The other is the sculptured column from the temple at Ephesus.[38] Great interest attaches to this work from the inscription, which tells us that it was set up by King Crœsus of Lydia. This famous monarch was in power from 560 to 546 B.C. Himself half a Greek, with strong Hellenic sympathies and in close relation to the Delphic oracle, his growing power was overcoming and absorbing the independent cities of Ionia, who made no very violent resistance. But he himself had to face a still greater power then swallowing up the ancient kingdoms of the East--Cyrus of the Medes and Persians. Crœsus lost a great battle, and died, as ostentatiously as he had lived, on a splendid funeral pyre. The Greeks loved to invent stories about this plutocratic potentate, all illustrating one of their favourite maxims against pride, “Call no man happy until he is dead.” In defiance of chronology edifying interviews were composed between him and Solon. It is clear that the Greeks were tremendously impressed by his magnificent life and dramatic end. The fall of the Lydian power brought the Greeks face to face with Persia, and upon the issue of that momentous conflict hung the destinies of European civilisation. On purely æsthetic grounds I prefer to illustrate this section with a picture which, one fears, chronologically belongs to a period at least two generations later. But the spirit of Sappho seems to be revealed in it as in no other work of art. These “Reliefs from the Ludovisi Throne”[39] were discovered in Rome with no inscription to tell us whence or when they had been brought there. Decoratively considered, they are superb examples of low relief. Observe how the motives are accommodated to the triangular slabs. On one is a flute-girl playing the double pipe. Feminine nudity is rare indeed in fifth-century work; probably no one but an _auletris_ would have been so represented at that date; but the topic is treated with all possible refinement and reserve. On the other is a hooded worshipper trimming or extinguishing a lamp. And who is the diademed goddess on the central slab? It is not the sea from which she is rising. It can be none other than the maid, Persephone, who spent half the year with her dark lord, Hades, under the earth, and half with her mother, Demeter, above, and when she came brought the spring and the flowers back with her. The rendering of the silken garments half revealing the fine anatomy beneath is so skilful and advanced that we are surprised to notice that the eyes are still archaically rendered. * * * * * While these lines were in the press there came news that [Illustration: PLATE XXXI. RELIEFS FROM THE “LUDOVISI THRONE” _Alinari_]