Lastly, it has been assumed that Pausanias’s account of the temple of Apollo at Delphi is irreconcileable with the remains of the building and with inscriptions relating to it which have recently been discovered by the French at Delphi. The combined evidence of architecture and inscriptions proves conclusively that the temple built by the Alcmaeonids in the sixth century B.C. was afterwards destroyed, probably by an earthquake, and that it was rebuilt in the fourth century B.C. Yet Pausanias, it is said, describes the temple of the sixth century B.C. as if it still existed in his time. Let us look at the facts in the light of the French discoveries. Observe, then, that Pausanias mentions the Gallic shields hanging on the architrave of the temple. These shields were captured in 279 B.C. Hence the temple which he describes cannot have been the old one built in the sixth century B.C., since that temple, as we now know, was afterwards destroyed and rebuilt in the fourth century B.C. But did Pausanias believe it to be the old one? There is nothing to show that he did, but on the contrary there is a good deal to show that he did not. In the first place, he does not say that the temple was built by the Alcmaeonids. He says it was built for the Amphictyons by the architect Spintharus. The date of Spintharus is otherwise unknown, but we have no reason to suppose that he lived in the sixth rather than in the fourth century B.C. In the second place, Pausanias tells us that the first sculptures for the gables of the temple were executed by Praxias, a pupil of Calamis, but that as the building lasted some time, Praxias died before it was finished, and the rest of the sculptures were executed by another artist. Now we have the evidence of Pausanias himself that the sculptor Calamis was at work as late as 427 B.C. His pupil Praxias may therefore easily, at least in the opinion of Pausanias, have been at work at the end of the fifth century B.C. or in the early part of the fourth century B.C., and this is precisely the time when, if we may judge from the historical and inscriptional evidence, the old temple was destroyed and preparations at least for rebuilding it were being made. At all events, Pausanias cannot possibly have supposed that the pupil of a man who was at work in 427 B.C. can have executed sculptures for a temple that was built in the sixth century B.C. In short, neither was the temple which Pausanias describes the temple of the sixth century B.C. nor can he possibly have supposed it to be so. The temple he describes was in all probability the temple of the fourth century B.C. His statement that the temple was long in building is amply confirmed by the inscriptions, which prove that the process of reconstruction dragged on over a period of many years.