a multitude of sculptured and painted figures, the wonderful composition of this throne.  In this his greatest work the artist sought to embody the idea of majesty and repose,—­of a supreme deity no longer engaged in war with Titans and Giants, but enthroned as a conqueror, ruling with a nod the subject world, and giving his blessing to those victories which gave glory to the Greeks.  So famous was this statue, which was regarded as the masterpiece of Grecian art, that it was considered a calamity to die without having seen it; and this served for a model for all subsequent representations of majesty and power in repose among the ancients.  It was removed to Constantinople by Theodosius I., and was destroyed by fire in the year 475 A.D.  Phidias executed various other famous works, which have perished; but even those that were executed under his superintendence which have come down to our times,—­like the statues which ornamented the pediment of the Parthenon,—­are among the finest specimens of art that exist, and exhibit the most graceful and appropriate forms which could have been selected, uniting grandeur with simplicity, and beauty with accuracy of anatomical structure.  His distinguishing excellence was ideal beauty, and that of the sublimest order.

Of all the wonders and mysteries of ancient art the colossal statues of ivory and gold were perhaps the most remarkable, and the difficulty of executing them has been set forth by the ablest of modern critics, like Winckelmann, Heyne, and De Quincey.  “The grandeur of their dimensions, the perfection of their workmanship, the richness of their materials, their majesty, beauty, and ideal truth, the splendor of the architecture and pictorial decoration with which they were associated,—­all conspired to impress the beholder with wonder and awe, and induce a belief of the actual presence of the god.”

After the Peloponnesian War a new school of art arose in Athens, which appealed more to the passions.  Of this school was Praxiteles, who aimed to please without seeking to elevate or instruct.  No one has probably ever surpassed him in execution.  He wrought in bronze and marble, and was one of the artists who adorned the Mausoleum of Artemisia.  Without attempting the sublime impersonation of the deity, in which Phidias excelled, he was unsurpassed in the softer graces and beauties of the human form, especially in female figures.  His most famous work was an undraped statue of Venus, for his native town of Cnidus, which was so remarkable that people flocked from all parts of Greece to see it.  He did not aim at ideal majesty so much as at ideal gracefulness; his works were formed from the most beautiful living models, and hence expressed only the ideal of sensuous charms.  It is probable that the Venus de Medici of Cleomenes was a mere copy of the Aphrodite of Praxiteles, which was so highly extolled by, the ancient authors; it was of Parian marble, and modelled from the celebrated