Thiersch (Epochen der Bildenden Kunst, pp. 182-190, 2nd edit.) places Rhœkus near the beginning of the recorded Olympiads; and supposes two artists named Theodôrus, one the grandson of the other; but this seems to me not sustained by any adequate authority (for the loose chronology of Pliny about the Samian school of artists is not more trustworthy than about the Chian school,—compare xxxv, 12, and xxxvi, 3), and, moreover, intrinsically improbable. Herodotus (i, 51) speaks of “_the_ Samian Theodôrus,” and seems to have known only one person so called: Diodôrus (i, 98) and Pausanias (x, 38, 3) give different accounts of Theodôrus, but the positive evidence does not enable us to verify the genealogies either of Thiersch or O. Müller. Herodotus (iv, 152) mentions the Ἡραῖον at Samos in connection with events near Olymp. 37; but this does not prove that the great temple which he himself saw, a century and a half later, had been begun before Olymp. 37, as Thiersch would infer. The statement of O. Müller, that this temple was begun in Olymp. 35, is not authenticated (Arch. der Kunst. sect. 53). [192] Pausanias tells us distinctly that this chest was dedicated at Olympia by the Kypselids, descendants of Kypselus; and this seems credible enough. But he also tells us that this was the identical chest in which the infant Kypselus had been concealed, believing the story as told in Herodotus (v, 92). In this latter belief I cannot go along with him, nor do I think that there is any evidence for believing the chest to have been of more ancient date than the persons who dedicated it,—in spite of the opinions of O. Müller and Thiersch to the contrary (O. Müller, Archäol. der Kunst, sect. 57; Thiersch, Epochen der Griechischen Kunst, p. 169, 2nd edit.: Pausan. v, 17, 2). Nor is it until the same interval of time (between 600-550 B. C.) that we find any traces of these architectural monuments, by which the more important cities in Greece afterwards attracted to themselves so much renown. The two greatest temples in Greece known to Herodotus were, the Artemision at Ephesus, and the Heræon at Samos: the former of these seems to have been commenced, by the Samian Theodorus, about 600 B. C.,—the latter, begun by the Samian Rhœkus, can hardly be traced to any higher antiquity. The first attempts to decorate Athens by such additions proceeded from Peisistratus and his sons, near the same time. As far as we can judge, too, in the absence of all direct evidence, the temples of Pæstum in Italy and Selinus in Sicily seem to fall in this same century. Of painting, during these early centuries, nothing can be affirmed; it never at any time reached the same perfection as sculpture, and we may presume that its years of infancy were at least equally rude.