the eighth century B.C. bronze and marble were generally substituted for the less durable material. With this change sculpture began to make rapid progress.
(Discobolus.)
But what exerted the most positive influence upon Greek sculpture was the gymnastic art. The exercises of the gymnasium and the contests of the sacred games afforded the artist unrivalled opportunities for the study of the human form. "The whole race," as Symonds says, "lived out its sculpture and its painting, rehearsed, as it were, the great works of Phidias and Polygnotus, in physical exercises, before it learned to express itself in marble or in color."
As the sacred buildings increased in number and costliness, the services of the artist were called into requisition for their adornment. At first the temple held only the statue of the god; but after a time it became, as we have already seen, a sort of national museum. The entablature, the pediments, and every niche of the interior of the shrine, as well as the surrounding grounds and groves, were peopled with statues and groups of figures, executed by the most renowned artists, and representing the national deities, the legendary heroes, victors at the public games, or incidents in the life of the state in which piety saw the special interposition of the god in whose honor the shrine had been reared.
Phidias.—Among all the great sculptors of antiquity, Phidias stands pre-eminent. He was an Athenian, and was born about 488 B.C. He delighted in the beautiful myths and legends of the
