Note (return) — THE TEMPLE ON THE ACROPOLIS BURNT BY THE PERSIANS.

These modifications of the traditional form of the story have usually 89 been accounted for by the necessities of plastic art; and this view has in its favor that the representation in sculpture of any of the other versions which are known to us, would be attended by great difficulties of composition, and would certainly be much less effective. Reisch, however, has suggested 90 that this frieze illustrates the dithyrambus which won the prize on this occasion, and that the variations in the details of the story are due to this. There is no evidence for this hypothesis, inasmuch as we have no basis upon which to found an analogy, and know nothing whatever of the nature of the piece in which the chorus had figured.