The sculptured decorations of the building are of three kinds, or applied in three distinct places. In the first place, the two triangular _pediments_ over the east and west front were each filled with a group of statues more than life-size—the one representing the birth of Athene, and the other her contest with Poseidon for the patronage of Athens. Some of the figures from one of these are the great draped headless women in the centre of the Parthenon room of the British Museum: other fragments of those broken by the Venetians are preserved at Athens. There are, secondly, the _metopes_, or plaques of stone inserted into the frieze between the triglyphs, and carved in relief with a single small group on each. The height of these surfaces does not exceed four feet. There was, thirdly, a band of reliefs running all around the external wall at the top of the cella, inside the surrounding pillars, and opposite to them, and this is known as the _frieze of the cella_. It consists of a great Panathenaic procession, starting from the western front, and proceeding in two divisions along the parallel north and south walls, till they meet on the eastern front, which was the proper front of the temple. Among the Elgin marbles there are a good many of the metopes, and also of the pieces of the cella frieze preserved. Several other pieces of the frieze are preserved at Athens, and altogether we can reconstruct fully three-fourths of this magnificent composition. There seems to me the greatest possible difference in merit between the metopes and the other two parts of the ornament. The majority of the metopes which I have seen represent either a Greek and an Amazon or a Centaur and Lapith, in violent conflict. It appeared plainly to me that the main object of these contorted groups was to break in upon the squareness and straightness of all the other members of the Doric frieze and architrave. This is admirably done, as there is no conceivable design which more completely breaks the stiff rectangles of the entablature than the various and violent curves of wrestling figures. But, otherwise, these groups do not appear to me very interesting, except so far as everything in such a place, and the work of such hands, must be interesting.