one type, and represent men of middle age, with grave but benevolent countenances.  Yet they are intended, some as statues of aged monarchs, others to perpetuate the memory of young princes.  The warrior and the lawgiver, the blood-thirsty tyrant and the philanthropist are only distinguished from each other by a difference in size, by which the Egyptian sculptor expresses the idea of power and strength.  Amasis orders a statue just as I should a sword.  Breadth and length being specified, we both of us know quite well, before the master has begun his work, what we shall receive when it is finished.  How could I possibly fashion an infirm old man like an eager youth? a pugilist like a runner in the foot-race? a poet like a warrior?  Put Ibykus and our Spartan friend side by side, and tell me what you would say, were I to give to the stern warrior the gentle features and gestures of our heart-ensnaring poet.”

“Well, and how does Amasis answer your remarks on this stagnation in art?”

“He deplores it; but does not feel himself strong enough to abolish the restrictive laws of the priests.”

“And yet,” said the Delphian, “he has given a large sum towards the embellishment of our new temple, expressly, (I use his own words) for the promotion of Hellenic art!”

“That is admirable in him,” exclaimed Croesus.  “Will the Alkmaeonidae soon have collected the three hundred talents necessary for the completion of the temple?  Were I as rich as formerly I would gladly undertake the entire cost; notwithstanding that your malicious god so cruelly deceived me, after all my offerings at his shrine.  For when I sent to ask whether I should begin the war with Cyrus, he returned this answer:  I should destroy a mighty kingdom by crossing the river Halys.  I trusted the god, secured the friendship of Sparta according to his commands, crossed the boundary stream, and, in so doing, did indeed destroy a mighty kingdom; not however that of the Medes and Persians, but my own poor Lydia, which, as a satrapy of Cambyses, finds its loss of independence a hard and uncongenial yoke.”

“You blame the god unjustly,” answered Phryxus.  It cannot be his fault that you, in your human conceit, should have misinterpreted his oracle.  The answer did not say ‘the kingdom of Persia,’ but ‘a kingdom’ should be destroyed through your desire for war.  Why did you not enquire what kingdom was meant?  Was not your son’s fate truly prophesied by the oracle? and also that on the day of misfortune he would regain his speech?  And when, after the fall of Sardis, Cyrus granted your wish to enquire at Delphi whether the Greek gods made a rule of requiting their benefactors by ingratitude, Loxias answered that he had willed the best for you, but was controlled by a mightier power than himself, by that inexorable fate which had foretold to thy great ancestor, that his fifth successor was doomed to destruction.”