door, there came forth from it a lady, the most suitable to his years and station that his majesty could select among his fair subjects, and to this lady he was immediately married, as a reward of his innocence. It mattered not that he might already possess a wife and family, or that his affections might be engaged upon an object of his own selection; the king allowed no such subordinate arrangements to interfere with his great scheme of retribution and reward. The exercises, as in the other instance, took place immediately, and in the arena. Another door opened beneath the king, and a priest, followed by a band of choristers, and dancing maidens blowing joyous airs on golden horns and treading an epithalamic measure, advanced to where the pair stood, side by side, and the wedding was promptly and cheerily solemnized. Then the gay brass bells rang forth their merry peals, the people shouted glad hurrahs, and the innocent man, preceded by children strewing flowers on his path, led his bride to his home. This was the king's semi-barbaric method of administering justice. Its perfect fairness is obvious. The criminal could not know out of which door would come the lady; he opened either he pleased, without having the slightest idea whether, in the next instant, he was to be devoured or married. On some occasions the tiger came out of one door, and on some out of the other. The decisions of this tribunal were not only fair, they were positively determinate the accused person was instantly punished if he found himself guilty, and, if innocent, he was rewarded on the spot, whether he liked it or not. There was no escape from the judgments of the king's arena.

The institution was a very popular one. When the people gathered together on one of the great trial days, they never knew whether they were to witness a bloody slaughter or a hilarious wedding. This element of uncertainty lent an interest to the occasion which it could not otherwise have attained. Thus, the masses were entertained and pleased, and the thinking part of the community could bring no charge of unfairness against this plan, for did not the accused person have the whole matter in his own hands? This semi-barbaric king had a daughter as blooming as his most florid fancies, and with a soul as fervent and imperious as his own. As is usual in such cases, she was the apple of his eye, and was loved by him above all humanity. Among his courtiers was a young man of that fineness of blood and lowness of station common to the conventional heroes of romance who love royal maidens. This royal maiden was well satisfied with her lover, for he was handsome and brave to a degree unsur

passed in all this kingdom, and she loved him with an ardor that had enough of barbarism in it to make it exceedingly warm and strong. This love affair moved on happily for many months, until one day the king happened to discover its existence. He did not hesitate nor waver in regard to his duty in the premises. The youth was immediately cast into prison, and a day was appointed for his trial in the king's arena. This, of course, was an especially important occasion, and his majesty, as well as all the people, was greatly interested in the workings and development of this trial. Never before had such a case occurred; never before had a subject dared to love the daughter of the king. In after years such things became commonplace enough, but then they were in no slight degree novel and startling.

The tiger-cages of the kingdom were searched for the most savage and relentless beasts, from which the fiercest monster might be selected for the arena; and the ranks of maiden youth and beauty throughout the land were carefully surveyed by competent judges in order that the young man might have a fitting bride in case fate did not determine for him a different destiny. Of course, everybody knew that the deed with which the accused was charged had been done. He had loved the princess, and neither he, she, nor any one else, thought of denying the fact; but the king would not think of allowing any fact of this kind to interfere with the workings of the tribunal, in which he took such great delight and satisfaction. No matter how the affair turned out, the youth would be disposed of, and the king would take an æsthetic pleasure in watching the course of events, which would determine whether or not the young man had done wrong in allowing himself to love the princess.

The appointed day arrived. From far and near the people gathered, and thronged the great galleries of the arena, and crowds, unable to gain admittance, massed themselves against its outside walls. The king and his court were in their places, opposite the twin doors,-those fateful portals, so terrible in their similarity.

All was ready. The signal was given. A door beneath the royal party opened, and the lover of the princess walked into the arena. Tall, beautiful, fair, his appearance was greeted with a low hum of admiration and anxiety. Half the audience had not known so grand a youth had lived among them. No wonder the princess loved him! What a terrible thing for him to be there!

As the youth advanced into the arena he turned, as the custom was, to bow to the king, but he did not think at all of that royal

personage. His eyes were fixed upon the princess, who sat to the right of her father. Had it not been for the moiety of barbarism in her nature it is probable that lady would not have been there, but her intense and fervid soul would not allow her to be absent on an occasion in which she was so terribly interested. From the moment that the decree had gone forth that her lover should decide his fate in the king's arena, she had thought of nothing, night or day, but this great event and the various subjects connected with it. Possessed of more power, influence, and force of character than any one who had ever before been interested in such a case, she had done what no other person had done,-she had possessed herself of the secret of the doors. She knew in which of the two rooms, that lay behind those doors, stood the cage of the tiger, with its open front, and in which waited the lady. Through these thick doors, heavily curtained with skins on the inside, it was impossible that any noise or suggestion should come from within to the person who should approach to raise the latch of one of them. But gold, and the power of a woman's will, had brought the secret to the princess.

And not only did she know in which room stood the lady ready to emerge, all blushing and radiant, should her door be opened, but she knew who the lady was. It was one of the fairest and loveliest of the damsels of the court who had been selected as the reward of the accused youth, should he be proved innocent of the crime of aspiring to one so far above him; and the princess hated her. Often had she seen, or imagined that she had seen, this fair creature throwing glances of admiration upon the person of her lover, and sometimes she thought these glances were perceived, and even returned. Now and then she had seen them talking together; it was but for a moment or two, but much can be said in a brief space; it may have been on most unimportant topics, but how could she know that? The girl was lovely, but she had dared to raise her eyes to the loved one of the princess; and, with all the intensity of the savage blood transmitted to her through long lines of wholly barbaric ancestors, she hated the woman who blushed and trembled behind that silent door. When her lover turned and looked at her, and his eye met hers as she sat there, paler and whiter than any one in the vast ocean of anxious faces about her, he saw, by that power of quick perception which is given to those whose souls are one, that she knew behind which door crouched the tiger, and behind which stood the lady. He had expected her to know it. He understood her nature, and his soul was assured that she would

never rest until she had made plain to herself this thing, hidden to all other lookers-on, even to the king. The only hope for the youth in which there was any element of certainty was based upon the success of the princess in discovering this mystery; and the moment he looked upon her, he saw she had succeeded, as in his soul he knew she would succeed.

Then it was that his quick and anxious glance asked the question: "Which? " was as plain to her as if he shouted it from where he stood. There was not an instant to be lost. The question was asked in a flash; it must be answered in another.

Her right arm lay on the cushioned parapet before her. She raised her hand, and made a slight, quick movement toward the right. No one but her lover saw her. Every eye but his was fixed on the man in the arena.

He turned, and with a firm and rapid step he walked across the empty space. Every heart stopped beating, every breath was held, every eye was fixed immovably upon that man. Without the slightest hesitation, he went to the door on the right, and opened it.

Now, the point of the story is this: Did the tiger come out of that door, or did the lady?

The more we reflect upon this question, the harder it is to answer. It involves a study of the human heart which leads us through devious mazes of passion, out of which it is difficult to find our way. Think of it, fair reader, not as if the decision of the question depended upon yourself, but upon that hotblooded, semi-barbaric princess, her soul at a white heat beneath the combined fires of despair and jealousy. She had lost him, but who should have him?

How often, in her waking hours and in her dreams, had she started in wild horror, and covered her face with her hands as she thought of her lover opening the door on the other side of which waited the cruel fangs of the tiger!

But how much oftener had she seen him at the other door! How in her grievous reveries had she gnashed her teeth, and torn her hair, when she saw his start of rapturous delight as he opened the door of the lady! How her soul had burned in agony when she had seen him rush to meet that woman, with her flushing cheek and sparkling eye of triumph; when she had seen him lead her forth, his whole frame kindled with the joy of recovered life; when she had heard the glad shouts from the multitude, and the wild ringing of the happy bells; when she had seen the priest, with his joyous followers, advance to the couple, and make them man and wife before her very eyes; and when she had seen

Thomas Wentworth Higginson.

THE recently discovered sculptures of the Pergamon Altar, the fragments of which are now being set up in the Berlin Museum, constituted, so far as we know, the last great plastic work of the Greek genius, and are to the Hellenistic Age what the monumental marbles of the Parthenon are to the age of Pericles. They consist of a colossal marble frieze representing the fierce conflicts of gods with giants, smaller reliefs picturing quiet mythic scenes, and imposing fragments of cornice, column, and ceiling, and, with other portions not yet found or wholly destroyed, composed the Great Altar, which was in antiquity the glory of the summit of Pergamon (or Bergama, as the Turks call it),-one of the seven cities of the Apocalypse.

The history of these important discoveries is as follows: In 1861, Carl Humann, a young German engineer, who had been ordered south for his health, came, in his wan

derings, to the summit of Pergamon. Here he found the natives engaged in excavating marble, which they were feeding to lime-kilns and breaking up for building purposes. On closer inspection he discovered that what they were so ruthlessly destroying were fragments of a great ruin, and of its noble decorative sculptures. Indignant at such vandalism, he succeeded in stopping the destructive work of the kilns. His further investigations impressed him still more with the archæological and artistic value of the discovery, and he determined to devote himself to organizing an expedition for the purpose of excavating. Five long years elapsed before he was able again to visit Pergamon, when, to his dismay, he found that the lime-kilns had resumed their work. So energetic, however, were his measures during this visit, that the wholesale destruction of ancient sculptures was stopped by the direct influence of the Grand Vizier. Three years

later, having contracted to build several roads in the neighborhood, he was able to make Pergamon his head-quarters, and to watch with jealous eye the attempts at destruction. One day, in wandering over the Acropolis, he came upon the glorious full figure of a god in high relief, just exhumed; returning, shortly after, to conceal this new treasure, he found, alas, that it had been ruthlessly hacked up to make a step in a flight of stairs. How much more of surpassing strength and beauty perished at the hands of ignorant natives can never be told. In 1871, Humann took from the long Byzantine fortification wall two grand fragments of relief, and presented them to the Berlin Museum. Although seized with a consuming desire, which never left him, to excavate on this summit, in the conviction that very much more was to be found, he succeeded in obtaining no assistance until 1878, the German Government, up to that time, having been too busy in subsidizing the thorough and extensive excavations at Olympia. After waiting for seven years Humann finally gained the ear of Professor Couze, the new director of the sculpture galleries at Berlin, and found a liberal patron in the Crown Prince of Germany. A nearly forgotten passage in an obscure author, Ampelius, which speaks of a great marble altar at Pergamon, forty feet in height, with colossal sculptures (cum maximis sculpturis), relating to the combats of gods and giants (a gigantomachie), suggested an object to the learned professor, and he advised Humann to search for this very altar, as he believed the reliefs already found to belong to those described by Ampelius. A Turkish firman was secured, workmen were engaged, and a ship of war was put at Humann's disposition; but all was done so secretly that when, at the end of two years, a multitude of cases suddenly appeared unheralded and unwelcomed in front of the Berlin Museum, the questions flew from mouth to mouth: "Where do they come from?" "What is in them?" "Who has sent them?" Once they were safe under the protecting care of the German eagle, it was announced that, in thanks for aid given the poor Mohammedan refugees from Circassia, Turkey had granted the Germans the privilege of digging at Pergamon, and that these four hundred and sixty-two boxes had cost in all but one hundred and fifty thousand marks or thirty-five thousand dollars. Humann is still at work with his skilled band of excavators, and new cases are continually arriving.

The Great Altar belongs almost incontrovertibly to the long and glorious reign of Eumenes II. (197-159 B. C.), under whom

Pergamon reached its highest level. On a lofty terrace of the city's southern slope, there long stood a simple, almost rude, structure, the ancient shrine and temple of Athene Polias. To this sacred spot the devout brought their offerings, and here they lifted up their prayers. But, when Attalus, king of Pergamon, having compelled submission from powerful foes and accumulated great wealth, had raised his city from obscurity to be the capital of a mighty kingdom, such primitive shrines no longer sufficed. A great open-air altar, imposing in size and glorious in significant decorations, was raised at the foot of the older and humbler temple, where its smoke should rise as grateful incense before this ancient shrine. This site confirms the belief, already gathered from inscriptions, that the altar was built in honor of "Athene Nikephoros," the victory-bringing daughter of Zeus (or Jupiter). Strabo informs us, in a tantalizingly short sentence, that Eumenes II. adorned his capital with magnificent structures. The recent discovery, by the French, at Delphi, of a decree, made by the Ætolians for Eumenes, has, happily, thrown further light on the great activity of this prince. From this, it appears that, after success in war and the extension and consolidation of his dominion, Eumenes II. celebrated competitive games, and made offerings to Athene Nikephoros, thus rendering more glorious the old rites, or establishing new ones. Sending three ambassadors to the Etolians, he craved a recognition of all these pious services; and the decree, set up in sacred Delphi, and now brought to light, testifies that his request was granted. Thus, at the zenith of his power, Eumenes II. appears occupied with erecting thank-offerings for his successes. That the Great Altar itself was one of these memorials of thanks is most probable, and this idea receives confirmation from the forms of the letters inscribed on it, which are identical with those of other inscriptions discovered at Pergamon commemorative of Eumenes' wars, but very different from the letters in inscriptions of either earlier or later kings.

Eumenes' brother and successor, Attalus II., also erected thank-offerings for victory to the gods. His Stoa, decorated with all the paraphernalia of battle, in terrible and speaking confusion, is a revelation of the ability of the Greek sculptor of that time to make attractive even trophies of war. Inscriptions commemorative of public victory, side by side with others erected to the memory of private individuals, have also been discovered on Pergamon's summit, witnessing to the existence of other monuments.

This great art activity was, however, con