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ANCIENT, OR ANTIQUE MARBLES. 143 the softness of wax, the mild lustre even of the ori ginal polish. The finest Grecian sculpture which has heen preserved to the present time, is generally of Parian Marble. The Medicean Venus, the Diana venatrix, the colossal Minerva (called Pallas of Velletri), Ariadne (called Cleopatra), Juno (called Capitolina), &c. It is also Parian marble on which the celebrated tables at Ox ford are inscribed. 2. Pentelic Marble, from Mount Pentelicus, near Athens. This marble very closely resembles the preceding, but is more compact, and finer granular, sometimes combined with splintery. At a very early period, when the arts had attained their full splendour, in the age of Pericles, the preference was given by the Greeks, not to the marble of Paros, but to that of Mount Pentelicus, because it Was whiter, and also, perhaps, because it was found in the vicinity of Athens. The Parthenon was built en tirely of Pentelit marble. Many of the Athenian statues, Mid the works carried on near to Athens during the ad ministration of Pericles, (as, for example, the temples of Ceres or Eleusis), were executed in the marble of l*entelicus *. Among the statues of this marble in the Hoyal Museum in Paris, are the Torso; a Bacchus in repose ; a Paris ; the Discobolus reposing ; the bas-relief known by the name of the Sacrifice; the throne of Sa turn ; and the Tripod of Apollo. It is remarked by Dr Clarke, that while the works executed in Parian marble remain perfect, those which were finished in Pentelican Marble have been decomposed, and sometimes exhibit a surface as earthy and as rude as common limestone. This is principally owing to veins of extraneous sub stances which intersect the Pentelican quarries, and which appear * Clarke** Travel*, vol. iii.
