ABSTRACT
The character of Greek art as we have now analyzed it was maintained unimpaired until the 4th century, and the 5th century was the period in which this apotheosis of the religious and national life by art was most marked. But the unhappy rivalry between Athens and Sparta (Peloponnesian war of 431-404) led to the ruin of the Athenian empire and the exhaustion of all Greece, and to the substitution of a monarchy for the governments of the Hellenic free cities. These political changes had their repercussion on art, both in its outward manner and in the part it had hitherto played in the life of the nation. Though the old inspiration was there until the end, it had neither the force nor the exclusive character it possessed in former times, for new tendencies appeared which art was bound to satisfy. These begin to be apparent from the 4th century and produced their full effect in Hellenistic and imperial times. 1
