Phigaleian saloon.

He may here take a seat for a few moments and read the points of history which belong to this saloon, before he commences his examination of it.  One year, while the present century was young, fifteen gentlemen encamped round about the ruins of a temple, known to the neighbouring inhabitants as the “columns.”  These columns were those believed to be the ruins of a temple of Apollo Epicurius, built by the citizens of ancient Phigaleia, in Arcadia.  These “columns” were situated upon a shelf of land, high up the side of Mount Cotilium, and surrounded by a rich and various landscape.  Lying scattered about were the shattered fragments of the sculptured frieze of the temple; and, with infinite labour the camp of explorers succeeded in gathering together and arranging the slabs which are now deposited in this, the Phigaleian saloon.  To the sound of Arcadian music, workmen excavated in the neighbourhood of these ruins; and in 1814 the Prince Regent obtained a grant of 15,000L. to purchase them for the British Museum.

The subjects represented by these sculptures are, the battle of the Centaurs and the Lapithae, and the war between the Amazons and Athenians—­mythical struggles upon which Greek sculptors were fond of exercising their imagination.  The battle of the centaurs is the first to which the visitor should direct his attention.  The origin of this myth is thus described by Sir Henry Ellis:  “The story of the Centaurs, it is remarked, is of Thessalian origin.  The people of Thessaly were remarkably expert in horsemanship, and were supposed to be the first in Greece who practised the art of riding on horseback.  Pelion, and other mountains in this part of Greece, abounding in wild bulls, these ferocious animals were frequently hunted by the people of the country on horseback, and when overtaken were seized by their pursuers, who caught hold of them by the horns, in a manner not less dexterous than daring.  Hence, these hunters acquired the name of Centauri and Hippocentauri.  The novel sight of a man seated on a horse, and galloping over the plains with more than human velocity, might easily suggest to the minds of an ignorant peasantry, the idea of an animal composed partly of a man and partly of a horse; and it was from this simple origin, according to some explanations, that the fable of the Centaurs sprung.  We must remark, that we place no confidence in the proposed etymology of the word Centauros, and almost as little in the explanation of the story.  The centaur Chiron in Homer was a model of justice, and the poet appears to have had no idea of the monstrous combination of two animals.  Pindar, in his second Pythian Ode, first makes us acquainted with the Hippocentaur, or half horse and half man.  Though it cannot be imagined that the Greeks ever regarded this tradition otherwise than as a fable, so far as the double nature of the animal was concerned, yet it is curious, to