may be sure that every maiden of them felt it to be an honor thus to contribute perfection to a Juno, executed by the first artist of the world, which was to adorn the temple of her native city. They _played_ with art as men are apt to play with the implements of which they are masters. Sosus, the great artist in mosaics, executed at Pergamus the pavement of a banqueting-room which presented the appearance of a floor strewed with crumbs, fragments and scraps of a feast, not yet swept away. It was renowned as the "Unswept Hall of Pergamus." And what a pleasing story is that of the contest between Zeuxis and his rival, Parrhasius! On the day of trial Zeuxis hung in the place of exhibition a painting of grapes, and Parrhasius a picture of a curtain. Some birds flew to the grapes of Zeuxis, and began to pick at them. The artist, overjoyed at so striking a proof of his success, turned haughtily to his rival, and demanded that the curtain should be drawn aside and the picture revealed. But the curtain _was_ the picture. He owned himself surpassed, since he had only deceived birds, but Parrhasius had deceived Zeuxis. [Illustration: Burlesque of Jupiter's Wooing of the Princess Alcmena.] Could comic artists and caricaturists be wanting in Athens? Strange to say, it was the gods and goddesses whom the caricaturists of Greece as well as the comic writers chiefly selected for ridicule. All their works have perished except a few specimens preserved upon pottery. We show one from a Greek vase, a rude burlesque of one of Jupiter's love adventures, the father of gods and men being accompanied by a Mercury ludicrously unlike the light and agile messenger of the gods. The story goes that the Princess Alcmena, though betrothed to a lover, vowed her hand to the man who should avenge her slaughtered brothers. Jupiter assumed the form and face of the lover, and, pretending to have avenged her brothers' death, gained admittance. Pliny describes a celebrated burlesque painting of the birth of Bacchus from Jupiter's thigh, in which the god of the gods was represented wearing a woman's cap, in a highly ridiculous posture, crying out, and surrounded by goddesses in the character of midwives. The best specimen of Greek caricature that has come down to us burlesques no less serious a theme than the great oracle of Apollo at Delphos, given on page 30.