174 



FLORA OF THE 



story to the Archaic Room of the British Museum. 

 We find there the fig. 92, on the top of a monument, 



Fig. 92. — Part of west pediment, CEgina ; Archaic Room, British Museum. 



showing the battle of the Greeks and Trojans. To 

 my mind it is a pair of horns twisted into a form 

 not unHke a lyre. Inside it has an anthemion, and 

 above it has another, both of which I take to be 

 survivals of the date-tree head of the Assyrian sacred 

 tree. The lower anthemion, moreover, has a ligature 

 under its hornlets to show us what it came from. This, 

 so to speak, horn-lyre would require very little doctoring 

 in the imagination of a Greek artist to turn it into 

 a lyre, like that of fig. 91. The bend in the side of 

 this latter one might consider as the tzvist in a bull's 



horn. 



Now one would like to ask— why did the Greek 

 architect, who designed that sort of horn-lyre shown 

 in fi"". 92, give it so much prominence ? It is placed 

 at the very apex of the monument, as a sort of 



