2 have
sculptures of chariots drawn by four horses (mostly) abreast. These,
however, present no new points to which it is necessary to draw the
visitor's particular attention. The business of the festival, &c.,
begins to be apparent in the seven last slabs (84-90). Here the
victims appear. In the first (85) a bull appears to be giving no
little trouble to some attendants, and to be utterly regardless of the
solemnity of the occasion. A bull, full of action, is the principal
object on the next slab (86): and on the next (87), one appears calmly
walking to his doom. Upon the return of the slab (90) is a figure
finely executed, supposed to be that of a magistrate surveying the
progress of the procession. The sacrificial oxen are said to be
masterly representations of the finest specimens of these animals.

Having examined these bas-reliefs, the visitor should at once turn to
the groups which occupied central space in the saloon, and which
originally adorned the eastern and western pediments of the Parthenon.

SCULPTURES FROM THE EASTERN PEDIMENT.

These occupy the central space towards the southern end of the saloon.
The group on the eastern pediment originally represented the birth of
Minerva. The visitor will probably be first attracted to the great
recumbent figure marked 93, generally believed to have represented
Theseus, the Athenian hero, whose biography opens the series of
Plutarch's Lives. The figure is now much mutilated; the nose has been
chipped, and the feet are wanting, but still the form reclining on a
rock is majestic. Mr. Westmacott, in a lecture, gave his reasons for
believing that this statue was meant for Cephalus, of whom Aurora was
enamoured, and not Theseus. "This work [the pediment] it must be
observed, related to the most remarkable event in Athenian mythology,
and was confined only to that event. All the gods of Olympus were
present at the birth of Minerva. Now Theseus was not only not in
existence, but was patronised and protected by Minerva; it would seem,
therefore, extraordinary that he should be admitted as a witness of
her birth. If it is really Theseus, he could only have been introduced
by Phidias in compliment to the Athenians; but whether this could on
so very sacred an occasion have been allowed, may very reasonably be
doubted. Hercules, even the older, or Idaean Hercules, was, upon the
same principle, equally inadmissible, the Athenians acknowledging or
worshipping no Hercules prior