architecture and sculpture, especially the latter. In the dearth
of accurately dated monuments which might serve as standards of
comparison, great difference of opinion on this point has
prevailed. But we are now somewhat better off, thanks to recent
discoveries at Athens and Delphi, and we shall probably not go far
wrong in assigning the temple with its sculptures to about 480
B.C. Fig. 52 illustrates, though somewhat incorrectly, the
composition of the western pediment. The subject was a combat, in
the presence of Athena, between Greeks and Asiatics, probably on
the plain of Troy. A close parallelism existed between the two
halves of the pediment, each figure, except the goddess and the
fallen warrior at her feet, corresponding to a similar figure on
the opposite side. Athena, protectress of the Greeks, stands in
the center (Fig. 98). She wears two garments, of which the outer
one (the only one seen in the illustration) is a marvel of
formalism. Her aegis covers her breasts and hangs far down behind;
the points of its scalloped edge once bristled with serpents'
heads, and there was a Gorgon's head in the middle of the front.
She has upon her head a helmet with lofty crest, and carries
shield and lance. The men, with the exception of the two archers,
are naked, and their helmets, which are of a form intended to
cover the face, are pushed back. Of course, men did not actually
go into battle in this fashion; but the sculptor did not care for
realism, and he did care for the exhibition of the body. He
belonged to a school which had made an especially careful study of
anatomy, and his work shows a great improvement in this respect
over anything we have yet had the opportunity to consider. Still,
the men are decidedly lean in appearance and their angular
attitudes are a little suggestive of prepared skeletons. They have
oblique and prominent eyes, and, whether fighting or dying, they