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The beautiful full length “ssss1,” in the Vatican Collection, represents a step further in the emphasizing of sensuous charm, and consequently there is even less insistence upon the severe beauty which the fifth-century sculptor sought to portray. To be understood the statue must be regarded as a work of the fourth century, and be judged by the standards of Scopas and Praxiteles.

The ideal head of Asclepius, in the British Museum, which has been ascribed to Thrasymedes of Paros, the sculptor of the great chryselephantine statue at Epidaurus, is a work bearing a strong resemblance to the “ssss1.” It was found in the Island of Melos, in a shrine dedicated to the Physician of the Gods, hence the title. The expression of the God of Healing, whose worship was so general in Greece at one time that it threatened to become almost universal, is, however, more kindly and human than that of Zeus. It is a beautiful example of the joyousness and sweet reasonableness which Greek sculpture possessed through contact with a system of religious belief which left the intelligence unhampered and the human emotions free. It is true that the religion of ancient Greece lacked the driving power of other and more potent faiths. It was not based upon such personalities as Buddha, Moses, or, greatest of all, the Founder of the faith which eventually Hellenized the Western world. But for a few short years the humane and tolerant religion of Greece was all-sufficient. Any one who would have abundant proof has only to stand for a few minutes before the marbles which sum up and express the Greek belief in an entirely reasonable and beautiful world.