There are only two other authorities, so far as I am aware, who mention or make any allusion to marble work by Phidias; these must be considered. Seneca, nearly five hundred years after the death of Phidias, says of him, “Not only did Phidias know how to make a statue in ivory, but he also made them in bronze.” Thus far he speaks absolutely; he then continues hypothetically, “If you had given him marble, or even a viler material, he would have made the best thing out of it that could be made.”[7] This is considered by the author of the work on the Elgin and Phigaleian Marbles an important statement in confirmation of Pliny. In reality it contains nothing but a simple hypothetical expression of belief that if you had given Phidias a piece of marble he would have made something excellent out of it. Does any one doubt this? Seneca states as a fact only that Phidias really _did_ work in ivory and bronze; and it is plain that he knew no work of Phidias in marble, or he never would have expressed a purely hypothetical opinion on such a matter. The other authority which has been evoked in favor of the theory that Phidias worked in marble is that of Valerius Maximus, who states that there existed a tradition that he desired to execute the Athena of the Parthenon in marble, but that the Athenians would not permit him to do so: “Iidem Phidiam _tulerunt_ quamdiu is marmore potius quam ebore Minervam fieri debere dicebat, quod diutius nitor esset mansurus; sed ut adjecit et vilius tacere jusserunt.” (Lib. i. c. i., Externa 7.) There is no authority for this tradition. It comes up five hundred years after the death of Phidias, and is manifestly absurd. Phidias had identified himself and his fame with his great chryselephantine and bronze works. He knew too well his own power, and his mastery over these arts, to wish to make the Athena in any other material than that in which it was made. But suppose he did so advise the Athenians, his advice was not accepted. The statue was not made of marble. Perhaps also he proposed to them to give it to Alcamenes, Agoracritos, or Polyclitus. What sort of value can be given to a statement like this appearing suddenly and solely in one writer five hundred years after the Athena was made? If we are to accept such traditions as this, we may as well “gape and swallow” any _gobemouche_. Let us have at once a life of Shakespeare written in Leipzig, or any other foreign country at least as far away as that.