Oil the Painting of an Ancient Vase. 313 the tutelary power of her island, had really an independent existence, and did not arise out of the tradition about a Mi- nerva Chryse, but on the contrary gave birth to it with the help of some additions: and that the nymph Chryse was a being totally different from Minerva Chryse. For there is no instance, in descriptions or authentic monuments, of Mi- nerva's being represented so entirely without any of her usual attributes, without helmet, or lance, or aegis, as she would be in this figure of Chryse ; not to mention the ornament of the radiated crown, which is wholly foreign to Minerva, though very appropriate to Chryse, as the guardian lady of the island. Hercules himself is performing the sacrifice : it is draw- ing to a close : the hero is standing with his face turned toward the victim, from which the hair over the brow has been already cut off, and he is scattering the ovXo^vTat on its head : he has a peplum, the gift of Minerva (Apollodor. 2. 4. 11. 9. with Heyne's note. Diodor. iv. 14. and Wesseling) thrown about the lower part of his person : his head is wreathed with a sprig of the wild olivetree, from which he took the chaplet he wore at the first institution of the Olympic games : the leaves and roundish berries are distinctly marked, the latter painted white. The wild olive and the poplar were two trees peculiarly sacred to Hercules ; hence it is not unusual to find him crowned with a garland of poplar, which has often been taken for ivy. Hercules is here represented with a beard, as no longer a young man : for he undertook the expedition against Troy at the end of all his labours, after his period of servitude in Lydia had expired. The horns of the victim are adorned with the woollen o-TeV/^ara, taken up in coralshaped slips. No instrument for slaughtering it is seen : it will be felled by the strong fist of the hero. lolaus, the companion and faithful ally of Hercules, is clad in the ordinary chlamys, and is holding two spears in his left hand : a small travelHng-hat, such as often occurs in paintings of vases, and on coins, covers his youth- ful head. Nike appears, to announce a certain victory : she stands ready to contract a solemn alliance with Hercules, and to
