Southern frieze.

These are numbered from 62 to 90, and reach back to the northern side of the entrance to the saloon.  The slabs marked from 62 to 77 consist of horsemen, galloping, often two or three abreast:  some with helmets and armour, and others nude; and the slabs marked from 78 to 82 have sculptures of chariots drawn by four horses (mostly) abreast.  These, however, present no new points to which it is necessary to draw the visitor’s particular attention.  The business of the festival, &c., begins to be apparent in the seven last slabs (84-90).  Here the victims appear.  In the first (85) a bull appears to be giving no little trouble to some attendants, and to be utterly regardless of the solemnity of the occasion.  A bull, full of action, is the principal object on the next slab (86):  and on the next (87), one appears calmly walking to his doom.  Upon the return of the slab (90) is a figure finely executed, supposed to be that of a magistrate surveying the progress of the procession.  The sacrificial oxen are said to be masterly representations of the finest specimens of these animals.

Having examined these bas-reliefs, the visitor should at once turn to the groups which occupied central space in the saloon, and which originally adorned the eastern and western pediments of the Parthenon.

Sculptures from the eastern pediment.

These occupy the central space towards the southern end of the saloon.  The group on the eastern pediment originally represented the birth of Minerva.  The visitor will probably be first attracted to the great recumbent figure marked 93, generally believed to have represented Theseus, the Athenian hero, whose biography opens the series of Plutarch’s Lives.  The figure is now much mutilated; the nose has been chipped, and the feet are wanting, but still the form reclining on a rock is majestic.  Mr. Westmacott, in a lecture, gave his reasons for believing that this statue was meant for Cephalus, of whom Aurora was enamoured, and not Theseus.  “This work [the pediment] it must be observed, related to the most remarkable event in Athenian mythology, and was confined only to that event.  All the gods of Olympus were present at the birth of Minerva.  Now Theseus was not only not in existence, but was patronised and protected by Minerva; it would seem, therefore, extraordinary that he should be admitted as a witness of her birth.  If it is really Theseus, he could only have been introduced by Phidias in compliment to the Athenians; but whether this could on so very sacred an occasion have been allowed, may very reasonably be doubted.  Hercules, even the older, or Idaean Hercules, was, upon the same principle, equally inadmissible, the Athenians acknowledging or worshipping no Hercules prior to the son of Alcmene, who was contemporaneous with Theseus, and consequently posterior also to Minerva.  Now the mythology of Cephalus is not only in unison with Pausanias, but the admission of that person would in no degree affect the harmony of the Attic types, or principles of Athenian worship.  Cephalus was as celebrated for heroic virtues as for his beauty.”