Papers of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (5.1886-1890)

THE MANTINEIAN RELIEFS.

285

they might be. In such cases casts which give all the lines and do
not reproduce the accidental staining of the marble may supplement
the accurate appreciation of works of antiquity. The authorities of
the museum generously made a set of casts which they presented to the
American School to illustrate the present paper when read at one of
our meetings.

The three slabs are practically of the same dimensions: slab I is
1.35 m. wide by 0.9G m. in height, while slabs II and III are 1.36 m.
wide by 0.96 m. and 0.98 m. in height.

The first slab bears three figures of which the first is seated : a dig-
nified male figure with long curls dressed in the long-sleeved talaric
chiton, and himation, and holding a large lyre resting upon his knee.
There can be no doubt that this figure represents Apollo. At the
other end of this slab is a nude bearded older man playing the double
pipes, in an attitude half-retreating, half-advancing, which from the
well-known type of the Myronian Marsyas will at once be identified
as Marsyas. Between these two figures stands a bearded younger man
with a head-dress something like a combination of a veil and a Phry-
gian cap, wearing a chiton with sleeves, anaxyrides, and shoes. He
holds in his right hand a knife. From this foreign costume, as well as
from the type and evident function of the figure, no archaeologist can fail
to see in him the Scythian slave charged with the execution of Marsyas.
The scene suggested by this slab is beyond doubt the first stage in the
story of the flaying of Marsyas. It is equally evident that the six
female figures holding musical instruments, rolls, and papyri represent
six of the nine Muses, and it appears evident that one slab is missing
which must have contained the other three Muses. Now, in the pas-
sage cited above, Pausanias, in describing Mantineia which he enters
by the southeast gate, mentions first a double temjfle of which one half
was dedicated to Asklepios; and he continues: To Be erepovAt;toi)?
eerTLV lepov Kal ru>v iralBcov. Tlpa^ire\rj<; Be ra dydX/xara eipyaaaTO
Tpirtj /j,£Ta'A\Kap.evt)v varepov yeved. tovtwv ire'KOLrjp.eva earlv IttI
ra ftdQpto Movaa Kal ~\lapava<; aiikuiv. We thus learn that Praxi-
teles made the three statues of the second half of the temple, namely,
Leto with her two children Apollo and Artemis, and that on the base
of these statues was portrayed a story of Marsyas and the Muses.

Literally, Pausanias speaks only of "a Muse and Marsyas playing
on the pipes;" and M. Fougeres solves the difficulty in interpret-