2.  Statuettes of baked earth; hardly known twenty years ago, they have now attained almost to celebrity since the discovery of the charming figurines of Tanagra in Boeotia.  The most of them are little idols, but some represent children or women.

=Painting.=—­There were illustrious painters in Greece—­Zeuxis, Parrhasius, and Apelles.  We know little of them beyond some anecdotes, often doubtful, and some descriptions of pictures.  To obtain an impression of Greek painting we are limited to the frescoes found in the houses of Pompeii, an Italian city of the first century of our era.  This amounts to the same as saying we know nothing of it.

FOOTNOTES: 

[81] The moderns have called this time the Age of Pericles, because Pericles was then governing and was the friend of many of these artists; but the ancients never employed the phrase.

[82] See Aristophanes’ “Clouds.”

[83] The “Memorabilia” and “Apologia.”

[84] Because Plato had lectured in the gardens of a certain Academus.

[85] Because Aristotle had given instruction while moving about. [Or rather from a favorite walk (Peripatus) in the Lyceum.—­ED.]

[86] The Greek word for temple signifies “dwelling.”

[87] But not by a square opening in the roof as formerly supposed.—­ED. See Gardner, “Ancient Athens,” N.Y., 1902, p. 268.

[88] The Parthenon contained vases of gold and silver, a crown of gold, shields, helmets, swords, serpents of gold, an ivory table, eighteen couches, and quivers of ivory.

[89] Boutmy, “Philosophie de l’Architecture en Grece.”

[90] The most noted are the Parthenon at Athens and the temple of Poseidon at Paestum, in south Italy.

[91] Knights and other subjects were also shown.—­ED.

[92] Even in the second century after the Romans had pillaged Greece to adorn their palaces, there were many thousands of statues in the Greek cities.

[93] It is not certain that the Apollo Belvidere was not a Roman copy.

[94] In the ruins of Olympia has been found a statue of Hermes, the work of Praxiteles.

CHAPTER XV

THE GREEKS IN THE ORIENT

ASIA BEFORE ALEXANDER

=Decadence of the Persian Empire.=—­The Greeks, engaged in strife, ceased to attack the Great King; they even received their orders from him.  But the Persian empire still continued to become enfeebled.  The satraps no longer obeyed the government; each had his court, his treasure, his army, made war according to his fancy, and in short, became a little king in his province.  When the Great King desired to remove a satrap, he had scarcely any way of doing it except by assassinating him.  The Persians themselves were no longer that nation before which all the Asiatic