The etymology of the word used by the Greeks to express painting was the same which they employed for writing, and this renders the affinity of method and materials certain. Their first efforts were striagrams, simple outlines of a shade; thence they advanced to the monogram, or form without light or shade; from this they arose to the monochrom, or design with a single pigment, on a waxed tablet; and in the end, by means of the pencil, then first used, they invented the polychrom, and thus raised the stained drawing to a legitimate picture, glowing through all the magic scale of rainbow tints. The progressive steps in the attainment of excellence in this art are distinctly marked by the terms employed by Quinctilian, when he says that Zeuxis discovered light and shade; Pamphilus was exquisite for subtlety of line; Protogenes, for finish; Apelles, for grace; Theon, for poetical conceptions; Polygnotus, for simplicity of color and form; Aristides, for expression; and Amphion, for composition. When Neptune and Minerva disputed as to who should name the capital of Cecropia, the Olympian hierarchy decided that the right should be given to the one who bestowed the greatest benefit on man. Neptune smote the earth with his trident, from whence sprang a war-horse; while Minerva produced an olive-tree. Thenceforth, as the greatest glory of the age, the arts of peace prevailed, and the product and proof of the noblest fame was set forth in mighty sculpture along the western pediment of the Parthenon. This was of pure Attic origin, and worthily crowned the reminiscences of oriental skill beneath. Egypt gathered the palm and lotus, the papyrus and date-leaves together, and produced the column, that symbol of strength, fastened like a bundle of sticks, the binding together of which probably suggested elegant flutings to the Greeks. But, while mechanical execution absolutely perfect, and great exactness in copyism of ignoble types, were imported from the East, in vain do we there seek, from Moses to Ptolemy, for the least approximation to natural forms. In the land of its growth, the lotus-leaf never alters, nor do the owl and ibis borrow one truthful characteristic from the models which abounded in the valley of the Nile. According to Herodotus, a heroic mythology, that great lever of Greek art, was altogether wanting in Egypt; and for this reason, doubtless, of their individual poets, sculptors, and painters, we do not possess the slightest record. On the contrary, in the great western metropolis, infant art was progressively nourished by the refined spirit of both natural and ideal excellence; the permanent traces of which perpetually remain on the painted vases and delicate basso-relievos which in the temples of Theseus and Minerva adorned the councils of the supreme gods.