Fig. 17.—Heracles and the Cecrops.
The various designs upon these marbles seem to have no connection with each other, and are executed in a rude manner. The most interesting one represents Heracles, or Hercules, struggling with a Triton (Fig. 16).
The female figures represent Nereids, who are terrified by seeing Heracles in contest with the sea-monster. There are many proofs that these reliefs belong to a very ancient day.
An interesting relief from the temple of Selinus represents Heracles striding off with a pole across his shoulders, to which are hung two Cecrops who had robbed and tormented him (Fig. 17).
A very fine work is also from Selinus, and represents Actæon torn by his dogs. The mythological story was that Zeus, or Jupiter, was angry with Actæon because he wished to marry Semele, and the great god commanded Artemis, or Diana, to throw a stag's skin over Actæon, so that his own dogs would tear him. In the relief Artemis stands at the left (Fig. 18).
Fig. 18.—Actæon and his Dogs.
There is in the British Museum a monument which was discovered at Xanthos in 1838. It is thought to have been made about 500 B.C., and is called "The Harpy Monument," It is a tower, round the four sides of which runs a frieze at a height of about twenty-one feet from the ground. The frieze is of white marble, and is let into the frieze which is of sandstone. The Lycians, in whose country it was found, were accustomed to bury their dead at the top of such towers.
There is very great difference of opinion among scholars and critics concerning the meaning of the various scenes in these sculptures; and as all their writing is speculation, and no one knows the truth about it, I shall only say that it is a very interesting object in the history of art, and shall speak of the four corner figures on the shortest parts of the frieze, from which the whole work takes its name. The Harpies are very curious; they had wings, and arms like human arms, with claws for hands, and feathered tails. Their bodies are egg-shaped, which is a very strange feature in their formation. We cannot explain all these different things, but there is little doubt that, with the little forms which they have in their arms, they represent the messengers of death bearing away the souls of the deceased. In the Odyssey, Homer represents the Harpies as carrying off the daughters of King Pandareus and giving them to the cruel Erinnyes for servants. For this reason the Harpies were considered as robbers, and whenever a person suddenly disappeared it was said that they had been carried off by Harpies (Fig. 19).
