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design, in perfection of execution, and in the wonderful freshness which has been preserved to the polychromatic treatment. When the curtains are withdrawn-for Hamdy Bey wisely keeps this priceless treasure under a special construction of plate-glass designed and executed for him by the British Museum, and exposes it as little as possible to the light-the visitor is literally struck dumb with the beauties revealed to him. Hamdy Bey has often told me how, when he first came upon this greatest discovery of his, he stood trembling and unable to move, so great was his emotion, while the tears literally rolled down his cheeks. Even then in the cramped space lighted by a candle held in his hand, he had no notion of the extraordinary beauty and value of what stood before him. It is useless to attempt anything like a description, except in quite general terms, of this supreme work of art, in a paper of this length and nature. I would refer those who, not having seen it, desire to study it more closely, to the finely illustrated monograph by Hamdy Bey and M. Théodore Reinach entitled 'Une Nécropole Royale à Sidon,' published by Ernest Leroux, 1893, and treating of the excavations and discoveries of Hamdy Bey at Sidon in 1887 and 1888. The monograph is more than well worth reading, not only for the information it contains, but also as a record of the perfect modesty and of the inexhaustible energy, resource, patience, and ingenuity of the explorer. The Great Sarcophagus is hewn from two blocks of Pentelic marble. The lid weighs 10 tons; the chest, 15 tons. The height of the whole from the base to the acroterium surmounting the pediment of the lid is just under two metres (exactly 1.95m.); the height of the acroterium is 0.17m. chest measures 1.67m. by 3.18m. at the base, and 1.51m. by 3.02m. at the top; its height is 1.26m. The ornamentation of the whole from the ridge of the roof, itself a perfect model of a temple roof, to the base of the socle is marvellously rich in detail. Where all is so beautiful it is difficult to single out any one thing more worthy of remark than another. I might, however, cite the exquisite vineornamentation in bas-relief sculptured on the first platband of the roof, and the four lions crouching one at each corner of the roof itself. The heads of the animals project, up to the ears, beyond the cymatium: with their ferocious expression, their open jaws, and their threatening teeth, they seem to defend the approach to the monument placed under their guard.' Of the sculptures on the two long sides of the sarcophagus, that on the eastern side represents a battle which Hamdy Bey believes he has identified as the battle of Arbela; that on the western side, a lion-hunt: in both Alexander the Great appears as a leading figure. In all the apparently life-like confusion and scrimmage of these two scenes, the artist, as Hamdy Bey observes, has preserved an absolute symmetry of design. At the centre of the battle-piece we find a Greek horseman; on his left is

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a Persian archer drawing his bow towards the left; on his right another Persian soldier, on his knees, is demanding quarter. Above the latter arises, in the background, a Persian archer standing and shooting to the right, and at the same elevation a Persian horseman, facing to the left, is fighting a nude Greek warrior on foot, facing to the right and seizing the Persian's horse by the bridle. Then comes a Persian foot-soldier, into whose arms a dying Persian is falling from his horse. In the same position on the other side of the composition, there are also two warriors fighting on foot, the one Greek, facing to the right, the other Persian, to the left. At the left extremity is Alexander the Great, at the right some other Greek magnate, a rapos, both overthrowing Persian horsemen with their lances. On the ground are stretched five slain men; one in the middle, under the hoofs of the Greek horseman; the others in the same symmetrical manner, two on the right, and two on the left. Not only is the alternation of soldiers on horse and foot exact, but Greeks and Persians are arranged with equal symmetry, the warriors of the two nationalities being placed alternately right up to the borders of the composition. In the lion-hunt, on the west side, the same life-like confusion, the hurry and scurry of a critically dangerous moment, the strenuousness of effort, the intense energy and abandon of movement in supreme excitement of contest for life, are to be seen combined with the same completeness of symmetrical precision. In the middle is the lion, a formidable beast with huge limbs, tearing with claws and teeth at the horse of a Persian potentate, to the rescue of whom are rushing from right and left two Greek horsemen, the one Alexander the Great, the other the same Greek who formed pendant to Alexander in the battle-scene; and while the numbers engaged in the hunt balance exactly on each side of the composition, Greeks and Persians succeed one another in symmetrical order. In both compositions prominent importance is given to two figures—namely, those of Alexander the Great, and of the other Greek, who must have been a man of immense importance and power to have been given so honourable a place in such a work representing such scenes. In the lion-hunt the principal Persian figure is seated on the horse which is being so mercilessly torn by the lion, and that same Persian figure is repeated, but dismounted from his horse, which is being held with great difficulty by an attendant, on the smaller southern side of the monument: here all the five men represented are Persians engaged in slaying a panther, the chief, who is placed in a pose of splendid

1 Is this that same Persian figure'? Since Alexander, after the battle of Arbela, assumed Persian customs and manners in order to conciliate the Persians, is it not conceivable that it may be, perhaps not the conqueror himself, but some Greek magnate-lower down I suppose Clitus-disguised in Persian attire? It is difficult to trace any likeness, the lower part of the face being swathed after the ancient Persian manner. I am aware that here, in common with M. Judeich, I fall under the lash of M. Reinach. 'Malheureusement un texte cité par

energy, being about to deliver a terrific blow on the animal with an axe. On the tympanum of the pediment of the southern side the sculptured scene represents Alexander on foot fighting a Persian horseman. This Hamdy Bey does not hestitate, owing to the whiteplumed helmet and the broken lance, both painted on the marble background, to identify as one of the exciting episodes of the battle of the Granicus, in which Alexander sustained personal combats with several Persian chiefs. On the northern side the main scene again shows a mounted Persian endeavouring to overcome a dismounted Greek; the mounted Persian being now apparently again that same chief who has already appeared twice, once, indeed, in the honourable place of the hunting companion of Alexander. The Greekto judge from the same white-plumed helmet and the same broken lance can be none other than Alexander: and it is conjectured that this is only a repetition of the same episode at the battle of the Granicus as that already depicted in much less detail on the southern side: the different personality of the Persian being merely an artist's licence, the artist not wishing to show Alexander twice in the same position against the same enemy. In this scene there is a figure which seems to me, for beauty of proportion, life, vigour of movement, 'realism'-as the modern expression is to be one of the most remarkable in the whole work. It is that of a nude Greek soldier striding forward over the body of a slain comrade, his sword already thrust by a downward stroke through the shoulder and heart of a kneeling foe. One can almost see the quiver of the tense muscles, the hot excited beat of the blood rushing through the veins; it is a wonder of artistic achievement. On the tympanum of the pediment of this side is represented the assassination of an illustrious personage, clothed in a purple mantle.

This, no doubt, is the key of the whole work, and from it the artist expected observers to recognise at once for whom his glorious production was intended. From the fact that the scenes chosen to adorn the sarcophagus represent some of the chief episodes in the Asiatic campaigns of Alexander, who appears three times on the walls of the sarcophagus and once on the lid, and further that the lid had once been adorned by royal (?) eagles, of which the claws alone remain, Hamdy Bey concluded at first that it must have been intended for the remains of Alexander himself—indeed, that it had contained them. There being no contemporary record of the remains ever having reached Alexandria, he argued that they may very well have been stopped at Sidon to await, possibly, some great ceremony M. Judeich lui-même (Arrian VI. 30) atteste que seul des lieutenants d'Alexandre Peuceste, Satrape de Perse, adopta le costume médique' (Une Néc. Roy. à Sid. p. 314). But this is scarcely the last word, and it seems no more unreasonable to admit M. Judeich's assumption than to set entirely on one side the murderscene, described later on, as does M. Reinach, because it does not fit in with his theory that the sarcophagus was intended for a Persian satrap, probably Mazaois.

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