SALOON.] 
GREEK SCULPTURES. 
139 
had been in some degree mutilated, and some so entirely destroyed that 
it was in vain to attempt their restoration. Those which were capable 
of repair were committed to the hands of Mr. Thorwaldsen, and in 
uniting the broken fragments, and restoring the parts of them that were 
deficient, that eminent artist has shown the greatest care and sagacity. 
The pediment at the north side of the room is taken from the western 
end of the temple; it contains ten figures, and it is supposed that there 
was originally one more, who was stooping down to assist the fallen 
warrior, who is wounded, at the feet of Minerva. The subject is sup¬ 
posed to be the contest between the Greeks and Trojans for the body of 
Patroclus. Ajax, assisted by Teucer and Diomed, endeavouring to 
recover the body, Hector, Paris, and iEneas to seize it. 
Of the figures which adorned the other pediment only five now re¬ 
main, and the loss of the rest is the more to be lamented, as the sculp¬ 
tures of this eastern end are of a much higher character than those of 
the western. From the few figures which are still spared to us, it appears 
that the subject of this picture was similar to that of the other pediment, 
modified only by the taste and skill of the artist, perhaps the expedition 
of Hercules and Telamon against Troy. 
Round the sides of this room, beneath the Phigalian frieze, and on 
the floor, are eleven bas-reliefs, formerly part of the celebrated mauso¬ 
leum at Halicarnassus, a tomb erected in honour of Mausolus, king of 
Caria, by his wife Artimesia, in the 4th year of the 106th Olympiad, 
B.c. 353. This monument, one of the seven wonders of the world, 
was built by the architects Phiteus and Satyrus, and adorned with 
sculptures by five sculptors, viz.; Pythis, who made a quadriga for the 
top; Scopas, or Praxiteles, who sculptured the eastern; Bryaxis, the 
northern ; Timotheus, the southern ; and Leochares, the western side; 
all artists of the later Athenian school. The subject of the frieze is 
the battle of the Greeks and Amazons, and Hercules appears among 
the combatants. The style of at least two artists can be traced in these 
sculptures ; and apparently more sculptures from different parts of the 
building have been preserved. In a.d. 1522, these sculptures were 
discovered amidst a heap of ruins, and employed by the Knights of 
Rhodes in the construction of the castle of St. Peter at Halicarnassus, the 
present fortress at Boudroum, in the walls of which they remained en¬ 
cased till their removal in 1846, when they were presented by the Sultan 
Abd-ul-Mehjid to Sir Stratford Canning, H.M. Ambassador at Con¬ 
stantinople, and by him to the British Museum. In this room are also 
placed a circular altar, with a subject in bas-relief, which formerly 
stood on the sea-shore of Halicarnassus, and a draped female statue 
without a head, which was also inserted into the walls of the fortress of 
Boudroum; and two bas-reliefs representing gladiatorial combats; and 
two others, votive offerings to Pluto or iEsculapius ; from Boudroum; 
also presented by Sir Stratford Canning. 
At the ends of the room are casts of the metopes of the old temple 
at Selinus, which are considered some of the earliest specimens of 
Greek art; they represent Hercules and the Cercopes, or two thieves 
of Ephesus; Perseus, assisted by Pallas Athene, killing the Gorgon 
Medusa, out of whom leaps Pegasus ; a female divinity who has killed 
one of the giants; and a figure in a quadriga. Presented by Samuel 
Angett, Esq. 
