The figure is draped in a _chiton_, with sleeves which are fastened down with studs; a circlet rests upon the head, and the hair falls in long tresses over the shoulders; the beard is long, and of the peculiar shape commented upon by ancient writers. The marble is beautifully worked, the details very graceful, and the expression given to the face remarkable. The statue was found in the villa of Antoninus Pius, near Civita Lavinia. The right arm, left hand, the mouthpiece, and part of the middle of the pipe are restorations; but the artist, being in the dark as to the actual kind of flute originally represented, made up a shape of mouthpiece from the fragments, for which his inner consciousness alone is responsible. [Illustration: _Midas the Flute Player_ _Fig. 24._] The flutes represented are from a photograph of the instruments in the British Museum, and there can be little doubt that this kind of pipe was the one given to the player by the sculptor. The reed when placed in the little tube would stand at half a right angle to the pipe, as the bore indicates that degree of slant. [Illustration: _The Ringed Flutes_ _Fig. 25._] In taking leave of Greece and her flutes, I am pleased to be able to quote from recent intelligence one incident which shows the permanence of national character. “Milo, the Island of the Cyclades, in which the famous ‘Venus of Milo’ was discovered, has again been the scene of the unearthing of a splendid example of ancient Hellenic art. The new ‘find’ is the marble statue of a boxer, somewhat above life size, which is almost as perfect after its burial under the dust of centuries as it was when it came fresh from the hands of its sculptor. “The shipping of the statue to Athens was made the occasion for a characteristic Greek popular festival. The whole population, headed by the civil magistrates and a band of musicians, and followed by a regiment of soldiers, accompanied the newly found treasure in jubilant procession to the ship, which had been sent from Athens for its transport to the capital.” The old ways remain! The Greeks are a young people yet; they show the same spontaneity of enthusiasm, the same joy in the face of nature, the same impulses under the influence of art. Theirs is still a small world girdled by the sea, and they are not so far as we from the days when Conquerors thanked the gods With laurel chaplets crowned. [Illustration] CHAPTER XI. Near the City of Charites. THE MYSTERY OF THE “SLENDER BRASS.”