SCULPTURE.--Before the Persian wars, in the earliest sculpture the restraint of Egyptian and Oriental styles is perceptible in the sculptors, of whom Daedalus is the mythical representative. The oldest statues were of wood, which was subsequently covered with gold and ivory, or painted. The lofty style of _Phidias_ (488-432 B.C.), and of _Polycletus_ of Argos, became prevalent in the flourishing period of Greek liberty. _Myron_, to whom we owe the _Discobolus_ (Disk-Thrower), belongs to the school of Aegina. Statues were now made in brass and marble. They were everywhere to be seen. The pediments and friezes of the temples were covered with exquisitely wrought sculptures. The most beautiful sculptures that have come down from antiquity are the marbles of the Parthenon. The Greeks appreciated to the full the beauty of nature. They gave to their gods ideal human forms, in which were blended every attribute of majesty and grace which are conceived to belong to perfected humanity. Sculpture in Greece, as elsewhere, was ally to religion; "but whilst the religion of the Egyptians was a religion of the tomb, and their ideal world a gloomy spot peopled by sleeping lions, dreamy sphinxes, or weird unearthly monsters, the mythology of the Greeks, rightly understood, is an exquisite poem, the joint creation of the master-minds of infant Greece; and their art is a translation of that poem into visible forms of beauty." In the _third period_, which may be made to terminate with the death of _Alexander the Great_ (323 B.C.), there were masters in sculpture, among whom _Praxiteles_ and _Scopas_ are at the head. More and more, as we come down to the Roman period, while extraordinary technical perfection is still manifested, the loftier qualities of art tend to disappear. PAINTING.--In Greece, painting first ceased to be subordinate to architecture, and became independent. In early days, there was skill in the ornamentation of vases and in mural painting. Yet, with much spirit and feeling, there was a conventional treatment. The earliest artist of whom we know much is _Polygnotus_ (about 420 B.C.), whose groups of profile figures were described as remarkable for their life-like character and fine coloring. _Apollodorus_ of Athens was distinguished, but _Zeuxis_ of Heraclea is said to have been the first to paint movable pictures. He is famed for his marvelous power of imitation: the birds pecked at a bunch of grapes which he painted. But even he was outdone by _Parrhasius_. Zeuxis, however, had far higher qualities than those of a literal copyist. The most successful of the Greek painters was _Apelles_. Among his masterpieces was a painting of Venus rising from the waves, and a portrait of Alexander the Great. We have not in painting, as in sculpture, a store of monuments of Greek art; but the skill of the Greeks in painting fell behind their unequaled genius in molding the human form in bronze and marble. CHAPTER III. THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR.