e with Deity alone,
In deathless glory lives the breathing stone."[241]

In such a statue we see the human creative genius idealized. It is a
magnificent representation of the mind of Greece, that fountain of
original thought from which came the Songs of Homer and the Dialogues of
Plato, that unfailing source of history, tragedy, lyric poetry, scientific
investigation. In the Belvedere Apollo we see expressed at once the genius
of Homer, Aristotle, Herodotus, Aeschylus, Pindar, Thales, and Plato.

With Apollo is associated his sister Artemis, or Diana, another exquisite
conception of Greek thought. Not the cold and cruel Diana of the poets;
not she who, in her prudish anger, turned Actaeon into a stag, who slew
Orion, who slew the children of Niobe, and demanded the death of
Iphigenia. Very different is the beautiful Diana of the sculptors, the
Artemis, or untouched one, chaste as moonlight, a wild girl, pure, free,
noble; the ideal of youthful womanhood, who can share with man manly
exercises and open-air sports, and add to manly strength a womanly grace.
So she seems in the statue; in swift motion, the air lifting her tunic
from her noble limbs, while she draws a shaft from the quiver to kill a
hind. No Greek could look at such a statue, and not learn to reverence the
purity and nobleness of womanhood.

Pallas-Athene was the goddess of all the liberal arts and sciences. In
battle she proves too strong for Ares or Mars, as scientific war is always
too strong for that wild, furious war which Mars represented. She was the
civilizer of mankind. Her name Pallas means "virgin," and her name Athene
was supposed to be the same as the Egyptian Neith, reversed; though modern
scholars deny this etymology.

The Parthenon, standing on the summit of Athens, built of white marble,
was surrounded by columns 34 feet high. It was 230 feet long, 102 feet
wide, and 68 high, and was perhaps the most perfect building ever raised
by man. Every part of its exterior was adorned with Phidian sculpture; and
within stood the statue of Athene herself, in ivory and gold, by the same
master hand. Another colossal statue of the great goddess stood on the
summit of the Acropolis, and her polished brazen helmet and shield,
flashing in the sun, could be seen far out at sea by vessels approaching
Athens.

The Greek sculptors, in creating these wonderful ideals, were always
feeling after God; but for God incarnate, God in man. They sought for and