To fill up the vacant space, there is represented below this figure and below the horse a pattern of volutes, whose second, third, and fourth spirals are much larger, in proportion to the space, than the other five spirals. Mr. Postolaccas calls to my notice that the curious relief-band above the horse resembles the _pelta lunata_ of the Amazons on the ancient vases; this relief-band consists of two horizontal spirals opposite to each other. The chariot gives us a unique and most precious specimen of the Homeric chariot, of which we had before but a confused idea. The body of the chariot (πείρινς) does not form a semicircle, as we were wont to imagine from the sculptures of classical antiquity and from the ancient chariot preserved in the museum at Munich, but it is quadrangular; according to the Iliad,[196] the chariot-box was fastened on the chariot every time it was used. We see on three sides of the chariot-box a band or fillet, which is what Homer[197] doubtless means by the word ἄντυξ, translated by the Earl of Derby 'rail.' Unlike Homer's chariot of the gods, the wheels of which (κύκλα) had eight spokes, the wheels of the chariot before us have only four spokes, which form a cross around the axle (ἄξονι ἀμφίς).[198] Just behind the warrior in the chariot there is a very curious sign, the lower part of which forms a long hook, the upper part a spiral line. M. Postolaccas reminds me that this same sign very frequently occurs on the medals of Roman families, as, for example, on those of Julius Cæsar, Marcus Antonius, and so forth, and in his opinion it is nothing else than the augur-staff, in Latin "_lituus_." [Sidenote: CHARACTER OF THE SCULPTURE.] On carefully examining the sculpture of the tombstones, I find such a marvellous accuracy and symmetry in all the spiral ornamentation, that I feel almost tempted to think such work can only have been produced by a school of sculptors which had worked for ages in a similar style. On the other hand, the men and the animals are made as rudely and in as puerile a manner as if they were the primitive artist's first essay to represent living beings. But still there is a great resemblance between the bodies of the animals and those of the two lions on the gate; there is the same style of art, and much of the coarseness in the animals on the tombstones may be due to the inferiority of the calcareous stone; probably the primitive sculptor who chiselled them would have produced something better if he had had to work on the beautiful hard _breccia_ of which the sculpture above the Lions' Gate consists. I have therefore not the slightest objection to admit that the sculptured sepulchral slabs may be of nearly the same epoch as the lions over the gate. [Illustration: No. 141. The Third Tombstone, found above the Sepulchres in the Acropolis. (4 M.) About one-tenth of the actual size.] FOOTNOTES: [142] Horace, _Epod._ V. 86. [143] From αἴξ (root αἰγ), a _goat_. [144] _Il._ II. 101.