uted to Polygnotus and his scholars, at this time working in Athens; but it is not likely that we should find this influence in a work of sculpture earlier than the Parthenon: had sculptors of such skill as is shown in this frieze already existed in Athens, it is hardly conceivable that such men as made the metopes, for example, of the Parthenon and the Theseum should still have been employed on the chief buildings. Though their originality and vigour are, perhaps, greater than we find in the sculptors of the Nike frieze, their employment instead of those sculptors would have been an archaistic anachronism such as the Athenians of Pericles' time would not have tolerated.

Another well-known series of sculptures that is associated with the temple of Athena Nike is the frieze ornamenting the balustrade or parapet that was placed around the bastion or precinct on which the temple stood. This precinct was of an irregular shape; the balustrade began beside the little staircase leading up from the space before the Propylæa, and extended along the north, west, and south sides of the bastion, where traces of its fixing can still be seen; its slabs have been. removed to the Acropolis Museum. The reliefs which decorated it were placed upon the outside, so that some of them were only visible at some considerable distance from below. The slabs of relief are about one metre in height; they were surmounted by a bronze railing of which the traces are still visible on the slabs. The subject of the frieze is a series of acts of worship performed in

honour of Athena - who is present on each side - by a number of winged Victories; some lead a cow to sacrifice, others deck trophies or bring the spoils of the vanquished. But the theme is used by the sculptor as an opportunity for the display of a number of beautiful female figures,

in varied and graceful action, their forms set off by drapery that clings, as if wet and transparent, to their body and limbs, or is swept by their motion into richly curving folds. It is impossible not to admire the skill of the artist and the beauty of the effect which he has attained; but the mere fact that he has aimed at such

an effect contrasts with the directness and simplicity of work that mark the sculptures of the Phidian age. It seems as if the Attic sculptors, left to their own devices, were again affect

ing a delicate treatment of drapery analogous to the

mannerism that we noticed in their

work before the robuster influences that came in with the Persian Wars. We have only to compare the two Victories leading a cow to sacrifice with the slab in the Parthenon frieze representing an almost identical subject, to feel what a great gulf is fixed between the two.

SLAB FROM BALUSTRADE OF TEMPLE OF NIKE.
Victory binding her sandal.

Yet the sculpture of the balustrade is admirable in its kind, and it would be unfair to attribute to it the rather frigid mannerisms that mar the delicacy and prettiness of the sculptures of the Nereid Monument at Epidaurus, of the Neo-Attic Reliefs, and of count

less other imitations, ancient and modern, that are ultimately derived from this same frieze of winged Victories. As a work of decorative relief, rich in flowing line and varied waves of drapery and beauty of body and limb that glow "through the veil that seems to hide them," the Nike balustrade holds an unrivalled place; and if, on the one hand, it stands at the head of a series of imitations that are already on the way to decadence, yet, in the purity and dignity of its types, and the absence of confusion or over-elaboration in its detail, it preserves the high traditions of the fifth century.

CHAPTER IX

THE CITY IN THE FIFTH AND FOURTH CENTURIES

In comparison with the fairly complete notion which we can obtain of the appearance of the Acropolis in the fifth and fourth centuries, our knowledge of the lower city is very meagre. This is partly, no doubt, because the architectural activity that distinguished the time of Cimon and Pericles was mainly concentrated on the adornment of the sacred citadel; but it is partly also due to the fact that, while the Acropolis has been completely excavated and now stands clear of all later structures, the site of the Agora and many of the more important buildings below lies in the region that has always been occupied; it is indeed still covered by the small houses and streets that survive, even in modern Athens, as a heritage of Turkish times. It is greatly to be regretted, from the archæological point of view, that Ross's bold and far-seeing plan to clear away all these small streets and houses, and to build the new city entirely in the district now occupied by the broad streets of the modern quarters, was never carried out. There would indeed have been some loss of the picturesque effect; but the bazaars and other characteristic features