Here, too, we see that different portions of the same work were assigned to different artists, each working out his subjects separately, though all working in agreement, to develop a certain story or series of stories. Such a practice would account for all sorts of varieties of design and execution, and would explain the differences to be observed between the various portions of the sculptures of the Parthenon. A careful examination of the frieze alone shows that it must have been executed by various artists, so distinct are the different parts as well in execution as in design. The notion commonly entertained, that Phidias was considered in his age to be vastly superior to all contemporary sculptors, will scarcely bear examination. He undoubtedly surpassed them all in his colossal chryselephantine statues of divinities; though even in this branch of art there was a difference of opinion, and one other artist at least, Polyclitus, was held, in his statue of Hera, to have stood abreast of him. Strabo declares that it excelled in beauty all the works of Phidias. But in other branches of the art the superiority of Phidias was not admitted; and he was, if report be true, repeatedly adjudged a second place in his competitions with his rivals. Alcamenes, Polyclitus, Kalamis, and Ctesilaus were his superiors in their marble statues and representations of mortals, and we hear of no work of his in marble to compete with theirs. Lucian, for instance, in his Dialogue on Statues, praises equally the Venus of Praxiteles, the Sosandra of Kalamis, the Aphrodite of the Gardens by Alcamenes, and the Athena Lemnia and Amazon of Phidias; and out of the special beauties of each he reconstructs an ideal image of the most beautiful woman. From the Cnidian Aphrodite of Praxiteles he takes the head, having no need of the rest of the body (he says), as the figure is not to be nude; and from this head he selects the outlines of the hair, or rather the outline of the forehead where it joins the hair, the forehead, the delicately penciled eyebrows, and the liquid and radiant charm of the eyes. From the Aphrodite of Alcamenes he takes the cheeks and the lower part of the face, and especially the base of the hands, the beautifully proportioned wrists, and the flexile taper fingers. From Phidias he takes the total contour of the face, the softness of the jaw, and the symmetrical nose of the Athena, and the lips and the neck of the Amazon. From the Sosandra of Kalamis he takes her modest grace and her delicate subtle smile, her chastely arranged dress and her easy bearing. Her age and stature, he says, shall be that of the Cnidian Aphrodite, for this is most beautiful in Praxiteles. For her other qualities he draws upon the painters. This opinion of Lucian is particularly interesting and valuable, from the fact that he had studied and practiced the art of sculpture under his uncle, who was a sculptor, and his judgment is therefore of far more value than that of