ermitted his portrait to be put upon the shield of the
Parthenon, and he was prosecuted for thus exalting himself to a
privilege which belonged to the gods alone. Alexander, on the contrary,
claimed to be a god, and was represented by painters and sculptors until
his portraits and statues were almost numberless.

Soon after the death of Alexander the humiliation of Athens and its old
Periclean spirit was complete. If you read the history of Demetrius
Poliorcetes, who was even allowed to hold his revels in the most sacred
part of the Parthenon--the temple of Minerva--you will see that Athens
was enslaved and her people no longer worthy to lead the world in the
arts of peace, as they were no longer the brave men who could stand
first in war. In their degraded state the Athenians suffered three
hundred and sixty statues to be erected to Demetrius Phalereus, and
these were destroyed to make way for the golden images of the conquering
freebooter Poliorcetes. This last was hailed by the debased people as a
god and a saviour. His name and that of his father, Antigonus, were
woven into the sacred peplos.

At length, under the Diadochi, or successors of Alexander, order was
restored, and Antigonus, Ptolemy, Seleucus, and Lysimachus divided the
kingdom of Alexander into four Graeco-Oriental monarchies. The dynasty of
the Ptolemies in Egypt was the most reputable of these, and gave much
encouragement to art and letters. But the sacred fire seems to have died
out, or did not burn clearly when transplanted from Athens to
Alexandria. The Alexandrines seem to have been mere imitators of what
had gone before, and there is nothing to be said of them that is of
importance enough for us to linger over it. Very few works remain from
this Diadochean period. The Metope of Ilium, which Dr. Schliemann has in
his garden in Athens, the Barberini Faun, in the Glyptothek at Munich,
and the Nile of the Vatican are the most important remnants of
Alexandrine sculpture.

Amid all the confusion and strife which followed the death of Alexander
the island of Rhodes remained undisturbed, and when the division of the
monarchies was made the Rhodians still retained their independence. They
were neutral, and so had a commerce with all the monarchies, and thus
gained great wealth; and theirs was the only independent State of the
old Hellenic world which was able to found and maintain a school of
art. Among the great works of the Rhodian artists none is more