Various islands of
the Aegean become each the source of some new artistic device. It is
a period still under the reign of Hephaestus, delighting, above all,
in magnificent [230] metal-work. "The Samians," says Herodotus, "out
of a tenth part of their profits--a sum of six talents--caused a
mixing vessel of bronze to be made, after the Argolic fashion; around
it are projections of griffins' heads; and they dedicated it in the
temple of Here, placing beneath it three colossal figures of bronze,
seven cubits in height, leaning upon their knees." That was in the
thirty-seventh Olympiad, and may be regarded as characteristic of the
age. For the popular imagination, a kind of glamour, some mysterious
connexion of the thing with human fortunes, still attaches to the
curious product of artistic hands, to the ring of Polycrates, for
instance, with its early specimen of engraved smaragdus, as to the
mythical necklace of Harmonia. Pheidon of Argos first makes coined
money, and the obelisci--the old nail-shaped iron money, now disused-
-are hung up in the temple of Here; for, even thus early, the temples
are in the way of becoming museums.
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