of whom has felled a Lapitha to the ground; but the left hand part of the slab is so mutilated that the merits of the sculpture are here hardly appreciable.  The seventh (7) slab also represents the Lapithae losing ground.  Here, it has been shrewdly conjectured the chief personages of the battle are represented.  The female in the arms of the Centaur is supposed to be Hippodamia; and the figure struggling from the grasp of another Centaur, that of King Pirithous fighting for his outraged bride.  The next tablet (8) is in a very dilapidated condition.  The central figure is that of a muscular Centaur, with his mantle flowing from his neck, in the act of hurling something at a Lapitha who stands stoutly on the defensive, while in the further corner a female with her child is flying from pursuers.  The ninth tablet (9) discovers two vanquished Centaurs, and Lapithae in the act of dispatching their mongrel enemies.  The battle is represented at its climax on the next slab (10).  Here, as the wicked Centaur, Eurytion, is disrobing the King’s bride, and her bridesmaid is indulging in exaggerated attitudes of despair, a figure supposed to be that of the renowned founder of Athens, Theseus, springs upon the Centaur’s shoulders, and drags back his head, that the brute may not gaze upon the charms he would pollute.  The figure behind the bride is supposed to represent Diana, the goddess of Chastity.  It is a pity that the leg and arm of the Theseus, and one arm of the bridesmaid are fractured.  The last slab of those sculptured with the battle of the Centaurs, represents Apollo and Diana in a car—­Apollo the deliverer; Diana the guardian of female chastity.  Having fully examined these beautiful specimens of Greek art of the time of Pericles, the visitor should turn at once to the remaining slabs, which are devoted to the illustration of

A battle with the amazons.

Plutarch gives a graphic account of those dissensions between Theseus and the Amazons, which terminated in the famous war here celebrated.  “Philochorus,” he says, “and some others relate, that he (Theseus) sailed in company with Hercules into the Euxine Sea, to wage war with the Amazons, and that he received Antiope as the reward of his valour, but the greater number, (among whom are Pherecydes, Hellanicus, and Herodotus,) tell us, that Theseus made the voyage with his own fleet alone, some time after Hercules, and took that Amazon captive, which is indeed the more probable account; for we do not read that any other of his fellow-warriors made any Amazon prisoner.  But Bion says, he took and carried her off by a stratagem.  The Amazons (he informs us) being naturally lovers of men, were so far from avoiding Theseus when he touched upon their coasts, that they sent him presents.  Theseus invited Antiope, who brought them, into his ship, and, as soon as she was aboard, set sail.  But the account of one Menecrates, who published a history of Nice in Bithynia, is that Theseus, having