It was left to Mr. Newton to complete what had been indeed, hardly done at all before, and to secure for England the most important sculptures still _in situ_. The Temple of Apollo Didymæus[29] was originally approached from the sea by a “SACRED WAY,” on each side of which had once been a row of seated statues, sepulchral _sori_, tombs, &c. Along this “Way” Mr. Newton discovered eight seated statues, generally about 4 feet 6 inches high, by 2 feet 9 inches broad and deep; the character of their workmanship being, at the first glance, strikingly Egyptian, at least in this respect, that their drapery, extending from the shoulders to the feet, consists of one closely-fitting garment (_chitōn_), and of a light shawl (_peplos_). One only of the figures retains its head, the sculptured treatment of it being that usually recognized as the most archaic Greek, in that the hair is arranged in long parallel tresses, as in the earliest coins of Syracuse. With two exceptions, all these statues belong to the same period of art. Mr. Newton says, it is evident that no one of them occupied, when he discovered them, exactly its original position, and that they must, at some time or other, have been thrown down and partially removed—an opinion confirmed by a somewhat later discovery of about eighty feet of the original paving of the “SACRED WAY,” together with some bases, not improbably those on which these statues had been originally placed. The “SACRED WAY” can still be traced for about 580 yards. Footnote 29: Didyma was the ancient name of the site where the temple stood; hence the building was sometimes called the “Didymæum.” Strabo speaks of it as τοῦ ἐν Διδύμοις ναοῦ. On the pretence that the priests of Branchidæ voluntarily returned with Xerxes to Persia, their descendants were cruelly murdered by Alexander the Great (Strabo, xiv. 634, xi. 517; Quint. Curt., vii. 5). [Illustration: INSCRIPTION OF CHARES. ]