So far we have been wandering in distant lands. By the banks of the Nile we have watched the Egyptians solve the problem of expressive art by the principle of realism; by the banks of the Euphrates we have seen the Chaldæo-Assyrians add to this realism much of symbolism and a finely perfected system of decoration. By sea and by land the influence of Assyria and of Egypt has been carried to Hellas; from it she has chosen out and assimilated to her own genius what might be helpful, rejected what was hurtful. In the faroff colony of Selinus we have seen the beginnings of her own development, her struggle to master the technical difficulties of expression in marble; her high thought of the physical perfection of man; her cult of the hero; her worship of the god in human form. All this is so much clearing of the ground, so much tarrying in the outer courts of the temple of Greek art. It is time for us to draw nearer, to pass within the veil and hear the secret whisper, the peculiar message, breathed by the gods to Hellas, which she alone of nations was charged to utter to mortal man.

We leave the outlying colonies and pass to the mother country. In the studio of Ageladas, the Argive sculptor, three young men served their apprenticeship to art—three whose names were each and all, in after years, destined to resound throughout antiquity—Myron. Polycleitos, Pheidias.