They have
oblique and prominent eyes, and, whether fighting or dying, they
wear upon their faces the same conventional smile.
The group in the eastern pediment corresponds closely in subject
and composition to that in the western, but is of a distinctly
more advanced style. Only five figures of this group were
sufficiently preserved to be restored. Of these perhaps the most
admirable is the dying warrior from the southern corner of the
pediment (Fig. 99), in which the only considerable modern part is
the right leg, from the middle of the thigh. The superiority of
this and its companion figures to those of the western pediment
lies, as the Munich catalogue points out, in the juster
proportions of body, arms, and legs, the greater fulness of the
muscles, the more careful attention to the veins and to the
qualities of the skin, the more natural position of eyes and
mouth. This dying man does not smile meaninglessly. His lips are
parted, and there is a suggestion of death-agony on his
countenance. In both pediments the figures are carefully finished
all round; there is no neglect, or none worth mentioning, of those
parts which were destined to be invisible so long as the figures
were in position.
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