Among the discoveries, with the fruits of which Sir Charles Newton enriched the British Museum, there were few which he valued more highly than that of the Lion-tomb of Cnidus. The huge lion, which is now in the Mausoleum Room of the British Museum, reclined on the top of a building made solid to receive his vast weight, looking out over the Carian Sea. We engrave (Fig. 77) the whole monument as restored by Mr. Pullan[298]. It can scarcely be contended that the lion is a great work of sculpture. His size is imposing and his attitude monumental, but the head and body alike lack character and force. This is true of all the lions of Greek artists of the period, the great lion set up in memory of Chaeroneia, those which adorned the Mausoleum, and others. The fact is that the Greeks between the days of the Persian Wars and those of Alexander knew nothing of the lion, probably scarcely ever saw one, dead or alive. So their artistic and idealizing tendency had to work without constant reference to, and correction by, nature. Thus, while the types of the horse, the bull, and the dog went on developing on the lines of love and appreciation of nature, the type of the lion became fantastic and poor. The soul of the lion does not inhabit the bodies prepared for it by Greek artists. Nevertheless the Cnidian monument has its interest. It is conjectured, with a high degree of probability, that it was set up by Conon, after his great victory of 394 B.C. over the Spartan fleet at Cnidus. It commemorates alike the battle and the Athenians who fell in it. It is an Attic tomb though not erected in Attica, more imposing as a historical monument than the reliefs of the Cerameicus, but inferior to them in the higher artistic qualities. Our subject being Greek sculptured tombs, we must leave out of consideration one of the most important classes of Hellenic or semi-Hellenic graves, that which belongs to the Greek colonists of the Crimea and their barbarous Scythic allies[299]. In the neighbourhood of the ancient Panticapaeum, a city closely connected with Athens by ties of commerce and alliance, there are many mound-graves, which being opened have been found to contain lofty vaulted chambers, in shape and design not unlike the treasuries of Mycenae and Orchomenus, but of a far later age, belonging in fact mostly to the fourth century, which seems to have been the golden age of Panticapaeum. These graves have no important architectural features and no sculptural adornment. But they have in many cases preserved to our days their contents, a rich spoil of gold and bronze, of Greek vases and barbarous armour, of ornaments and coins. By an art-loving and paternal government, these important relics of the most northerly branch of the Hellenic stock have been carefully collected and preserved, forming to-day one of the most splendid attractions of the Hermitage Museum at St. Petersburg.