are added; but this is as it should be, for as Erechtheus is entreated by Aglauros to give his consent to the marriage and sanction the carrying off of Oreithyia, and as the whole scene is the representation of a marriage, the mother could not have been wanting. An illegible name is here added to the mother, though it is not Aglauros, as Apollodorus also calls her. And further, could the mother of the dewy goddesses have been represented here, as displaying her charms, and Cecrops as affectionately embracing her, (a fact which cannot be denied,) at the moment when they were threatened with an inundation? It is stated that "every figure on this side of the pediment is in action,-in such an attitude as to imply that a moment before it was not in the same, and that it is again on the point of alteration, in obedience to a lively impulse," to the sight of the contest between Poseidon and Athena, the shouts and the impetuosity of the approaching sea-god, and the interest and admiration of the resistance of the goddess to the threatening incursion of Poseidon, i. e. of the salt-water into the country. In like manner the two figures in question. In regard to this point, I can only say that the new expositor, in his lengthy description of these two figures (p. 430-435,) as well as in that of Poseidon and Athena, sees that which he imagines, just like a person who, gazing at the clouds, gradually begins to see all kinds of figures. He, on the other hand, who desires to see that which a drawing really exhibits, cannot fail to see that the female charioteer is occupied with the horses, Demeter as well as Persephone with Iacchus, and the affectionate couple with themselves, without there being any necessity for asserting that they are wholly inattentive to the contest.

While, after these considerations, we cannot help expressing our firm conviction that this conjugal couple cannot be regarded as Cecrops and his wife, the new expositor (p. 428,) congratulates himself on the nature of the evidence by which he can

4 P. 430. "Cecrops is animated by the same feelings (interest and admiration,) which he expresses with very similar movement and gesture (looking like the river by his side, towards the scene of the contest,) only varied by his turning round from a sitting and almost erect attitude, while Cephisus raises himself from one of reclining." "The easy turn and flowing lines of Cecrops contrast

with the angularity of the associated figure; and while the attention of both is turned towards the contending divinities, in admiration of the interposing goddess rather than alarm at her opponent, the Attic king appears more selfpossessed, and on the principle that 'doublet and hose should show themselves courageous to petticoat,' to encourage her to reliance."

support his own opinion, adopted in the first instance on purely analytical grounds. From an examination of the plaster casts (now in the British Museum,) of the groups, and a comparison of the fragment, which in my opinion belongs to one of the hippocampæ of Amphitrite, he believes that he has established the fact, that this fragment belongs to the group, and forms part of Cecrops with serpent legs. I am not in a position decidedly to contradict this assertion, as I have not seen the fragment by the side of the statue, which is absolutely necessary before any one can come to a final settlement of the question. During my stay in London, the plaster cast did not yet exist; and the fact of my having examined the original in its place in the pediment of the Parthenon itself, and not having observed any gap which might be filled up by a serpent, is in my mind not sufficient to justify my denying the discovery. But I may express my decided doubt of the correctness of this observation, which is highly surprising, not only for the general reasons already adduced, but also in itself, and for particular reasons. Cecrops is described by Euripides (Ion. 1163,) from an embroidery, as serpent-legged: Kézροπα θυγατέρων πέλας σπείραισιν εἱλίσσοντα; in like manner he is, according to Aristophanes (Vesp. 438,) τà ñpòs пodãν dрaxovtion; and so also in Demosthenes (II. p. 1398, ed. Reiske,) and others. Hence he is also called puns (Diod. 1. 28), díμoppos, prevý (Lycoph. Cass. III.) and geminus (Ovid, Metam. 11. 555.) He would accordingly be a figure like the so-called Attic hero, who is still in his place at Athens, and in a kneeling attitude raises up the two serpents, from the human knee downwards, high behind his back, and who may perhaps be called a Cecrops. The bicorpores gigantes, the fantastic figures of an Etruscan tomb (Mon. del Inst. Archeol. t. III. tav. 3, 4,) also show serpents instead of legs, but two serpent terminations. As these cannot be introduced in our pediment, the progressive analysis of Mr. Lloyd takes the liberty of considering a Nereus, who, from the middle of his body downwards, terminates in the body of a fish, as is unmistakeably indicated by certain incisions at the end," to be an Erechtheus opaxovτónou (we only know Erichthonius as a son of Earth, with two serpent legs,) and then to apply to Cecrops the one serpent united with

the upper part of a human body, a thing foreign to Greek sculpture, (perhaps excepting Echidna,) it being farther said that the олеiρа in the Ion of Euripides must not necessarily mean two serpent legs, (τà лрòç modшv.) And how so? Cecrops, who is visible even below his two knees, and consequently cannot have terminated in only one serpent, is made to sit on the serpent, he is actually seated upon the serpent. I must copy the assertion word for word," That Pheidias represented the male figure as seated, or resting on a huge Chthonian serpent, the appropriate symbol of the Autochthon or evýc. The form of the marble (as represented in the cast) at the back of the group, and under the hand of the male figure, first attracted my attention; on close examination, it appeared to correspond in character of surface and outline, with fragment engraved for Welcker's Essay, and regarded by him as part of a hippocamp; and the next step was obvious, to restore this to its original position, by placing it in front of the group, between the two figures, where the traces remain of an original joining of the block; this I was enabled to do by the kindness of Mr. Birch, the equally obliging and learned keeper of the antiquities of the Museum, and the application of the surfaces exhibited such exact correspondences of outline and dimension, as to satisfy me that I had effected a genuine restoration. The marble was joined in another place close behind the hand on which Cecrops leans, and there can be little doubt, by a continuation of the smaller coil of the animal, and its termination in a head, which apparently passed between the arm and body of the figure, and was attached to this side, so as to be visible from the front." This, then, is said to furnish a proof how Phidias abandoned the coarse types of archaic art, but while he avoided the monstrous combination, he still guarded himself against relinquishing entirely the symbolism of the serpent, but translated it into the style and spirit of his art. But we nowhere find that the animal belonging to a human form is detached from it, and placed beside the dæmon, it only subsides; a bull, for example, subsides into small horns, a fish into scales and fins, and so on.

If this new composition of the serpent-like fragment, with that of a god embracing a charming woman, as I believe with the greatest certainty, is more monstrous than the ancient symbolic combination, and contains an error almost as monstrous as that of distorting the mythus itself, and forcing the figures

into the so distorted mythus, I should, even if ocular inspection should convince me of the truth of a serpent-Cecrops with his wife, not have to regret or alter any thing in regard to all the rest, but the Attic dæmon might himself not unfitly be added to the Attic divinities, Demeter and Cora, with Iacchus, Ares, and Nice; the serpent, however, on which he is said to be seated, and his affection for his obscure and unimportant wife-so characteristic of Heracles and Hebe-would remain to my mind subjects of great wonder in this Cecrops.

I may pass over the fact, that my antagonist refers Cecrops to the pride of the Athenians as Autochthons, and to the contrast between land and the ravaging sea of "the invader," (p. 435,) as well as the allusions which he sees here and there to the nature of the country, and to its antiquities and history; as for example, to the classes of its population, the inland and maritime or mercantile interest, (p. 413,) all these speculations are opposed to the clear and intelligible spirit of antiquity, and just as misty and barren as the forced observations on the attitudes of the figures, and the directions and relations of their limbs, symmetries, and sympathies down to the smallest detail, are based upon something far beyond that which is justified by the old drawing. In treating of myths, and explaining works of art, Proclus ought by no means to be our guide, unless we want to make every thing out of every thing. His value consists in something very different.

The figures on the side of Poseidon remain for the most part untouched by the new expositor, and in general their names already established are retained. The goddess who stands nearest to Poseidon, and is accidentally passed over in my former essay, is called Thalassa, (p. 424,) then follow Amphitrite, drawn by hippocampæ, Ino with Melicertes, the author observing, that the naked boy-distinctly recognizable as a boy-is partly enveloped by the drapery of his mother, (p. 422,) Aphrodite on the knees of Dione, as in the Iliad, (v. 370,) to whose figure a fragment is assigned, (p. 421,) and Tethys. The two last figures are taken to be Ilissus and Callirrhoë. There is nothing to prevent our regarding the river in the opposite corner, which is commonly called Ilissus, as a Cephisus, in support of which it might perhaps be alleged, that the latter or larger river actually flows through the long olive grove of Athena, and is therefore fit to be placed on her side, whereas Ilissus has re

ference only to the sanctuary of the mystic goddesses. Moreover, as the Cephisus in the other corner would correspond with Callirrhoë, in regard to whom, such great changes having taken place, it will be useful to recall to mind the passage of the Thebais, (XII. 629),—

Et quos (populos) Callirhoe novies errantibus undis

Implicat

it is not improbable that, besides these two, a third, an Attic river-god, should be added to the divinities of water, and, according to Himerius, (Ecl. 1. 11,) Ilissus was married to his neighbour Callirrhoë. It must however be observed that the sitting attitude of the figure, in which my opponent is surely wrong in seeking an agreement with the literal signification of Ilissus, (p. 427,) and the position of its two arms, are by no means favourable to this supposition.

The head which has lately been removed from Venice to Paris, is assigned to Amphitrite, and to the same figure is referred a large fragment of a left thigh, (p. 416). The author also directs his attention to the nine or ten human faces which, in Carrey's drawing, appear below the feet of the horses, piled one upon the other; and he believes that "they represent the Athenian subjects of Cecrops, whose (if ten, perhaps alluding to the ten phylæ,) suffrages he was said to have collected to decide the claims of the divinities, and who now, like himself, await with interest, or witness with admiration, the climax of the dispute." This point is minutely discussed, (p. 437-439,) and the author thinks it more likely that these faces were introduced by Phidias himself, than that they should have been drawn by Carrey, through his confounding them with something else. "From the manner," he says, "in which the question has hitherto been passed over, I am aware that such an avowal of opinion is rash to the verge of the chivalrous, but I have confidence in my result, and let those who love me follow me." This trifling circumstance is important, because it shows most clearly how this "analysis" considers every thing which it can spin out of itself, as undoubted, as possible, and as good enough for the genius even of a Phidias. These faces, it is true, have given rise to many more very unfortunate conjectures, which may be seen collected in Creuzer's Schriften zur Archæologie, vol. II. p. 499, &c.; but even Visconti (Journal des Savans, 1817, p. 29,) declared them to be an accumulation of fragments; and it is too obvious