on the subject “Olympia; Die Bildwerke in Stein und Thon,” Pl.  LXV.] With her left hand she seeks to ease a little the hero’s heavy load.  Before him stands Atlas, holding out the apples in both hands.  The main lines of the composition are somewhat monotonous, but this is a consequence of the subject, not of any incapacity of the artist, as the other metopes testify.  The figure of Athena should be compared with that of Sterope in the eastern pediment.  There is a substantial resemblance in the drapery, even to the arbitrary little fold in the neck; but the garment here is entirely open on the right side, after the fashion followed by Spartan maidens, whereas there it is sewed together from the waist down; there is here no girdle; and the broad, flat expanse of cloth in front observable there is here narrowed by two folds falling from the breasts.

Fig. 114 is added as a last example of the severe beauty to be found in these sculptures.  It will be observed that the hair of this head is not worked out in detail, except at the front.  This summary treatment of the hair is, in fact, more general in the metopes than in the pediment-figures.  The upper eyelid does not yet overlap the under eyelid at the outer corner (cf.  Fig. 110).

The two pediment-groups and the metopes of this temple show such close resemblances of style among themselves that they must all be regarded as products of a single school of sculpture, if not as designed by a single man.  Pausanias says nothing of the authorship of the metopes; but he tells us that the sculptures of the eastern pediment were the work of Paeonius of Mende, an indisputable statue by whom is known (cf. page 213), and those of the western by Alcamenes, who appears elsewhere in literary tradition as a pupil of Phidias.  On various grounds it seems almost certain that Pausanias was misinformed on this point.  Thus we are left without trustworthy testimony as to the affiliations of the artist or artists to whom the sculptured decoration of this temple was intrusted.

The so-called Hestia (Vesta) which formerly belonged to the Giustiniani family (Fig. 115), has of late years been inaccessible even to professional students.  It must be one of the very best preserved of ancient statues in marble, as it is not reported to have anything modern about it except the index finger of the left hand.  This hand originally held a scepter.  The statue represents some goddess, it is uncertain what one.  In view of the likeness in the drapery to some of the Olympia figures, no one can doubt that this is a product of the same period.