Notwithstanding the coldness of Pausanias’ description, we cannot but perceive that a true poetical feeling governed the composition of the battle of Marathon. Presiding over the whole, the hero Marathon, after whom the plain was named, received Minerva, the patroness of Athens, accompanied by Hercules, and soon to be joined by Theseus, whose shade, arising out of the earth, thus claimed Attica as his native soil. The armies are engaged in combat: some of the Persian chiefs are distinguished, particularly Mardonius, the insertion of whose portrait scarcely gratified the Athenians less than that of their own commander, Miltiades, along with whom were Callimachus, Echetlus, and the poet Æschylus, who was in the battle that day[98]. In another part of the field the Persians were routed; and farther on, some were seen hurrying to their ships to escape, and others flying towards the marshes, where the Greeks following were slaying them in their flight[99]. I am aware that critics require painters to observe what they call the unities, not less than dramatic poets; and that to represent different actions of the same story, or different parts of the same action, on one and the same canvas, is to sin grievously against their rules. But Shakspeare gloriously breaks the laws of the drama, and Polygnotus had a right to break those, if they then existed, of the picture. In a future Essay I hope to show the great advantages that may be derived from a disregard of the unities in painting, and to bring forward examples of its success by more modern artists. Meantime, in some of the other works of Polygnotus, which I am about to mention, it will be seen that he used considerable freedom in this respect. But, to go on with those in Athens. In the temple of the Dioscorides, assisted by Mycon, he painted the actions of these heroes[100], and their marriage with the daughters of Leucippus. Two other pictures adorned one of the buildings of the Acropolis, the subjects being Achilles among the young women of Scyros, and the meeting of Ulysses and Nausicaa[101]. But the great works of Polygnotus were the story of Troy and the descent of Ulysses into the infernal regions, painted in the Lesche, or public hall, at Delphi. From the very unartistlike description by Pausanias, I think I can make out, that the back ground of the picture was filled by the town, the citadel, the surrounding country, and the sea. The hero Epeus, naked, was visible destroying the walls of the citadel, over the top of which the head of the famous wooden horse was seen[102]. Scattered about singly, or in groups, were the dead or the dying. On the margin of the sea were the Greek ships, on board of which parties of the conquerors were embarking; while their servants were bearing tents, furniture, and spoil, to put on board.