or else the races of the Titans, whom Zeus, the son of Kronos, puts to sleep in fiery all-surrounding flame.’  The names of those Athenians who had been eminent for military virtue, were also embroidered on it.  This will explain the following allusion in the Knights of Aristophanes, where the chorus says—­’We wish to praise our fathers, because they were an honour to this country and worthy of the peplus:  in battles by land and in the ship-girt armament conquering on all occasions they exalted this city.’  When the festival was celebrated, this peplus was brought from the Acropolis, where it had been worked, down into the city; it was then displayed and suspended as a sail to the ship, which on that day, attended by a numerous and splendid procession, was conducted through the Ceramicus and other principal parts, till it had made the circuit of the Acropolis; it was then carried up to the Parthenon, and there consecrated to Minerva.”  This splendid series of sculptures forms the gem of the Elgin collection.  The museum possesses no less than two hundred feet of the original frieze, in addition to upwards of seventy feet in casts.  The wonderful variety, the perfect drawing, the classic grace, and the unity of conception displayed in this work, entitle it to rank as the most precious relic of antiquity saved to moderns from the wrecks of time.  Starting from the left side of the entrance door to the south, the visitor begins his inspections of

The eastern frieze,

or those portions which decorated the eastern end of the Parthenon.  These are marked from 17 to 24.  The introductory slab (17) represents a procession of Greek virgins, with their long flowing draperies beautifully modelled, as the visitor will at once perceive.  Some are carrying vessels for the libations.  The next slab (18) has some interesting figures.  The four standing figures, which are to the left of the two, supposed to represent Castor and Pollux, are supposed to represent Hierophants explaining away mysteries, while the others are students of the doctrines taught at the festival.  The next slab, which is the longest in the collection (19), is said to have been originally placed above the eastern gate of the temple.  Here are females delivering offerings in baskets to one who appears to preside.  On the left, a man of dignified bearing is receiving a large roll from a youth, which Visconti supposed to be the embroidered veil.  Here seated on a throne is Jupiter, with the arms supported by two sphinxes.  Here, too, is a goddess removing her veil, supposed by some to be Juno, and by others Mercury.  At the end of the slab the visitor will remark old AEsculapius, and the figure of his daughter with a serpent twined about her left arm, as Hygieia, or Health.  The marble let into the wall below the frieze, and marked 20, is a perfect cast from a marble partly in that marked 21 and partly in that marked 22.  Slabs 23, 24 have continuations of the procession, consisting of females draped, bearing vessels and torches.  These women were selected from the noblest families of Athens.  The fragment marked 25 closes those which adorn the eastern front.  It represents a mutilated figure of one of the Metoeci, or strangers, bearing a tray filled originally with provisions.  From the eastern the visitor should proceed to the slabs of the