A number of painted archaic sculptures have been unearthed in recent years on the Athenian Acropolis, which show the originals upon which the archaistic style of the “Diana” at Naples was formed. They were buried during the improvements consequent upon the rebuilding after the Persian Wars. Many of these were dedicatory offerings. The increasing custom of substituting such statues for the tripods and craters dedicated in earlier days, did much to provide artists at the end of the sixth, and the beginning of the fifth century, with opportunities for experiment. In such work the artist had only to satisfy the donor. Private individuals were less insistent upon conventional forms than the temple priests. Under these influences the drapery gradually became less angular, and the set smile of the older statues gave place to a dignified repose. The illusion of form became more and more complete, and there was less and less insistence upon the reproduction of the detail in every fold of the elaborate Ionic drapery. In other words, the artist was no longer a slave to his material. He was learning how to make the marble express what he had in mind. The numerous discoveries of these archaic statues illustrate the gradual change and, particularly, the growing beauty after which the Athenian artists were striving. Incidentally, they afford interesting evidence of the practice of painting marble which was general in Greece. From the remains of the actual pigments used, it can be seen that the hair was coloured, and the brow, lashes, pupil and iris of the eye indicated. The borders of the dress too were strongly marked, so that one garment could be readily distinguished from another. With the growing naturalism even portrait statues became possible. For instance, after the dismissal of the sons of Pisistratus, a group in honour of Harmodius and Aristogiton, who had headed an insurrection against the tyrant, was erected in the Agora by their democratic admirers. When this was carried off by Xerxes, it was replaced by a group, the work of Critius and Nesiotes, a marble copy of which can be seen in the National Museum at Naples. We have chosen the statue of “Harmodius” as an illustration of the earliest Greek iconic statuary. It will be seen that it entirely lacks the ideality of treatment which was to be the leading characteristic of the art fifty years later. THE ATHLETIC SCULPTURES (480 B.C. TO 400 B.C.)