90 XENOPHON ON HORSEMANSHIP. 



rude workmanship, presenting pictures which 

 to the PhiHstine are nothing but ridiculous 

 caricatures, — even in these early productions 

 and still more frequently on the later vases, 

 there are traces which show that it was the 

 artist's hand that was at fault, or that he was 

 governed by convention, and that there was 

 present before his mind something very like 

 the conception which the assistants of Phidias 

 were enabled to work out, — some of them, 

 it is true, without the full measure of success, 

 others almost to perfection. It was, I believe, 

 not the want of a type, but of the genius to 

 give expression to the type, or again it was 

 the power of convention, that prevented those 

 artists whose works have survived from 

 enabling us to settle from their productions 

 the question which has engaged us. The 

 type of horse portrayed on the frieze was a 

 very old one, even in the fifth century; the 

 minute description of the points given by 

 Xenophon and confirmed by other writers, 

 helps us to detect the faults which a Greek 

 horseman would have seen in some of the 

 figures on the frieze. To obtain, therefore, 

 a correct conception of the Greek idea of a 



