Huddilston, John H.: The attitude of the Greek tragedians toward art (London, 1898)

Tragedians toward Art 87

those at Marathon and Salamis. The record of
those days had inspired many an artist as well
as poet. The memory of the brilliant victories
which gave freedom to Greece and to Europe
was cherished by every Hellene. The great
master Polygnotos had done the battle of
Marathon on one of the walls in the Stoa
Poikile, and had painted, too, the retreat of the
barbarians to their ships with the Greeks in hot
pursuit1. This is, however, but an accidental
record of one such painting. Many others must
have existed. One recalls here the frieze of
the Nike temple on the Acropolis, the subject
of which is generally admitted to be the battle
of Plataia2. The events of those great days had
taken their place among the sacred happenings

1 Paus. 1. 15. 3.

2 So Furtwangler, Masterpieces, p. 442 ff., and Overbeck,
Griechische Plastik, 4th ed. i. p. 481 ff. Cf. also Kekule, Die
Reliefs an der Balustrade der Athena Nike, p. 17, and Friederich-
Wolters, Bausteine, p. 281 ff. It is worthy of note in this place
that an inscription recently discovered by the Greek Arch. Soc.
in their excavations on the north slope of the Acropolis, promises
to finally settle the question as to the period when the Nike
temple was built. While opinions have hitherto varied between
a time previous to the building of the Propylaia and the first
decade of the Peloponnesian war, Kavvadias believes the inscrip-
tion fixes it at cir. 450 B.C. We may wait with interest his
publication of the same. Cf. the temporary report in Berliner
Philologische Wochenschrift for Sept. 11, 1897, p. 1151.