ty of having supreme beauty ever before
their eyes. Beauty even gave a right to fame; and we find in Greek
histories the most beautiful people distinguished. Some were famous for
the beauty of one single part of their form; as Demetrius Phalereus, for
his beautiful eyebrows, was called Charito-blepharos. It seems even to
have been thought that the procreation of beautiful children might be
promoted by prizes: this is shown by the existence of contests for
beauty, which in ancient times were established by Cypselus, King of
Arcadia, by the river Alpheus; and, at the feast of Apollo of Philae, a
prize was offered to the youths for the deftest kiss. This was decided by
an umpire; as also at Megara, by the grave of Diodes. At Sparta, and at
Lesbos, in the temple of Juno, and among the Parrhasii, there were
contests for beauty among women. The general esteem for beauty went so
far, that the Spartan women set up in their bedchambers a Nireus, a
Narcissus, or a Hyacinth, that they might bear beautiful children."

So, from a few stray antiquarianisms, a few faces cast up sharply from
the waves, Winckelmann, as his manner is, divines the temperament of the
antique world, and that in which it had delight. It has passed away with
that distant age, and we may venture to dwell upon it. What sharpness and
reality it has is the sharpness and reality of suddenly arrested life.
The Greek system of gymnastics originated as part of a religious ritual.
The worshipper was to recommend himself to the gods by becoming fleet and
fair, white and red, like them. The beauty of the palaestra, and the
beauty of the artist's studio, reacted on each other. The youth tried to
rival his gods; and his increased beauty passed back into them.--"I take
the gods to witness, I had rather have a fair body than a king's
crown"--Omnumi pantas theous me helesthai an ten basileos arkhen anti tou
kalos einai.--That is the form in which one age of the world chose the
higher life--a perfect world, if the gods could have seemed for ever only
fleet and fair, white and red. Let us not regret that this unperplexed
youth of humanity, seeing itself and satisfied, passed, at the due
moment, into a mournful maturity; for already the deep joy was in store
for the spirit, of finding the ideal of that youth still red with life in
the grave.

It followed that the Greek ideal expressed itself pre-eminently in
sculpture. All art has a sensuous element, colour, form, sound--in poe