Since the Hermes of Praxiteles was brought to light at Olympia there has been no discovery of Greek sculpture so dazzling in its splendor as that made in 1887 on the site of the necropolis of Sidon in Phenicia.  There, in a group of communicating subterranean chambers, were found, along with an Egyptian sarcophagus, sixteen others of Greek workmanship, four of them adorned with reliefs of extraordinary beauty.  They are all now in the recently created Museum of Constantinople, which has thus become one of the places of foremost consequence to every student and lover of Greek art.  The sixteen sarcophagi are of various dates, from early in the fifth to late in the fourth century.  The one shown in Fig. 162 may be assigned to about the middle of the fourth century.  Its form is adapted from that of an Ionic temple.  Between the columns are standing or seated women, their faces and attitudes expressing varying degrees of grief.  Our illustration is on too small a scale to convey any but the dimmest impression of the dignity and beauty of this company of mourners.  Above, on a sort of balustrade, may be been a funeral procession.

The old Temple of Artemis at Ephesus (cf page 140) was set on fire and reduced to ruins by an incendiary in 356 B.C., on the very night, it is said, in which Alexander the Great was born.  The Ephesians rebuilt the temple on a much more magnificent scale, making of it the most extensive and sumptuous columnar edifice ever erected by a Greek architect.  How promptly the work was begun we do not know, but it lasted into the reign of Alexander, so that its date may be given approximately as 350-30.  Through the indefatigable perseverance of Mr J. T. Wood, who conducted excavations at Ephesus for the British Museum in 1863-74, the site of this temple, long unknown, was at last discovered and its remains unearthed.  Following the example of the sixth century temple, it had the lowest drums of a number of its columns covered with relief sculpture.  Of the half dozen recovered specimens Fig. 163 shows the finest.  The subject is an unsolved riddle.  The most prominent figure in the illustration is the god Hermes, as the herald’s staff in his right hand shows.  The female figures to right and left of him are good examples of that grace in pose and drapery which was characteristic of Greek sculpture in the age of Scopas and Praxiteles.

The most beautiful Greek portrait statue that we possess is the Lateran Sophocles (Fig 164).  The figure has numerous small restorations, including the feet and the box of manuscript rolls.  That Sophocles, the tragic poet, is represented, is known from the likeness of the head to a bust inscribed with his name.  He died in 406 B.C.  The style of our statue, however, points to an original (if it be not itself the original) of about the middle of the fourth century.  There were probably in existence at this time authentic likenesses of the poet, on which the sculptor based his work.  The attitude of the figure is the perfection