The figures of this type stand with the left foot, as a rule, a little advanced, the body and head facing directly forward with primitive stiffness.  But the arms no longer hang straight at the sides, one of them, regularly the right, being extended from the elbow, while the other holds up the voluminous drapery.  Many of the statues retain copious traces of color on hair, eyebrows, eyes, draperies, and ornaments; in no case does the flesh give any evidence of having been painted (cf. page 119).  Fig. 89 is taken from an illustration which gives the color as it was when the statue was first found, before it had suffered from exposure.  Fig. 90 is not in itself one of the most pleasing of the series, but it has a special interest, not merely on account of its exceptionally large size—­it is over six and a half feet high—­but because we probably know the name and something more of its sculptor.  If, as seems altogether likely, the statue belongs upon the inscribed pedestal upon which it is placed in the illustration, then we have before us an original work of that Antenor who was commissioned by the Athenian people, soon after the expulsion of the tyrant Hippias and his family in 510, to make a group in bronze of Harmodius and Aristogiton (cf. pages 160-4) This statue might, of course, be one of his earlier productions.

At first sight these figures strike many untrained observers as simply grotesque.  Some of them are indeed odd; Fig. 91 reproduces one which is especially so.  But they soon become absorbingly interesting and then delightful.  The strange-looking, puzzling garments, [Footnote:  Fig 91 wears only one garment the Ionic chiton, a long; linen shift, girded at the waist and pulled up so as to fall over conceal the girdle.  Figs 89, 90, 92 93 wear over this a second garment which goes over the right shoulder and under the left This over-garment reaches to the feet, so as to conceal the lower portion of the chiton At the top it is folded over, or perhaps rather another piece of cloth is sewed on.  This over-fold, if it may be so called, appears as if cut with two or more long points below] which cling to the figure behind and fall in formal folds in front, the elaborately, often impossibly, arranged hair, the gracious countenances, a certain quaintness and refinement and unconsciousness of self—­these things exercise over us an endless fascination.

Who are these mysterious beings?  We do not know.  There are those who would see in them, or in some of them, representations of Athena, who was not only a martial goddess, but also patroness of spinning and weaving and all cunning handiwork.  To others, including the writer, they seem, in their manifold variety, to be daughters of Athens.  But, if so, what especial claim these women had to be set up in effigy upon Athena’s holy hill is an unsolved riddle.