"The principal cause of the progress of sculpture was the enlargement which it experienced in the range of its subjects, and the consequent multiplicity of its productions. As long as statues were confined to the interior of the temples, and no more were seen in each sanctuary than the idol of its worship, there was little room and motive for innovation; and, on the other hand, there were strong inducements for adhering to the practice of antiquity. But, insensibly, piety or ostentation began to fill the temples with groups of gods and heroes, strangers to the place, and guests of the power who was properly invoked there. The deep recesses of their pediments were peopled with colossal forms, exhibiting some legendary scene appropriate to the place or the occasion of the building. The custom of honoring the victors at the public games with a statue--an honor afterward extended to other distinguished persons--contributed, perhaps, still more to the same effect; for, whatever restraints may have been imposed on the artists in the representation of sacred subjects, either by usage or by a religious scruple, these were removed when the artists were employed in exhibiting the images of mere mortals. As the field of the art was widened to embrace new objects, the number of masters increased; they were no longer limited, where this had before been the case, to families or guilds; their industry was sharpened by a more active competition and by richer rewards. As the study of nature became more earnest, the sense of beauty grew quicker and steadier; and so rapid was the march of the art, that the last vestiges of the arbitrary forms which had been hallowed by time or religion had not yet everywhere disappeared when the final union of truth and beauty, which we sometimes endeavor to express by the term ideal, was accomplished in the school of Phid'ias." [Footnote: Thirlwall's "History of Greece," vol. i., p. 206.] We cannot attempt to give here the names of the masters of sculpture who flourished prior to 500 B.C., or trace the still extant remains of their genius; but their works were numerous, and the beauty and grandeur of many of them caused them to be highly valued in all succeeding ages. In fact, before the Persian wars had commenced, the branch of sculpture termed statuary had attained nearly the summit of its perfection. CHAPTER IX. THE PERSIAN WARS.