eds, usually winged, and
human-headed birds. The delight in winged figures generally, which was
mainly decorative in early times, also finds its origin in Oriental
woven stuffs. Greek sculpture adopted and translated into stone or
bronze some of these mixed types--notably the human-headed bird and the
human-headed winged lion; these it identified as the Siren and the
Sphinx of Greek myth, and associated them with the mysteries of the
tomb. To some other forms, that of the Centaur and the Satyr and the
Triton, it also gave considerable scope. But all these, if not human,
are hardly to be regarded as divine; they are mostly noxious, and, even
if benignant, do not attain the rank of gods. Perhaps a nearer approach
to divine character is to be found in the river-gods, who are often
represented as bulls with human heads or as human with bull's horns; but
here, too, we have only to deal with minor deities. No sculptor
represented Dionysus in this way, even though he was called
"bull-shaped" by poets; nor is the horse-god Posidon even represented as
a Centaur. The horse-headed Demeter of Phigalia remains the strange and
solitary exception, however we may explain her existence.

The process by which the early human types were gradually improved and
made more life-like, by a continuous struggle with technical
difficulties, by constant and direct observation of nature, and by the
building up of an artistic tradition in different schools and families,
is a question that concerns the history of art rather than our present
study. But it is impossible to distinguish rigidly between the two,
because these types, whether of the nude standing male figure, of the
draped female, or of the seated figure, are all of them used alike to
represent human and divine personages; and, apart from inscriptions of
dedication or conditions of discovery or distinctive attributes, it
would often be impossible to tell whether any particular statue was
meant to represent, for example, the image of a god or a conventional
portrait of a man. These nude male statues, commonly known by the name
of "Apollo," were certainly, some of them, made to commemorate athletes,
whose images were set up either in the place where they won their
victories or in their native town; others were placed over graves as
memorials of the dead; and even in a sacred precinct it is sometimes
uncertain whether the god himself is represented or the worshipper who
dedicates this record o