his shoulders, the sphere of the heavens being barely suggested at
the top of the relief. Behind him is his companion and
protectress, Athena, once recognizable by a lance in her right
hand. [Footnote: Such at least seems to be the view adopted in the
latest official publication on the subject "Olympia; Die Bildwerke
in Stein und Thon," Pl. LXV.] With her left hand she seeks to ease
a little the hero's heavy load. Before him stands Atlas, holding
out the apples in both hands. The main lines of the composition
are somewhat monotonous, but this is a consequence of the subject,
not of any incapacity of the artist, as the other metopes testify.
The figure of Athena should be compared with that of Sterope in
the eastern pediment. There is a substantial resemblance in the
drapery, even to the arbitrary little fold in the neck; but the
garment here is entirely open on the right side, after the fashion
followed by Spartan maidens, whereas there it is sewed together
from the waist down; there is here no girdle; and the broad, flat
expanse of cloth in front observable there is here narrowed by two
folds falling from the breasts.

Fig. 114 is added as a last example of the severe beauty to be
found in these sculptures. It will be observed that the hair of
this head is not worked out in detail, except at the front. This
summary treatment of the hair is, in fact, more general in the
metopes than in the pediment-figures. The upper eyelid does not
yet overlap the under eyelid at the outer corner (cf. Fig. 110).

The two pediment-groups and the metopes of this temple show such
close resemblances of style among themselves that they must all be
regarded as products of a single school of sculpture, if not as
designed by a single man. Pausanias says nothing of the authorship