attributed to Phidias, according to the general rule, that to the master is ascribed the best work of his pupil and his school. Then it was, probably, that the inscription was placed on the statue, reclaiming it for its true author. However this may be, Photias, Suidas, and Tzetzes, as late as from the tenth to the twelfth century, are determined that Phidias shall have it, despite the inscription; and accordingly they report and publish, many long centuries after—and gifted by what second-sight into the past who can tell?—that though it is true that the statue is supposed to have been executed by Agoracritos, yet in fact it was made by Phidias, who generously allowed Agoracritos to put his name on it, and pass it off as his own. In further illustration of this parasitic growth of legend and tradition may be also cited in this connection the story told by Tzetzes the Grammarian, some seventeen centuries after the death of Phidias. According to him, Alcamenes and Phidias competed in making a statue of Athena, to be placed in an elevated position; and when their figures were finished and exposed to public view near the level of the eye, the preference was decidedly given to the figure of Alcamenes; but as soon as the figures were elevated to their destined position, the public declared immediately in favor of that of Phidias. The object of the writer of this story is to prove the extraordinary skill of Phidias in optical perspective, and to show that he had calculated his proportions with such foresight, that though the figure, when seen near the level of the eye, appeared inharmonious, it became perfectly harmonious when seen from far below. Now all that any artist could do to produce this effect would be, perhaps, to give more length to his figures in comparison with their breadth. This, however, would be not only a doubtful expedient in itself, but entirely at variance with the practice of Phidias. His figures, like all those of his period, were stouter in proportion to their breadth, and particularly stouter in the relation of the lower limbs to the torso, than the figures of a later period. The canon of proportion accepted then was that of Polyclitus; and the proportions were afterward varied and the lower limbs were lengthened, first by Euphranor, and subsequently still more by Lysippus. Any distortion or falsification of proportion would be effective solely in a statue with one point of view, and exhibited as a relief; for if it were a figure in the round, and seen from all points, the perspective would be utterly false, unless the proportions were harmonious in themselves and true to nature. Tzetzes is a great gossip, and peculiarly untrustworthy in his statements; but his story is of such a nature as to please the ignorant public, and it has been accepted and repeated constantly, though he does not give any authority for it, and plainly invented it out “of the depths of his own consciousness,” as the German _savant_ did the camel.