belong to the 9th and 8th centuries B. C. and are largely bas-reliefs, made on a large scale and of curious forms, as the colossal winged bulls, with human heads, that guarded their palaces. The first monument of classic Greek art which has come down to the present time is the marble statues on the temple of Athena at Ægina, by an unknown author. They now are at Munich. Pheidias, the greatest of Greek sculptors and of the world, known by his great work, the Parthenon, was followed by Praxiteles, Scopas and Lysippus, with such works as the Venus of Milo, Apollo Belvedere and Laocoön. The best artists of Rome were Greeks, and her treasures of art were largely brought from the plundered cities of Greece. For centuries the art of sculpture was almost lost until the 14th and 15th centuries, when Ghiberti made his wonderful gates at Florence and Donatello his statues of St. Mark and St. George, and Michael Angelo towered above all others. The 17th century witnessed only a falling back in the art of sculpture, with no immortal names among the artists; but the names of Houdon, Canova, Chantrey, Gibson, Thorwaldsen and Rude, among others, adorn the 18th century. The art had many followers in the 19th century, as Alfred Stevens of England, with his magnificent monument to the Duke of Wellington, and Barye, Rodin and many others in France, and Powers, Crawford, Greenough, Rogers, MacMonnies and St. Gaudens in the United States. See History of Sculpture by Lübke and History of Greek Sculpture by Murray.
Scutari (sko͞o′tä-rē), a town in Turkey, on the eastern shore of the Bosporus, opposite Constantinople, of which it is a suburb. It is built on the slopes of a hill, and has handsome mosques, bazars, a dervish college and factories of cotton, silk and leather goods. It is famed for its large cemeteries adorned with great cypress-trees, where many of the Turks from the city are buried, because it is the sacred soil of Asia. During the Crimean War the barracks and hospital of the English troops were at Scutari, and formed the scene of Florence Nightingale's labors. A marble obelisk marks the site of the English burial place. Population from 30,000 to 40,000. Scutari also is a government in Albania; area 4,170 square miles; population 294,100.
Scylla and Charybdis (sĭl′lȧ and kā̇-rĭb′dĭs), in Greek legend, were two sea-monsters who dwelt on opposite sides of a narrow strait. Scylla had 12 feet, six necks and six mouths, with three rows of teeth in each, and barked like a dog. Charybdis lived on a cliff under a large fig-tree and three times a day she sucked up the waters of the sea, and three times threw them back. Ulysses passed safely between the monsters, but Scylla snatched away six of his sailors. The names are now applied to a whirlpool in the Straits of Messina near Italy. From the difficulty of passing between them without falling into one or the other rises the proverb: To shun Charybdis and fall into Scylla.
Scythians (sĭth′ĭ-ans), an ancient race of Asia. The name is given either to the Scythians proper, the Scolots, or to all the wandering tribes who lived on the steppes from Hungary to Turkestan. The Scythians proper were a wandering people, living in the treeless plains between the Danube and the Volga. They lived in tent-covered wagons, kept herds of horses, cattle and sheep, fought with bows and arrows on horseback, made drinking-cups of the skulls of their enemies, and worshipped (without images) gods like those of the Aryan Greeks. They seem to have learned some of the arts of civilized life from the Greek colonies, and a Scythian king went to Athens to study under Solon. In the 7th century they invaded Media occupying it ten years, until Cyaxares made all their chiefs drunk at a banquet and slew them. The Scythians of Europe were nearly exterminated by the Sarmatians (q. v.) in the 4th century. The Scythians of Asia overran Parthia (northeastern Persia) about 128 B. C., and founded a kingdom in the eastern part of the empire, so that that part of Asia was called Indo-Scythia In the century before and the century after Christ they invaded northern India, where they held possession for four or five centuries. Consult Mahaffy's The Greek World under Roman Sway.
Sea. The waters of the sea cover about 143,259,300 square miles or about five sevenths of the earth's surface. The ocean-basins are filled with sea-water to within about 2,250 feet of the general level of the continents, the average depth of the water in these basins being 12,480 feet. Were the solid crust of the earth to be reduced to a level, the surface of the earth would then be covered by a universal ocean with a depth of about two miles. The greatest depth recorded is 4,655 fathoms in the North Pacific, east of Japan. The bulk of water in the whole ocean is stated to be 323,800,000 cubic miles. The temperature of the surface waters varies from 28° F. in the polar regions to 85° or 86° F. in equatorial regions. The bottom waters vary from 32.7° F. to 36.8° F. At a depth of a little over half a mile the water of the tropics generally has a temperature below 40° F. The circulation of oceanic waters is kept up by the action of the prevailing winds on the surface layers. In the southern hemisphere the warm water of the tropics is driven to the south along the eastern coasts of South America, Africa and Australia, till, between 50° and 55° latitude, it sinks on being cooled, and spreads slowly over the ocean floor to the
