Another group of reliefs is even more thoroughly feminine. It is dominated by the idea of adornment. The well-born ladies of Athens took, as we know, great pains to enhance by art the charms which nature had liberally bestowed upon them. The rouge-pot was a well-known part of their arsenal, and is sometimes found in their graves. They were not, like modern women, the humble slaves of a fashion which constantly changes. The form and disposition of their garments varies but little from century to century. But they were very particular as to pattern and texture, and very careful that each garment should fall in the most graceful and becoming folds. For jewelry they seem to have had a strong liking, and it may be urged as a palliation of so frivolous a taste that the Greek jewelry which has come down to us is in very good taste. The custom of adorning oneself with huge diamonds and rubies, as a proof of wealth, would have been considered barbaric in Greece. Jewelry was mainly of gold, or even gilt bronze, of little material value, but wrought by cunning workmen, in complete disregard of time, with exquisite care and subtilty[203], so as to be in itself a thing of art as well as a mere decoration. If stones were inserted in the metal, they were quite common stones, sards and onyxes and the like, not cut in facets, but carved in the form of scarabs, or engraved with beautifully cut designs in intaglio. Like the dress, the pottery, and the coins of the Greeks, and all the other surroundings of their life, their jewels exhibited on a smaller scale the same unrivalled artistic taste which is shown on a larger scale by their temples and their sculpture. Pl. XXV. Hegeso, daughter of Proxenus, is seated to left on a chair which is admirably shaped alike for comfort and steadiness. Her hair is bound with a beautifully arranged kerchief; she wears the fine Ionic chiton with sleeves and an over-dress. She is looking at a necklace which she has drawn from a box held by a serving-girl, and which she holds in both [Illustration: PLATE XXV _Page 172_ ] hands. This necklace must have been represented either by help of colour or metal. The slave-girl’s more simple dress contrasts with the elegance of that of her mistress. The work seems to belong to the early part of the fourth century. This monument is not in the Museum of Athens, but remains in its place in the Cemetery by the Gate. Pl. XXVI. We have once more a group of lady and jewel-box. But here the attendant who brings the box seems from her dress to be no slave, but a sister or relative. And the seated lady is not here attracted by the jewels, but sits in pensive attitude; it may be, however, that her right hand, which is near her neck, is holding a necklace already adjusted. In some of the details in this relief there is clumsiness, for example in the right arm of the standing figure; nevertheless the design is very graceful.