The Florentine “Niobides” are not from the chisel of a fourth-century craftsman. They are probably copies of those described by Pliny as having been brought to the Temple of Apollo Sosianus in 38 B.C. Indeed, other ancient versions of the great group exist, including a magnificent copy of the daughter of Niobe—“The Chiaramonti”—now in the Vatican. The “Niobides” were almost certainly originally designed to serve an architectural purpose. It has been surmised that they formed a pedimental group for a Temple of Apollo in Asia Minor. To judge of their relation to the rest of Greek art, they must be compared with such a pedimental group as that of the Parthenon, and we have, therefore, preferred to illustrate them from the collection of casts at Munich, instead of from the marbles in Rome or Florence. Incidentally, it is interesting to note that Phidias was content to allow three or four figures in the centre of the group to tell the story. We do not, for instance, even know whether the “Theseus” is a god, a hero, or merely a personification of one of the Athenian rivers. But in the Niobe group every figure is concerned with the main theme. Regarded as an incident in the history of Greek sculpture, the “Niobides” brilliantly illustrate the fourth-century artist’s success in the depiction of human expression and passion. The Theban Queen is the incarnation of the belief that womanhood’s greatest glory is to bring into the world “full-breathed, bright-eyed, and happy-hearted human creatures.” She stands for the Hellene’s agreement with Ruskin’s doctrine that the true veins of wealth are purple—“not in rock but in flesh.” But her proud sense of the glory of motherhood has aroused the ire of the Virgin Artemis. The sculptor chooses the moment when Niobe and her fourteen children are suddenly faced with the dread vengeance of Apollo and the goddess. The unseen arrows have stricken some of the fearful boys and girls. Others are as yet unhurt. A brother supports a sister. The centre of the group is occupied by the unfortunate mother, to whom the youngest daughter has fled in her terror. These Roman copies of the “Niobides” were carved long after the schools of Pergamus and Rhodes had shown the possibility of a far more realistic presentation of physical terror and bodily pain. But they still retain evidence of the Greek sculptor’s determination not to be tempted beyond the limits set by bronze and marble. A desire for dramatic expression does not interfere with that harmony of the planes which to the purest Greek taste made for perfectly beautiful sculpture. There are none of the nervous suggestions of muscular action whereby later artists conveyed ideas of dramatic intensity. Such figures as Niobe with her shrinking girl rather display a desire to postpone physical to spiritual anguish. Upon analysis, this can be traced to the sculptor’s realisation of the impossibility of expressing the ultra-dramatic in terms of perfect beauty.