During these ages, however, it does not appear that sculpture can be said to have progressed farther than that it was not unpractised. And although Athens thus distinguished in the outset, yet, for several centuries, neither in Attica nor even in continental Greece, was the art nationally cultivated. Almost to the commencement of the sixth century before Christ, the mother country was dependent chiefly on the ca sual or invited arrivals of artists from Ionia and the islands. From whatever cause assembled, and not unfrequently they were driven from their native soil by political revolutions, ever the enemy of peaceful studies, these sculptors naturally selected as their abode the commercial cities. Here power secured protection, as riches and luxury afforded reward and employment.
From these external circumstances, more than any peculiar predilection or superior refinement in their citizens, we find three schools of art early established in Sicyon, in Corinth, and in Egina. Sicyon, with its little territory situate upon the south-eastern coast of the Corinthian gulf, though acceding to the equi table jurisdiction of the Achxan confederacy, had long been regarded as an independent and valuable mem ber—a claim which the opulence, intelligence, and commercial enterprise of her citizens amply support ed. The situation of Corinth seemed purposed by
nature for the seat of arts, empire, and commerce; commanding the navigation of both seas which wash either shore, her position united by land the two grand divisions of Greece. She would have been the great est, had she not first become the wealthiest of the Grecian states. The little island, or rather rock of Egina, rising above the waves of the Saronic gulf, nearly opposite Athens, of which it was a formidable rival, affords a striking illustration of the effects of commercial wisdom. By this, a state, insignificant in itself, was enabled to cover the sea with a navy, and to cherish the arts, especially sculpture, in a i school if not the earliest, certainly longest distinguish- ed by originality of style and principles. To these primitive schools, or rather seats of art, we might add