Turkish powder magazine stored in the temple, and wrought further havoc. Then the victorious General Morosini tried to remove some of the figures, and broke them in the effort. In 1801 Lord Elgin, armed with a firman authorising him to remove a few blocks of stone, carried off the greater part of the surviving sculptures. From him they were purchased by the British Government for the British Museum. Whatever the morality of this capture, it was a blessing in effect, for the Parthenon suffered further damage during the War of Liberation, and those stones which remain _in situ_ have deteriorated far more than those which were removed. Besides, the Greeks have still plenty of ancient marble to write their names on. Forlorn as they stand in the Elgin Room, battered and bruised as they are, all headless but one, and he much defaced, they still convey an impression of unsurpassed beauty and perfection of art. The subject of the front or eastern pediment[49] was the birth of Athena. The central scene had gone when Carrey sketched it. It is probable that the armed figure of the goddess rising from the head of Zeus would fill the apex. Close by would stand the goddess of childbirth (Eilithuia), and Hephæstus, who set Athena free with a blow of his hammer, would be near the centre. In the angles the figures have been better preserved, and are mostly among the Elgin Marbles. Various interpretations of their motive have been suggested, but the only one that deserves consideration is Brunn’s theory that they are scenic impersonations rather than mythological characters. It is difficult, as Furtwängler has argued, to find any other example of this sort of personification in the art or literature of the fifth century. But some of the attributions are too plausible to be avoided. At one angle the Sun is just rising in his chariot, of which the horses’ heads are visible above the cornice; at the other the Moon is just sinking in hers. That depicts the time of the great event. Next to these are figures to indicate locality. Facing Helios, with his back to the central scene, is that glorious reclining youth who used to be called “Theseus” in our Museum. According to Brunn he is really Mount Olympus. A mountain he may well be, but would not Pheidias have meant him for the Athenian Mount Hymettus? At the other side artists have sighed over the perfection of those three seated female figures, headless, alas! but wonderful in the perfection of craft which renders the elaborate folds of the soft Ionic draperies without impairing the massive grandeur of the bodies beneath. We used to call them “The Three Fates.” But it is probable that they are not a group of three; one reclines in the lap of her sister, the third sits alone. If the geographical interpretation is to hold good, we cannot improve Professor Waldstein’s suggestion that the sisterly pair is Thalassa (Sea) in the lap of Gaia (Earth). That, however, leaves us without a clue to the third.