Treating the two pediments as striking the keynote of the whole sculptural adornment of the monument, we shall not hesitate to find in all its representations allusions to the life and exploits of the hero whom it commemorates. But of the four friezes which encircled the building at various heights, three furnish us with information which is too vague to be historically useful. The theme of the first is battle, of the third hunting, of the fourth feasting and repose. It is only the frieze numbered as the second in the publications which gives us more detailed and accurate information. Here are unfolded to us the successive scenes of the siege and capture of a hostile city; the battle before the walls, the attempt to storm and the defence, the parleying and surrender, the escape of some of the inhabitants and the leading into captivity of others. In the scene of capitulation the central figure is an Eastern king or ruler, in Persian cap; behind him an attendant bears a sunshade; around him stand his guards. This potentate is approached by two elderly men, staid and dignified, who are clearly the representatives of the city, and come asking for terms. In other scenes we find a bold but a necessarily unsuccessful attempt to represent without due perspective the city walls with the heads of the defenders showing above them, the women wailing, the attacking force adjusting the ladders for scaling, or repulsing sorties of the besieged. The siege and the capture of a hostile city was evidently one of the most notable events of the life of the hero of the monument. With some plausibility archaeologists have found allusion to the same siege in the beautiful figures of women which stood between the columns of the pteron, the temple-like structure which crowned the monument. These figures represent young girls in the dress of Attic maidens flying in haste and alarm from some danger which threatens them. At their feet are various marine creatures: the dolphin, the sea-snake, a crab, a water-bird, or a fish. This curious circumstance has given rise to the commonly accepted view that they represent Nereid nymphs hastily escaping over the surface of the sea from some rude alarm, flying in disorder to their father Nereus, as they do on more than one vase when Peleus has laid hands on their sister Thetis. What more likely to cause a panic among the shy and peaceful ladies of the sea than a marine battle, or even the attack of an army on a city of the seacoast?