It is the presence of a dominating idea of this kind which distinguishes “The Laocoon” of Rhodes from “The Tyche of Antioch.” Admitting its presence places the sculpture beyond and above both criticism and praise. A sentence, however, of Walter Pater suggests a point of critical vantage which the student of the history of sculpture cannot disregard. He says: “‘The Laocoon,’ with all that patient science through which it has triumphed over an almost unmanageable subject, marks a period in which sculpture has begun to aim at effects, legitimate, because delightful, only in painting.” No man had a truer appreciation of Greek art than Walter Pater, and no opinion is more entitled to thoughtful consideration. But in view of the fact that the extreme classical school of criticism has always tended to depreciate the value of all Hellenistic art, we may regret that Pater’s argument was not illustrated by a lesser work of the Rhodian school. The suggestion that the Laocoon myth borders upon the illegitimate as far as sculptural treatment is concerned, seems to demand the qualification that supreme success justifies the disregard of any canon of art. [Illustration: THE NILE Vatican, Rome] Pater’s judgment, however, applies with real force to other works by sculptors of Rhodes. It might, for instance, be used of “The Farnese Bull,” now in the National Museum at Naples. The group was found in the baths of Caracalla at Rome during the sixteenth century, and has been so largely restored that criticism is, perhaps, unjust. If the present work can be regarded as embodying the ideas of its authors, we see a passion which has degenerated from the dramatic to the theatrical. The subject of the statue is the punishment of Dirce at the hands of Amphion and Zethus. Below, the sculptors show the rocky ledges of Mount Cithæron—the death-place of the unfortunate woman who is being bound to the horns of the bull. This suggests nothing that can be called ennobling. It is all merely horrible. Comparing “The Farnese Bull” with “The Laocoon” or the figure of the “Niobe” mother, we realize that the loss of reposeful beauty entailed in the treatment of such a subject is not compensated for in any other direction. The great end of art has been forgotten: “That it should be a friend To soothe the cares and lift the thoughts of man.” The last great division of the post-Alexandrian Greek world was the kingdom of the Ptolemies which included Egypt and Phœnicia. The Macedonian rulers of Egypt soon made Alexandria, their capital, a flourishing centre both for the arts and sciences. But the genius of the place seemed to favour literature rather than sculpture.