daughter of Agamemnon, who killed
a hart sacred to Diana. To revenge this act the goddess becalmed the
Greek fleet on its way to Aulis. The seer Calchas advised Agamemnon to
sacrifice his daughter to appease Diana; this he consented to do, but
Diana put a hart in the place of the maiden, whom she bore to Tauris and
made a priestess. In this relief the maiden has an air of resigned
grief; her father stands by himself with his head covered. The sculptor
of this relief was not the first who had represented Agamemnon thus, for
a painter, Timanthes, had made a picture of this subject about B.C. 400,
and in describing it Quintilian said that "when he had painted Calchas
sad, Ulysses sadder, and had represented in the face of Menelaus the
most poignant grief that art can express, having exhausted the deepest
feelings and finding no means of worthily portraying the countenance of
_the father_, he covered his head and left it to every man's own heart
to estimate his sufferings."

[Illustration: FIG. 57.--VENUS DE' MEDICI.]

I come now to the Apollo Belvedere, one of the most celebrated of all
the statues in the Vatican, and the best known and most universally
admired of all the ancient statues which remain to us. It was found at
about the end of the fifteenth century at the ancient city of Antium,
where it probably made one of the ornaments of the Imperial Palace. The
authorities upon such subjects have never yet agreed as to whether the
marble from which it is cut is a marble of Greece or of Italy (Fig. 60).

[Illustration: FIG. 62.--THE STEINHAeUSER HEAD.]

This statue has been lauded in all tongues of the civilized world, and
nothing could be added to what has been said in its praise; and yet all
who see it wish to exalt it still higher if possible. A few years ago
another head of Apollo, of Greek marble, was found in a magazine in
Rome, by Herr Steinhaeuser, by whose name it is known; it is now in the
museum at Basle (Figs. 61, 62).

Though this statue has been so much studied and admired it has never yet
been satisfactorily explained, and there are several important questions
about it which cannot be answered with certainty. Nothing is known of
its age or of the name of its sculptor. It is not described by any
ancient writer, neither can any one say whether it is an original or a
copy; and above all in importance is the question of what this beautiful
young god is doing--what is the meaning of it?

[Illustration: FIG