468 ON THE PROGRESS OF SCULPTURE. 



For an account of these petty wars it would be 

 in vain to search the pages of general History. 

 Pausanias describes a war equally favourable to 

 the inhabitants of Elis ; but this happened about 

 the forty-eighth Olympiad. The Pisans, however, 

 must have recovered from these and other losses, 

 for we find in Strabo, that before the final ruin of 

 the Messenians, the Pisans had joined them as 

 allies. The war was carried on against the 

 Messenians by the Lacedaemonians, who, on this 

 occasion, were assisted by the Elians ; and by 

 the aid of so powerful an alliance, an end was 

 put to what is called the third Messenian war. 

 Pisa was taken, plundered, and so completely 

 destroyed, that not a vestige, and scarcely the 

 name, remained. This event occurred in Olym- 

 piad LXXXI. 1 ; which may therefore be con- 

 sidered the epocha of the foundation of the temple, 

 and allows eight years for the labour bestowed on 

 the statue. 



It may not be inappropriate to offer a few 

 remarks concerning the structure of ivory statues. 

 It may be conjectured that these colossal figures 

 were formed of plates or cubes applied to a nu- 

 cleus, which was afterwards either wholly or in 

 part, withdrawn, and united by cement. A 



