ralline, make the surface crimson. The
vegetation against which the ruined colonnades are relieved consists
almost wholly of almond and olive trees, the bright green foliage of
the one mingling with the greys of the other, and both enhancing the
warm tints of the stone. This contrast of colours is very agreeable
to the eye; yet when the temples were perfect it did not exist.
There is no doubt that their surface was coated with a fine stucco,
wrought to smoothness, toned like marble, and painted over with the
blue and red and green decorations proper to the Doric style. This
fact is a practical answer to those aesthetic critics who would fain
establish that the Greeks practised no deception in their arts. The
whole effect of the colonnades of Selinus and Girgenti must have
been an illusion, and their surface must have needed no less
constant reparation than the exterior of a Gothic cathedral. The
sham jewellery frequently found in Greek tombs, and the curious
mixture of marble with sandstone in the sculptures from Selinus, are
other instances that Greeks no less than modern artists condescended
to trickery for the sake of effect. In the series of the metopes
from Selinus now preserved in the museum at Palermo, the flesh of
the female persons is represented by white marble, while that of the
men, together with the dresses and other accessories, is wrought of
common stone. Yet the basreliefs in which this peculiarity occurs
belong to the best period of Greek sculpture, and the groups are not
unworthy for spirit and design to be placed by the side of the
metopes of the Parthenon. Most beautiful, for example, is the
contrast between the young unarmed Hercules and the Amazon he
overpowers. His naked man's foot grasps with the muscular energy of
an athlete her soft and helpless woman's foot, the roughness of the
sandstone and the smoothness of the marble really heightening the
effect of difference.

Though ranged in a row along the same cornice, the temples of
Girgenti, originally at least six in number, were not so disposed
that any of their architectural lines should be exactly parallel.
The Greeks disliked formality; the carefully calculated
_asymmetreia_ in the disposition of their groups of buildings
secured variety of effect as well as a broken surface for the
display of light and shadow. This is very noticeable on the
Acropolis of Athens, where, however regular may be the several
buildings, all are placed at different