The subjects chosen to do honour to Hercules were, of course, his own actions, not exactly those called the twelve labours of Hercules; though some of them are mixed with other events in the hero’s life. The subject of the frieze, over the front entrance, is the war with the giants, in which the superior gods are only spectators, while Hercules, Mars, Bacchus, Apollo, and Mercury, are actively engaged in combat with the giants. The subjects on the metopes, relating to Hercules, are some of them too much injured to be recognised with certainty; but others are from his common adventures, such as the Nemean Lion, the Hydra, and so on. The frieze, in honour of Theseus, represents the battle of the Centaurs and Lapithæ. Among the groups there are some of great beauty; but I cannot help thinking that, like those of the battle of the giants, there is an affectation of a display of strength. There are too many figures with legs outstretched and strained, and arms employed without a visible necessity; very unlike the work of Phidias, where the action of every figure is directed to its proper purpose. But it is not as sculpture I speak of them; all these figures were painted by Mycon and his daughter Timarete, reported by Pliny to have been a paintress of great reputation. Even yet, Colonel Leake[95] says, there are traces of bronze or gold coloured armour, garments of various hues, azure skies, and golden stars. If these artists gave natural colours to the objects they treated, it was already a great improvement on the Egyptian notion of pictures; but yet their works must have resembled those ancient altar-pieces, some by the hand of Albert Durer himself, which we still meet with occasionally in the German churches[96]. The description of, and apology for, coloured sculpture in Flaxman’s seventh lecture, leaves nothing to be said on that side of the question. On the other I believe there is an universal feeling of distaste to anything so like waxwork. The pictures on the inner walls of the Theseum were painted on stucco, which here and there still retains vestiges of colour. The subjects were most probably effaced when the temple was converted into a Christian church. They were the battle of the Amazons, that of the Centaurs and Lapithæ, and one of an action performed by Theseus, in Crete, to convince Minos that he was indeed the son of Neptune. It appears that the king, offended with Theseus, had taunted him with pretending falsely to a divine origin, and threw a ring into the sea, desiring him, if he really had the influence of a son with Neptune, to restore it. Theseus immediately dived to the bottom, and soon emerging from the tide he presented the king with his signet, and displayed the golden crown with which Amphitrite had honoured him while below the waves.