‘Not yet dead,
But in old marbles ever beautiful,’
we will find our suspicions as to the inaccuracy of those who assert that this people provided an armour for their horses' feet, more than confirmed.
It must be remembered that the Greeks were the first true interpreters of nature. To this their physical organization, their climate, but, perhaps, most of all their religion, concurred to develop those principles of beauty that induce man to select from nature the forms and combinations which give the highest and most endurable pleasure.
The creations of these people, who, according to Pindar,
‘Strew'd o'er their walls, their public ways,
The sculptured life, the breathing stone,’[1]
now that two thousand years have passed away, yet, and will ever, command the admiration of refined taste, speaking, as they do, to our imagination and understanding, while carrying with them the greatest beauty of proportion, the utmost simplicity and truth in design, and blending a harmony with a purity and regard for nature such as has never been surpassed. We recognize in their sculptures of horses that intense and astonishing expression of life, which none but the greatest artists are capable of bestowing on their imitations of nature, when teeming with vitality and action. Theocritus, two thousand years ago, was enraptured with these chisellings:
‘How true they stand, and move, and quite appear
Alive, not wrought! What clever things men are!’[2]
