had tried to put into his representations of men; and in that
sense this Athene is, after all, only a woman;--but one in whom
the Soul is quite manifest. I have never been able to trace this
statue since; and my recollections are rather hazy. But it
stands, for me, holding up a torch in the inner recesses of
history. It was the time when Pythagoras was teaching; it was
that momentous time when (as hardly since) the doors of the
Spiritual were flung open, and the impulse of the six Great
Teachers was let loose on the world. Hithertoo Greek carvers had
been making images of the Gods, symbolic indeed--with wings,
thunderbolts and other appurtenances;--but trivially symbolic;
mere imitation of the symbolism, without the dignity or religious
feeling, of the Egyptians and Babylonians; as if their gods and
worship had been mere conventions, about which they had felt
nothing deep;--now, upon this urge from the God-world, a sense of
the grandeur of the within comes on them; they seek a means of
expressing it: throw off the old conventions; will carve the
Gods as men; do so, their aspiration leading them on to perfect
mastery: for a moment achieve Egyptian sublimity; but--have
personalized the Gods; and dear knows what that may lead
to presently.

The came Pheidias, born about 496. Nothing of his work remains
for us; the Elgin Marbles themselves, from the Parthenon, are
pretty certainly only the work of his pupils. But there are two
things that tell us something about his standing: (1) all
antiquity bears witness to the prevailing quality of his
conceptions; their sublimity. (2) He was thrown into prison on a
charge of impiety, and died there, in 442.