Mitchell, Lucy M.: A history of ancient sculpture (New York, 1883)

258 ARCHAIC SCULPTURE.

probably the subject of the last metope of the west side ; but, unfortunately,
only the head of the queen has been found, with a part of the hero's hand.
When Admete, the daughter of Eurystheus, wished for the girdle given this
Amazon queen by Ares, Heracles was obliged to go to obtain it. According
to story, after Hippolyte had consented to give it up, Hera, who wished ill to
the hero, turned herself into an Amazon, and excited Hippolyte to such an
extent, that Heracles, hearing the clamor, suspected treachery. Seizing the
queen by the hair, he then killed her, and, taking her girdle, fled.

At the opposite end of the temple we follow the hero still farther. In the
first scene, the seventh metope, he is engaged with the Erymanthian boar,
which his step-brother, King Eurystheus, required him to catch alive. Enough
remains to show that the hero had secured his prey, and was returning with it.
The scene is treated with great humor. In one corner appears Eurystheus,
who has been driven by cowardice to take refuge in one of those large earthen
pots sunk in the ground, and used in antiquity as receptacles for grain or water.
But the full force of the scene in this fragmentary metope is best obtained
from a picture found at Pompeii, preserved well-nigh complete, in which the
frightened king, with royal band about his hair, stretches his head out from
his place of refuge and beckons to Heracles to depart with the dreadful beast.
The eighth metope, also sadly injured, shows us Heracles with one of the
horses of Diomedes, king of Thrace, which were wont, as the story was, to
feed upon the flesh of innocent travellers. In the ninth metope Heracles has
to do with the triple-bodied giant Geryones, the owner of vast herds of cattle
on the island Gades, after which Eurystheus lusted. In this metope the hero
brings down his tremendous blows upon two of the bodies of the monster
sunken upon their knees, the third being probably already despatched. Hap-
pily, the tenth metope 461 is admirably preserved ; showing us the capabilities
of the sculptors of these marbles, and illustrating their naive recital of the
myths (Fig. 123). It represents that scene from the life of Heracles where
he came to the garden of the Hesperides to seek the golden apples from
the magical tree in its centre for his cruel task-master, King Eurystheus.
On his arrival he found King Atlas, who alone could procure the apples,
groaning under the load of the world. Heracles besought him to pluck the
fruit of which he was in search. At first Atlas refused, on the ground that he
could not let fall his burden. Heracles thereupon relieved him while he went
in search of the golden fruit. Here Greek mythology weaves in a pleasantry.
Atlas proposed to carry the apples in person to Mykene, while Heracles con-
tinued to bear the world. To this proposition the hero gave his consent,
adding only that he must provide himself with a cushion for his shoulders.
The slow-witted Atlas then took the load again, but found too late that
Heracles had now concluded to let him remain the unhappy bearer of the
world. The metope from Olympia representing this scene, and on the same