[Footnote: The tradition on this point was not quite
uniform Vitruvius names Praxiteles as the fourth artist, but adds
that some believed that Timotheus also was engaged] There seem to
have been at least three sculptured friezes, but of only one have
considerable remains been preserved (cf. Fig. 65). This has for
its subject a battle of Greeks and Amazons, a theme which Greek
sculptors and painters never wearied of reproducing. The preserved
portions of this frieze amount in all to about eighty feet, but
the slabs are not consecutive. Figs. 160 and 161 give two of the
best pieces. The design falls into groups of two or three
combatants, and these groups are varied with inexhaustible
fertility and liveliness of imagination. Among the points which
distinguish this from a work of the fifth century may be noted the
slenderer forms of men and women and the more expressive faces.
The existing slabs, moreover, differ among themselves in style and
merit, and an earnest attempt has been made to distribute them
among the four artists named by Pliny, but without conclusive
results.
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