had
opened itself to the blind man.

He made himself at home in it by remaining faithful to the rule which he
had found in the desert for his creative work, and the genuine happiness
which he enjoyed through Daphne's love and the great fame his sculptures
brought him increased the strong individuality of his power.

The fruits of his tireless industry, the much-admired god of light,
Phoebus Apollo, slaying the dragons of darkness, as well as his
bewitching Arachne, gazing proudly at the fabric with which she thinks
she has surpassed the skill of the goddess, were overtaken by
destruction. In this statue Bias recognised his countrywoman Ledscha, and
often gazed long at it with devout ecstasy. Even Hermon's works of
colossal size vanished from the earth: the Battle of the Amazons and the
relief containing numerous figures: the Sea Gods, which the Regent
Eumenes ordered for the Temple of Poseidon in Pergamus.

The works of his grandson and grandson's pupils, however, are preserved
on the great altar of victory in Pergamus.

The power and energy natural to Hermon, the skill he had acquired in
Rhodes, everything in the changeful life of Alexandria which had induced
him to consecrate his art to reality, and to that alone, and whatever he
had, finally, in quiet seclusion, recognised as right and in harmony with
the Greek nature and his own, blend in those works of his successor,
which a gracious dispensation of Providence permits us still to admire at
the present day, and which we call in its entirety, the art of Pergamus.

The city was a second beloved home to him, as well as to his wife and
Myrtilus. The rulers of the country took the old Alexandrian Archias into
their confidence and knew how to honour him by many a distinction. He
understood how to value the happiness of his only daughter, the beautiful
development of his grandchildren, and the high place that Hermon and
Myrtilus, whom he loved as if they were his own sons, attained among the
artists of their time. Yet he struggled vainly against the longing for
his dear old home. Therefore Hermon deemed it one of the best days of his
life when his turn came to make Daphne's father a happy man.

King Ptolemy Philadelphus had sent laurel to the artist who had fallen
under suspicion in Egypt, and his messenger invited him and Myrtilus, and
with them also the exiled merchant, to return to his presence. In
gratitude for the pleasure which Hermon's creation afforded him and