Since, moreover, the Homeric masterpieces of poetry were older than any masterpiece of art, for Homer had observed nature with the eye of an artist before either Phidias or Apelles, the artists naturally found ready made in his poems many valuable observations, which they had not yet had time to make for themselves. These they eagerly seized upon, in order that, through Homer, they might copy nature. Phidias acknowledged that the lines,[145]— Ἦ καὶ κυανέῃσιν ἐπ’ ὀφρύσι νεῦσε Κρονίων· ἀμβρόσιαι δ’ ἄρα χαῖται ἐπεῤῥώσαντο ἄνακτος κρατὸς ἀπ’ ἀθανάτοιο· μέγαν δ’ ἐλέλιξεν Ὄλυμπον, served him as the model of his Olympian Jupiter, and that only through their help had he succeeded in making a godlike countenance, “propemodum ex ipso cœlo petitum.” Whoever understands by this merely that the imagination of the artist was fired by the poet’s sublime picture, and thus made capable of equally sublime representations, overlooks, I think, the chief point, and contents himself with a general statement where something very special and much more satisfactory is meant. Phidias here acknowledges also, as I understand him, that this passage first led him to notice how much expression lies in the eyebrows, “quanta pars animi” is shown in them. Perhaps it further induced him to bestow more attention upon the hair, in order to express in some degree what Homer calls ambrosial curls. For it is certain that the old artists before Phidias had very little idea of the language and significance of the features, and particularly neglected the hair. Even Myron was faulty in both these respects, as Pliny observes,[146] and, according to the same authority, Pythagoras Leontinus was the first who distinguished himself by the beauty of his hair. Other artists learned from the works of Phidias what Phidias had learned from Homer.