ld forget all the dangers
and difficulties of this mortal life: such the vision you, Phidias, have
invented and devised, a sight 'to lull all pain and anger, and bring
forgetfulness of every sorrow.'"

The same writer elsewhere puts into the mouth of Phidias an explanation
of how he had attempted to embody in his statue the current conception
of the god, and even the epithets that belonged to his worship. "My
Zeus," says the sculptor, "is peaceful and altogether gentle, as the
guardian of a Hellas free from factions and of one mind with itself.
Him, taking counsel with my art, and with the wise and noble Elean
state, I set up in his temple, mild and majestic in a form free from all
sorrow, as the giver of life and livelihood and all good things, the
common father of men, their saviour and their guardian, so far as it is
possible for a mortal man to conceive and to copy his divine and
inexpressible nature. And consider whether you will not find the image
according with all the epithets of the god; Zeus alone is called the
father of gods and their only king, and also god of the city and of
friendship and society, and of suppliants too and strangers, the giver
of harvest, and by innumerable other titles. And for one whose aim it
was to display all these qualities without speaking, is not my art
successful? The strength of the form and its imposing proportions show
the power to rule and the king; the gentle and amiable character shows
the father and his care; the majesty and severity show the god of the
city and of law; and of the kinship of men and gods the similarity of
their shape serves as a symbol. His protective friendship of suppliants
and strangers and fugitives and such like is seen in his kindliness and
his evident gentleness and goodness. And an image of the giver of
possessions and harvest is seen in the simplicity and magnanimity
displayed in his form; he seems just like one who would give and be
generous of good things. All this, in short, I imitated as far as
possible, being unable to express it in speech." This description is, of
course, the work of a late and rhetorical author, but it is the work of
a man who was familiar with these great statues that are now lost to us,
and was capable of appreciating them. His criticism may not be so
thorough and subtle as the analysis of the Greek type of Zeus made by
Brunn in his _Gotteridealen_; but it is based on similar principles, the
observation of the physical typ