and the god of a united Hellas, so Athena is especially the goddess of
Athens, the giver and fosterer of all those qualities that made the
Athenians what they were, the creatress of that ideal city sketched in
the wonderful speeches of Pericles. Her gifts are the arts of war and
peace, and all artistic and intellectual activity, as well as the olive
and other characteristic products of Attic soil, and the clear and
luminous air and stimulating climate which Attic writers are never tired
of extolling, and of associating with the peculiar genius of the
Athenian race. One can imagine how Dion Chrysostom might have recognised
the expression of these various qualities in the broad and majestic, yet
keenly intellectual brow, in the wide and clear eyes, and in other
features; but the extant copies of the Athena Parthenos cannot do more
than assist our imagination in realising how the sculptor represented
the goddess of Athens. Here, too, as in the case of the Zeus, it is
difficult for us to avoid the error of regarding the statue as a mere
philosophical abstraction, an impersonation of the qualities it
represents. Athena in later art, as set up in libraries and museums, was
doubtless such an impersonation, just as she is in modern art unreal and
comparatively uninteresting. But the Athenian believed intensely in the
existence of his goddess. He believed that the ceremonies connected with
her ancient image were necessary to the continuance of her favour to her
city and people, and that the new temples and statues set up in her
honour would still further delight her and ensure her protection and her
abode among her grateful worshippers. The statue by Phidias within the
Parthenon offered not merely that form in which she would choose to
appear if she showed herself to mortal eyes, but actually showed her
form as she had revealed it to the sculptor. To look upon such an image
helped the worshipper as much as--perhaps more than--any service or
ritual to bring himself into communion with the goddess, and to fit
himself, as a citizen of her chosen city, to carry out her will in
contributing his best efforts to its supremacy in politics, in
literature, and in art. If a work of art could have this actual
influence upon religious emotion, and through it upon practical life, it
may be said to have attained the utmost that any human effort can
achieve in the service of God.

The religious influence of art in the fifth century is, as we h