Another celebrated temple of this period was that of Delphi, which was rebuilt, after its destruction by fire in 548 B.C., at a cost equivalent to more than half a million of dollars. It was in the Doric style, and was faced with Parian marble. About the same time the Temple of Olympian Jove was commenced or restored at Athens by Pisistratus. All the temples mentioned have nearly disappeared. That of Diana, at Ephesus, was burned by Heros'tratus, in order to immortalize his name, on the night that Alexander the Great was born (356 B.C.). It was subsequently rebuilt with greater magnificence, and enriched by the genius of Sco'pas, Praxit'eles, Parrha'sius, Apel'les, and other celebrated sculptors and painters. A few of its columns support the dome of the Church of St. Sophia at Constantinople, two of its pillars are in the great church at Pi'sa, and recent excavations have brought to light portions of its foundation. Other temples, however, erected as far back as the fourth and fifth centuries, have more successfully resisted the ravages of time. Among these are the six, of the Doric order, whose ruins appear at Selinus, in Sicily; while at Pæstum, in Southern Italy, are the celebrated ruins of two temples, which, with the exception of the temple of Corinth, are the most massive examples of Doric architecture extant. "It was in the larger of these two temples," says a visitor, "during the moonlight of a troubled sky, that we experienced the emotions of the awful and sublime, such as impress a testimony, never to be forgotten, of the power of art over the affections."

There, down Salerno's bay,
In deserts far away,
Over whose solitudes
The dread malaria broods,
No labor tills the land—
Only the fierce brigand,
Or shepherd, wan and lean,
O'er the wide plains is seen.
Yet there, a lovely dream,
There Grecian temples gleam,
Whose form and mellowed tone
Rival the Parthenon.
The Sybarite no more
Comes hither to adore,
With perfumed offering,
The ocean god and king.
The deity is fled
Long-since, but, in his stead,
The smiling sea is seen,
The Doric shafts between;
And round the time-worn base
Climb vines of tender grace,
And Pæstum's roses still
The air with fragrance fill.
—CHRISTOPHER P. CRANCH.

V. SCULPTURE.

Like architecture, sculpture, or, more properly speaking, statuary, owed its origin to religion, and was introduced into Greece from Egypt. With the Egyptians the art never advanced beyond the types established at its birth; but the Greeks, led on, as a recent writer well says, "by an intuitive sense of beauty which was with them almost a religious principle, aimed at an ideal perfection, and, by making Nature in her most perfect forms their model, acquired a facility and a power of representing every class of form unattained by any other people, and which have rendered the terms Greek and perfection, with reference to art, almost synonymous." The first specimens of Greek sculpture were rough, unhewn wooden representations of the gods. These were followed, a little later, by wooden images having some resemblance to life, and clothed and decorated with ornaments of various kinds. While this branch of the art long remained in a rude state, sculptured figures on architectural monuments were executed in a superior style as early as the age of Homer.

Long before the period of authentic history, other materials than wood were used in making statues; and as early as 700 B.C. a statue was executed of Zeus, or Jupiter, in bronze. The art of soldering metals is attributed to Glaucus of Chios, about 690 B.C.; while to Rhoe'cus and his son Theodo'rus, of Samos, is ascribed the invention of modeling and casting figures of bronze in a mould. The use of marble, also, for statues, was introduced in the early part of the sixth century by Dipoe'nus and Scyl'lis of Crete, who are the first artists celebrated for works in this material. But, while these improvements were important, they did not necessarily involve any change in style; and it was the removal of the restraints imposed by religion and hereditary cultivation that laid the foundation for the rapid progress of the art and its subsequent perfection. These changes, and the results produced by them, are well summed up in the following extract from THIRLWALL:

"The principal cause of the progress of sculpture was the enlargement which it experienced in the range of its subjects, and the consequent multiplicity of its productions. As long as statues were confined to the interior of the temples, and no more were seen in each sanctuary than the idol of its worship, there was little room and motive for innovation; and, on the other hand, there were strong inducements for adhering to the practice of antiquity. But, insensibly, piety or ostentation began to fill the temples with groups of gods and heroes, strangers to the place, and guests of the power who was properly invoked there. The deep recesses of their pediments were peopled with colossal forms, exhibiting some legendary scene appropriate to the place or the occasion of the building. The custom of honoring the victors at the public games with a statue—an honor afterward extended to other distinguished persons—contributed, perhaps, still more to the same effect; for, whatever restraints may have been imposed on the artists in the representation of sacred subjects, either by usage or by a religious scruple, these were removed when the artists were employed in exhibiting the images of mere mortals. As the field of the art was widened to embrace new objects, the number of masters increased; they were no longer limited, where this had before been the case, to families or guilds; their industry was sharpened by a more active competition and by richer rewards. As the study of nature became more earnest, the sense of beauty grew quicker and steadier; and so rapid was the march of the art, that the last vestiges of the arbitrary forms which had been hallowed by time or religion had not yet everywhere disappeared when the final union of truth and beauty, which we sometimes endeavor to express by the term ideal, was accomplished in the school of Phid'ias." [Footnote: Thirlwall's "History of Greece," vol. i., p. 206.]

We cannot attempt to give here the names of the masters of sculpture who flourished prior to 500 B.C., or trace the still extant remains of their genius; but their works were numerous, and the beauty and grandeur of many of them caused them to be highly valued in all succeeding ages. In fact, before the Persian wars had commenced, the branch of sculpture termed statuary had attained nearly the summit of its perfection.

CHAPTER IX.

THE PERSIAN WARS.

Returning now to the political and military history of Greece, we find that, about the year 550 B.C., the independence of the Grecian colonies on the coast of Asia Minor was crushed by Croe'sus, King of Lydia, who conquered their territories. Thus the Asiatic Greeks became subject to a barbarian power; but Croesus ruled them with great mildness, leaving their political institutions undisturbed, and requiring of them little more than the payment of a moderate tribute. A few years later they experienced a change of masters, and, together with Lydia, fell by conquest under the dominion of Persia, of which Cyrus the elder was then king. Under Darius Hystas'pes, the second king after Cyrus, the Persian empire attained its greatest extent— embracing, in Asia, all that at a later period was contained in Persia proper and Turkey; in Africa taking in Egypt as far as Nubia, and the coast of the Mediterranean as far as Barca; thus stretching from the Ægean Sea to the Indus, and from the plains of Tartary to the cataracts of the Nile. Such was the empire against whose united strength a few Grecian communities were soon to contend for the preservation of their very name and existence.