eirene; on the left the Moiro or Fates, Klotho Lachesis and Atropos, thus poetically denoting the rise and progress of life and its decline and consummation.

On the western pediment Athene and Poseidon, (Neptune,) are placed in the centre; the latter was represented as having struck the earth with his trident from which a stream of water is issuing, while the olive tree, the creation and gift of Athene, occupied the space between the contending deities and rose with its branches to the apex of the pediment. The chariot with four beautiful, prancing steeds followed the goddess and was guided by the wingless Victory accompanied by the youthful hero Erichthonios, the leader of the horses. The flanks of the tympanon were then fitted out with the sitting or reclining figures of Kekrops, his wife Aglauros and their daughters. Herse, Aglauros, and Pandrosos; the divinities of the sea-Thalassa—and the calm-Galene, the river gods Ilissos Kephissos and the beautiful fountain-nymph Kallirrho.

The BAS-RELIEFS formed the frieze running along the wall of the cell, on the outside, throughout the entire building for a length of five hundred and twenty feet. It represented the splendid procession of the Athenian citizens, called the Panathenaic Pomp, which, at the term of every fourth year, marched with extraordinary splendor and pageantry toward the temple, to offer sacrifices to the goddess, and to present her with the sacred veil, the rich purple peplos, which was suspended before her statue.

Nearly all the marble slabs of the frieze have either been destroyed or broken away by Lord Elgin, and carried to the British Museum in London; only the western front is still in partial preservation and can be enjoyed at its proper place in the soft and mellow light of an Attic sky.

During the excavations, twelve or fourteen other slabs of the frieze, more or less damaged, were dug out of the rubbish,

and so great was the excitement in the city, that King Otho, the court, the ambassadors, and all the foreign artists and amateurs, hurried to the Akropolis to behold and admire those precious relics. Only the Greeks themselves remained busy in their bazars, caring more for their barter and dollars, than for the glory of their forefathers.

For centuries this frieze of the Parthenon was considered as inimitable for perfection and beauty. Canova, the great Italian, gave up the contest, but Albert Thorwalsden, the Dane, afterwards proved to the world, by his magnificent frieze, representing the triumphal entry of Alexander the Great into Babylon, after the battle of Arbela, that modern artists are again fully equal to the ancients in the arrangement, taste, and execution of bas-reliefs.

Still more interesting are the half figures, in BOLD RELIEF, or alto relievo, adorning the metopes, on the entablature of the peristyle, all around the building. A large number still remain on the temple, but the sculptures have been corroded by the north wind. Twenty-five slabs most beautifully preserved, from the southern colonnade, are now in the British Museum. Others have been discovered since in the rubbish, and are now safe both from Turks and Scots.

The metopes represent combats of Centaurs, Amazons, or Persians, against Athenian heroes. But why these wild pictures of war and strife on the peaceful sanctuary of Pallas Athene? What signify those violent crimes of insolent Centaurs on the temple front of a pure virgin goddess?

The victorious heroes are Theseus and his Athenian companions, fighting against savage monsters; it is the struggle of civilization against barbarity and physical force, the worship of the Divine powers against violence and brutish selfishness.

It is Minerva herself, who has taught mankind moderation, and inspired them with harmony and love. She, the mighty goddess, has sent forth Theseus and his heroes to vanquish the monsters, and to lay the foundation of a higher civilization by general security on sea and land.

She has decided the victory of the spiritual being of man over the lawless force of the savage instincts of Nature, here

on the temple represented by the wanton Centaurs and the cruel Amazons. Thus, then, do these magnificent sculptures proclaim the victory of Pallas Athene and the progressing development of her people.

The eighty colossal figures in the two pediments remained in excellent preservation until the seventeenth century. They were not only the most perfect master-pieces of sculpture the world ever saw, but their construction was so wonderfully solid that even the terrible explosion by gunpowder, during the siege in 1687, did only shake, but not destroy them.

After the surrender of the Castle by the Turks, the Venitian General, Count Morisini, desiring to send the victorious Minerva with her chariot and beautiful steeds to Venice, as a proud memorial of his triumph, ordered his engineers to take down the whole splendid group of the centre. Yet the workmen had hardly laid their unskillful hands on the great cornice, when it suddenly gave way, and the entire group, goddess, chariot, horses and heroes, were precipitated from the immense height on the marble pavement below and dashed to pieces. Several broken heads of men and horses, fragments of the olivetree, and a magnificent bust of Mars, the war-god, together with heaps of sculptured splinters-all excavated on the spot, are now the only melancholy remains which still excite our admiration in the vast depositories of the Akropolis.

Most of the reclining figures in the flanks of the pediments remained in their places until they were carried off in 1802 by the Scottish robber, Lord Elgin-and at this moment, only old Kekrops and his wife are still sitting in the western pediment, looking down upon the revolutions of twenty-three centuries.

The late lamented French Archæologian, Mons. de Letronne, and the celebrated traveler Alphonse Laborde, some years ago announced triumphantly that they had discovered two other beautiful colossal heads, those of the Victory and of Erichthonios, guiding the steeds of Athene; the one in the dark vaults of the Royal Library in Paris, and the other in the store of a merchant in Venice-both now form the most precious sculptures in the immense Museum of the Louvre.

The colossal ivory statue of Minerva was represented in a standing posture in complete armor, with a golden sphinx adorning the crest of her helmet. In the left hand she held the goddess of Victory; in the right the lance. Her height was sixty feet, and her crest must have touched the ceiling of the temple. She wore a golden robe hanging down in deep folds to her feet, for the composition of which Phidias employed the immense sum of forty gold talents, or $600,000, from the public treas

ury.

The haughty bearing and the vanity of the matchless artist excited the envy and anger of the fickle Athenian people. Perikles, in vain attempted to defend his friend. Phidias fled from Athens, and took a noble revenge by producing the still more magnificent statue of the Olympian Jove in Elis.

What a wonderful era of genius and art, enjoyed and appreciated by a whole nation, the most civilized of classical antiquity!

But not only was the statue of Minerva so richly ornamented; the same precious metal was profusely employed in the decorations of the sculptures and the glittering shields, which adorned the fazades of the temple. Their relief was set off by the most brilliant colors. Here on the Parthenon, the whole tympanum of the pediments and the ground of the metopes. were painted in purple. The triglyphs and the frieze were of a brilliant azure blue, and the peristyle and both the eastern and the western porticoes were richly painted with elegant and fanciful decorations.

At the excavations along the foundations of the temple an endless variety of painted figures in terra cotta, fragments of columns, capitals, and nearly every smaller member of architecture, were discovered, which still retained their original colors, blue, red, deep purple, the brightest ultra marine and a beautiful sea green.

These colors are all metallic, and were applied to the marble by means of a thin coating of wax. This encaustic painting, burnt on the marble by fire, was used by the ancients, in order to give gloss and brilliancy to their decorations, and to preserve them from injury by the air or by moisture.