Ill] AND HISTORIC TIMES 277 



horse, and the drachms a horseman. Gela not only prided 

 herself on her racing successes, but on what was far more 

 important, her fine cavalry, for her coins show a four-horse 

 chariot with Nike floating above, and very constantly an armed 

 horseman, spearing a prostrate foe, or else striking downwards 



FIG. 77. Archaic Metope, showing a Quadriga; Selinus. 



with his spear. These coins give us some of the earliest 

 numismatic representations of riding. But by far the earliest 

 representation of Sicilian horses now extant is the quadriga on 

 one of the metopes of the archaic temple of Selinus (founded 

 B.C. 628), which date from the latter half of the seventh cen- 

 tury B.C. The metopes, which are in high relief and extremely 

 vigorous in execution, have a special interest as they are the 



