For many years, however, the archæologists have been battling, proving and disproving the proposition that the god is really holding the ægis with the head of Medusa before his terror-stricken foes. The suggestion is that the original of the Belvedere was intended to be set up with a statue of Artemis—the “Artemis of Versailles,” now in the Louvre—at Delphi, in commemoration of the defeat of the Gauls in 276 B.C. It will be remembered that Macedonia was invaded by the Gauls about the year 280 B.C., the time when the barbarians from the North overran Asia Minor and founded the kingdom of Galatia after a severe defeat at the hands of Attalus of Pergamus. Sosthenes rallied the Macedonian army, but, in spite of all his efforts, the Gauls under Brennus continued to push south. Thermopylæ was garrisoned as it had been at the time of the Persian invasion. The entire Greek world sent contingents to repel the invaders. Finally, legend tells that the raid was stayed by the divine interposition of Apollo and Artemis. Angered at the daring of Brennus, Apollo called upon the forces of nature to defend the shrine at Delphi. An earthquake and a devastating storm forced Brennus to retire. [Illustration: THE APOLLO BELVEDERE Vatican, Rome] [Illustration: THE VENUS OF MEDICI (_see p. 112_) Uffizi, Florence] Until recently it was generally believed that the association between the “Apollo” and the defeat of the Gaulish invaders was supported by the evidence of a bronze statuette belonging to Count Sargei Stroganoff. The bronze is undoubtedly a copy of the Belvedere statue, and the object in the god’s hand is not a bow and might well represent the ægis with the head of Medusa. Archæological opinion has, however, now veered round, and since Professor Fürtwangler has pronounced the Stroganoff bronze a modern forgery, it must be admitted that no trustworthy evidence remains for connecting the Apollo Belvedere with one of the few political crises which galvanized Hellenistic Greece into vigorous action. The coincidence that the crisis was the very Gaulish invasion which created Pergamene art would certainly have afforded a valuable analogy. The great products of the school of sculpture at Pergamus were the direct outcome of the passions and fears aroused in a country where every man and woman stood face to face with death or a slavery worse than death. In Hellenistic Greece the same dread—the selfsame chance of death or slavery—only stirred the individual.