western pediment, is commonly taken for a river-god.

We possess but the broken remnants of these two pediment-groups,
and the key to the interpretation of much that we do possess is
lost. We cannot then fully appreciate the intention of the great
artist who conceived these works. Yet even in their ruin and their
isolation the pediment-figures of the Parthenon are the sublimest
creations of Greek art that have escaped annihilation.

We have no ancient testimony as to the authorship of the Parthenon
sculptures, beyond the statement of Plutarch, quoted above, that
Phidias was the general superintendent of all artistic works
undertaken during Pericles's administration. If this statement be
true, it still leaves open a wide range of conjecture as to the
nature and extent of his responsibility in this particular case.
Appealing to the sculptures themselves for information, we find
among the metopes such differences of style as exclude the notion
of single authorship. With the frieze and the pediment-groups,
however, the case is different. Each of these three compositions
must, of course, have been designed by one master-artist and
executed by or with the help of subordinate artists or workmen.
Now the pediment-groups, so far as preserved, strongly suggest a
single presiding genius for both, and there is no difficulty in
ascribing the design of the frieze to the same artist. Was it
Phidias? The question has been much agitated of late years, but
the evidence at our disposal does not admit of a decisive answer.
The great argument for Phidias lies in the incomparable merit of
these works; and with the probability that his genius is here in
some degree revealed to us we must needs be content. After all, it
is of much less consequence to be assured of the master's name