representing a victorious Centaur prancing in savage glee over the
body of his prostrate foe, the other showing a Lapith about to
strike a Centaur already wounded in the back, are among the very
best works of Greek sculpture preserved to us.

The Parthenon frieze presents an idealized picture of the
procession which wound its way upward from the market-place to the
Acropolis on the occasion of Athena's chief festival. Fully to
illustrate this extensive and varied composition is out of the
question here. All that is possible is to give three or four
representative pieces and a few comments. Fig. 124 shows the best
preserved piece of the entire frieze. It belongs to a company of
divinities, seated to right and left of the central group of the
east front, and conceived as spectators of the scene. The figure
at the left of the illustration is almost certainly Posidon, and
the others are perhaps Apollo and Artemis. In Fig. 125 three
youths advance with measured step, carrying jars filled with wine,
while a fourth youth stoops to lift his jar; at the extreme right
may be seen part of a flute-player, whose figure was completed on
the next slab. The attitudes and draperies of the three advancing
youths, though similar, are subtly varied. So everywhere monotony
is absent from the frieze. Fig. 126 is taken from the most
animated and crowded part of the design. Here Athenian youths, in
a great variety of dress and undress, dash forward on small,
mettlesome horses. Owing to the principle of isocephaly (cf. page
145), the mounted men are of smaller dimensions than those on
foot, but the difference does not offend the eye. In Fig. 127 we
have, on a somewhat larger scale, the heads of four chariot-horses
instinct with fiery life. Fig. 132 may also be consulted. An
endless variety in attitude and spirit, from the calm of the ever-