Smith, Arthur H.; British Museum <London> / Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities [Editor]: A Catalogue of the sculptures of the Parthenon, in the British Museum (London, 1900)

FRIEZE OF PARTHENON. 71

solemn act (commonly supposed to be the delivery of the
peplos) is being performed in the presence of an assembly
of deities, separated into two groups interjected among
the heads of the procession who have arrived and stand
waiting. These deities are supposed to be invisible, and
doubtless in a picture they would have been placed in the
background, seated in a semicircle and looking inwards.
In the narrow space of a'frieze a combined arrangement
was necessary, such as we see here. Next we see the
persons receiving the procession on the north side, and
then at the head of that procession are Canephori,
victims with their attendants, Scaphephori, Spondophori,
musicians, chariots and cavalry. After going down
the north side, meeting the procession, we pass along
the west side, where it is still in a state of prepara-
tion for departure. We then pursue the other main
stream along the south side of the Temple passing the
cavalry, chariots and victims. All through the frieze
are magistrates and heralds marshalling the order of the
procession. It has been objected that many features
which we know to have formed a part of the original
ceremony, as, for instance, the ship on which the peplos
was borne, are not found on the frieze; but Pheidias
would only select for his composition such details from
the actual procession as he considered suitable for repre-
sentation in sculpture, working, as he here did, under
certain architectonic conditions.

Note.—The numbers of the slabs, painted in Eoman
figures on the lower moulding, and placed in the right-
hand margin of this catalogue, agree throughout with
the numbers of Michaelis. The numbers here assigned
to the separate figures and painted in Arabic numerals
above the frieze, do not agree with those of Michaelis,
except in the case of the west side. On the east side,