Iris (?).--This figure is moving rapidly to our left, the right knee bent. The left arm was probably extended; the right was bent nearly at a right angle. Both hands probably held parts of the mantle, of which a remnant floats behind, bellied out by the resistance of the air to the rapid movement of the figure. The feet are wanting from the instep. The figure was let into a socket about two inches deep, on the floor of the pediment. It seems to be exactly in the same condition as when Carrey saw it, except that in his drawing rather more of the neck appears than now remains. The dress is a Doric chiton, _schistos_, open down the left side, except for the girdle. Over this falls a diploïdion. The arms of this figure are small in proportion to the strength of the lower limbs, and the breasts undeveloped like those of a young girl. This would be consistent with the type of Iris as the messenger of Zeus and Hera, trained to swift movement. The head may have been half turned back towards the central group, but too little remains of the neck to make this certain. From the rapid movement of the figure in a direction turned away from the centre of the composition, archæologists have been nearly unanimous in thinking that the figure is Iris on her way to announce the event of the birth to the world outside Olympos. But the action is not that of a steady flight through the air, for which the Nikè of Paionios (No. 192) should be compared. It is rather that of a person starting aside in alarm. Moreover, the figure has not the wings of Iris, and on these grounds she has been called Eileithyia (Murray, ii., p. 71), Hebè (Brunn, _Ber. d. k. bayer. Akad. Phil. hist. Cl._, 1874, ii., p. 19), or simply a terrified maiden (Wolters, p. 254). _Mus. Marbles_, VI., pls. 6, 7; Baumeister, _Denkmaeler_, p. 1183, fig. 1373; _Stereoscopic_, No. 106; Michaelis, pl. 6, figs. 12, 12_a_; Murray, II., pl. 4; Mitchell, _Selections_, pl. 6. [Sidenote: =303 H.=] Cast of a torso of Hephaestos or Prometheus. Powerful male torso, from the neck to the groin. The action of the shoulders, and of the muscles of the ribs and back shows that the arms were raised. Perhaps both hands held an axe above the head, as if about to strike. This is the only fragment besides No. 303 J. which has any claim to be assigned to the central group of the eastern pediment. Though we have little knowledge of how the central group of this pediment was composed, we may suppose that the personage would not have been omitted through whose act of cleaving the head of Zeus with an axe the birth of Athenè was accomplished. In the most generally diffused version of the myth this was done by Hephaestos, but Attic tradition preferred to attribute the deed to Prometheus. The original, which was discovered on the east side of the Parthenon in 1836, is at _Athens_. Michaelis, pl. 6, figs. 13, 13_a_. [Sidenote: =303 J.=]