460 ON THE PROGRESS OF SCULPTURE. 



sculpture, cannot be viewed with indifference, and 

 it must prove highly agreeable to our moral feel- 

 ings, to vindicate his character from those vile 

 aspersions by which it has been blackened by tra- 

 dition. The materials, both for his inculpation 

 and defence, lie within a small compass, but are 

 of very different complexions ; and the dates, so 

 essential to discussions of this nature, are remark- 

 ably defective. In one particular, and in that only, 

 can the various narratives be said to harmonize — 

 viz. that after the completion of his great work in 

 the Acropolis, he was charged with embezzling 

 a portion of the gold entrusted to him, for the 

 drapery of the statue of Minerva — though it is 

 asserted, that this accusation was a political man- 

 oeuvre, not so much levelled against him, as in- 

 tended to disgrace his patron. 



In what follows, little consistency is apparent. 

 The principal authorities are the Scholiast on 

 Aristophanes, (page 604) — Diodorus Siculus, 

 (XII. 39)— and Plutarch in his life of Pericles. 



Diodorus, or rather the older historian Ephorus, 

 whom he copies (as appears from a subsequent pas- 

 sage,) states that some of the artists associated 

 with Phidias in the construction of the Parthenon, 



