, and one of its
worst effects was seen in the loss of religious tone among the people:
their old contented simplicity of life and thought was gone; every man
thought only of himself, and the nation began to sink into the condition
which at last made it an easy prey to the Macedonians. We have studied
all these wars in our histories, but perhaps we have not thought how
much they affected sculpture and the other arts, and brought them down
from the lofty heights of the Periclean age.

But there were still men who strove to be great and grand in morals and
in intellect, and perhaps strove all the more earnestly for this on
account of the decline they saw about them. Few countries in any age
have had more splendid men than Socrates, Plato, Euripides,
Aristophanes, Pelopidas, Epaminondas, Demosthenes, Dion, and Timoleon,
and these all lived between the Peloponnesian and the Macedonian wars.
And while the arts were less grand than before, they did not fall into
decline for some years, though they took on new features. The gods who
had been mostly represented were less often the subjects of the
sculptor, and when they were so they were softened and made less awful
in their effect. Other gods were more freely taken for models, such as
came nearer to human life and thought, because less sublime in their
attributes and characters. Among these were Venus as a lovely woman
rather than as the great mother of all living creatures, and Eros, or
Love; while Plutus, or Wealth, and satyrs, nymphs, and tritons were
multiplied in great numbers.

When the gods who were represented were more like human beings in their
character, it followed that the statues of them more nearly resembled
men and women, and gradually the old grandeur and sublimity were changed
to grace, beauty, and mirth. Many people would prefer these works
because they come nearer to the every-day life of the world; but
earnest, thoughtful minds look for something more noble in
art--something that will not come down to us as we are, but will help us
to rise above ourselves and to strive after better things.

CEPHISODOTUS was a sculptor who lived until about B.C. 385, or a little
later, and stood between the old and the new schools of Greek art. The
cut given here is from a group at Munich, which is believed to be a copy
of a work by him, and it is a combination of the simple dignity of the
art of Phidias (which is seen in the flowing drapery and the wavy edge
of its fold