On one side of the entrance stood a chariot drawn by four horses in bronze, and directly opposite a chapel of Aphrodite, containing a bronze lioness, with a statue of the goddess herself by Calamis; a little further the eye rested on Diitrephes, pierced like St. Sebastian with arrows; two figures of the goddess Health; a youth in bronze, by Lycios, bearing the Perirrhanterion, or brush for sprinkling holy water; Myron’s group of Perseus cutting off the head of Medusa, and the three Graces draped by Socrates,[254] son of Sophroniscos. Advancing past the chapel of Artemis Brauronia you beheld, amid numerous groups of less striking monuments, the Attic conception of the Trojan horse; Athena smiting Marsyas; Heracles strangling the serpents in his cradle; Phrixos sacrificing the ram; and Theseus, the national hero, slaughtering the Minotaur in the Cretan labyrinth.[255] Here, too, was an Athena issuing from the head of Zeus, together with the figure of a bull presented by the Senate of Areiopagos; and, a little beyond, an embodiment of a very pious and a very beautiful thought,—a figure of Earth, the mother of gods and men, praying to the ruler of Olympos for rain. Of Zeus, the Cloud-Compeller, there were numerous representations by artists of celebrity; the figure of Apollo, by Pheidias, standing before the eastern front of the Parthenon, was lighted up by the first rays of the morning. But the tutelar gods of Attica, Athena and Poseidon, the genii of political wisdom and maritime power, exhibited as struggling for the mastery over the Athenian mind, met the eye in various parts of the Acropolis,—the piety of the people delighting to reproduce with various attributes the objects of their affectionate adoration. Among these divinities, the statues of several poets, orators, and generals were found; Anacreon, Epicharmos, Phormio, Timotheus, Conon, Pericles, and Isocrates. On drawing near the Parthenon, its sculptured pediments and metopes, representing legends in the mythology and religious processions of Athens, excited admiration, and still excite it, by their original design and matchless workmanship: and, suspended from its highly painted friezes, and resting on its white marble architraves, were rows of highly burnished shields of gold.[256] Footnote 254: Paus. i. 22. 8. Footnote 255: On the labyrinth at present shown in Crete, see Tournefort, i. 76. sqq. Footnote 256: They were votive offerings, and the impressions they made are still visible upon the marble.—Words. Athens and Attica, 117. Lachares afterwards, when Athens was besieged by Demetrius, carried them away with him into Bœotia.—Paus. i. 25. 7. To facilitate his escape, he is said to have scattered handfuls of golden Darics on the road, which, tempting the cavalry in pursuit, prevented his capture.—Polyæn. iii. 7. 1.