period.

Transporting ourselves now from the eastern to the western
confines of Greek civilization, we may take a look at a sculptured
metope from Selinus in Sicily (Fig. 84). That city was founded,
according to our best ancient authority, about the year 629 B.C.,
and the temple from which our metope is taken is certainly one of
the oldest, if not the oldest, of the many temples of the place.
The material of the metope, as of the whole temple, is a local
poros, and the work is executed in high relief. The subject is
Perseus cutting off the head of Medusa. The Gorgon is trying to
run away--the position given to her legs is used in early Greek
sculpture and vase-painting to signify rapid motion--but is
overtaken by her pursuer. From the blood of Medusa sprang,
according to the legend, the winged horse, Pegasus; and the
artist, wishing to tell as much of the story as possible, has
introduced Pegasus into his composition, but has been forced to
reduce him to miniature size. The goddess Athena, the protectress
of Perseus, occupies what remains of the field. There is no need
of dwelling in words on the ugliness of this relief, an ugliness
only in part accounted for by the subject. The student should note
that the body of each of the three figures is seen from the front,
while the legs are in profile. The same distortion occurs in a
second metope of this same temple, representing Heracles carrying
off two prankish dwarfs who had tried to annoy him, and is in fact
common in early Greek work. We have met something similar in
Egyptian reliefs and paintings (cf. page 33), but this method of
representing the human form is so natural to primitive art that we
need not here assume Egyptian influence. The garments of Perseus
and Athena show so much progress in the representation of folds