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Thesean συνοικισ

μός.

tratus, whose grandson and namesake dedicated an altar
within it (Thucyd., vi. 54). To Pisistratus was ascribed
the founding of the Lyceium, or temple of Apollo Lyceius, Lyceum.
which stood on the right bank of the Ilissus, a short
distance from the city. The names both of Pericles and
Lycurgus the orator are also associated with this building;
yet it is not known who added the gymnasium close by,
which afterwards became famous as the favourite haunt of
Aristotle, and the birthplace of the Peripatetic philosophy.
The yet more famous seat of the rival philosophy seems
also to have owed something to the Pisistratids, for
Hipparchus was said to have enclosed the Academy with a Academy.
wall. This was a gymnasium surrounded by pleasant
gardens lying to the N. of the city, about a mile from
the Dipylum gate. It owes all its fame, of course, to its
connection with Plato, who lived, taught, and was buried
there. This site, so full of glorious memories, cannot now
be identified with certainty. Its trees, like those of the
Lyceium, were despoiled by Sulla to make implements of

war.

kov as die univeral leme of Melite, a name derived, | Apollo near the Olympium, was also ascribed to Pisisthe .perhaps, from the balm which then grew there (the evoons μl of Theocr:25).1 The historian E. Curtius (Attisette Studien, pihas, indeed, gone so far as to regard these rock dwellings as earlier than the occupa tion of the Atrepolis itself. But the contrary opinion of Thucydides is worth something, and the natural strength of the Acropolis would make it the most obvious spot for primitive occupation. Accordingly, we shall not be giving too free a licence to our imagination if we conceive of primitive Athens as a twofold settlement, partly on the Acropolis and the low ground at its southern foot, and partly upon the eastern slopes of the hills on the west. It may even have been the consolidation of these two villages into one township that gave rise to the legend ascribing to Theseus the ovvоikioμos or consolidation of Attica. It would be natural for legend to assign to one definite time, and connect with one great mythical name, that process of unification which probably was as gradual as it was spontaneous. As the population of the early town continued to increase, two more districts seem to have been incorporated-Collytus, extending from the east of Melite, between the Acropolis and Areopagus, and Cerameicus, or the "Potters' quarter " ("Tuileries"), which extended from the same two hills towards the north and north-west. The regions we have now described appear to have made up the Athens of Solonian times. The earliest historical event which illustrates Athenian topography is the rising of Cylon (Herod., v. 71; Thucyd., i. 126; Pausan., i. 28). The narratives of that event imply that the Acropolis was already fortified by the Enneapylum, that the Areopagus was already the seat of the court which bore its name (see AREOPAGUS), and that near the entrance of the citadel stood an altar of the Semnæ, or Furies, at which Cylon the Semnæ. and his partisans were slain. This altar has been immortalised by Eschylus in the splendid conclusion of the Leocorium. Eumenides. Another sacred spot in early Athens must have been the Leocorium, where Hipparchus was assassinated (Thucyd., i. 20; vi. 57). This was a shrine erected in honour of the daughters of Leo, who were sacrificed by their father to Athena, in order to avert a pestilence. The nature of the legend testifies to the antiquity of the site. The words of Thucydides respecting Cylon imply Early city that the early city was already surrounded by a ring-wall, and this probably remained intact until the invasion of the Persians, although the buildings within the walls underwent great alteration and improvements under the government of Pisistratus and his sons.

Altar of

wall.

The Pisistratids.

The reign of the Pisistratids was recognised by the ancients as marking an important era in Athenian topography. We have already mentioned the fountain of Enneacrunus as being built by them. It was Pisistratus Olympium, who laid the foundations of the great temple of Zeus Olympius upon the ancient site above mentioned. His magnificent design had an eventful history: left unfinished by its author, the Athenians, perhaps from dislike to the "tyrant," made no effort to complete it. At length, after receiving additions from various foreign princes, it was completed by Hadrian (c. 130 A.D.), and formed the grandest edifice in the region of the city which, in acknowledgment of the imperial munificence, was called Hadrianopolis. The Olympium was one of the largest temples in the world; but of its 124 Corinthian columns only 15 are Pythium. now standing. The Pythium, or sanctuary of the Pythian

1 Many of the names of the Attic demes, and indeed of Greek local names everywhere, were derived from plants and flowers; see Tozer's Lectures on the Geography of Greece, p. 338: "The most plausible derivation that has been suggested for the name 'A@vai is from à0-, the root of aveos, a flower; and Lobeck proposed to translate it by 'Florentia.'"-(Ibid., p. 161).

The name of Pisistratus is connected with another The Aga important site. Professor E. Curtius (Attische Studien, pt. 2), supposes that the most ancient Athenian market lay on the S. of the Acropolis, and that the Pisistratids superseded it by a new market at the northern foot of the Areopagus. Be this as it may, we are sure that, as early as their times, this site formed the centre of Athenian commercial and civic life. The narrow valley between the Pnyx Hill and the Areopagus, where older topographers placed the Agora, is not a spacious enough site for the purpose. The obvious locality for an Agora would be the rectangular space enclosed by the Areopagus on the S., by the Acropolis on the E., and on the W. by the eminence occupied by the Theseium. To the N. and N.E. no barrier existed; accordingly, the entrance was from the Dipylum gate on the N.W., and on the N.E. the market received extension in Roman times. The Agora thus stood in the region known as Cerameicus. But as the Cerameicus extended for some miles in a N.W. direction, it became divided by the city wall into the outer and the inner Outer Cerameicus. The outer Cerameicus was an agreeable inner suburb, lying on the road to the Academy and Colonus, the home of Sophocles; and it was here that citizens who died in their country's wars received a public burial. Through gate Dipylum one passed into the inner Cerameicus, the most important quarter of which was naturally the Agora itself; and so it was common to speak of the Agora

as

"The Cerameicus." How much this market-place may have owed to the designs of the Pisistratids we cannot now determine. The statues of Harmodius and Aristogiton formed a conspicuous ornament of the south portion, and Thucydides (vi. 54) informs us that the grandson and namesake of Pisistratus adorned the Agora by building the altar of the twelve gods. If the Agora belongs to the age of Pisistratus, some of the civic buildings within it would also be coeval with him. Such were the Stoa Basileius, or Portico, where the archon basileius presided; the Bouleuterium, where the senate of 500 held its sittings; the Tholus close by it, where the Prytanes of the senate sacrificed-a circular building with a dome of stone, from whence it gained its name; and the Prytaneium, said to be founded by Theseus (Thucyd., ii. 15), which contained the hearth-fire of the state, and where the Prytanes and public benefactors had the privilege of dining at the public expense. The statues of the ten heroes (eponymi), who gave their names to the Athenian tribes, decorated the Agora probably from the first; against these statues were affixed public notices and proclamations. Other buildings in the Agora of later and ascertained dates will be enumerated in their proper place.

meicy

Clisthe

ean age.

icum.

The revolution which expelled the Pisistratids (510 B.C.), and gave Athens a free government, left its mark upon the The Pelas- topography of the city. The old Pelasgic fortress (Tò 'EvveάTuλov), in which "the tyrants" had for a time held out, was now broken down, and the site occupied by its ruins was devoted by the Delphic oracle to eternal desolation. Only in the Peloponnesian war, when the country population was crowded within the city walls, do we read of this spot being occupied by dwellings (Thucyd., ii. 17). Another work which may probably be assigned to the age of Clisthenes is the first arrangement of the The Pnyx. Pnyx, or place of public assembly. The hill that is commonly known as the Pnyx Hill contains one of the most remarkable ruins in Athens; the silence, however, of Pausanius respecting what was probably in his day already a mere ruin has occasioned some doubt concerning its proper identification. The spot in question consists of two terraces sloping down the hill towards the Areopagus, from S.W. to N.E. The upper terrace, indeed, does not slope, but is levelled out of the solid rock near the summit of the hill, being about 65 yards in length (E. to W.), and about 43 in breadth at its broadest part (N. to S.) It is bounded at the back (S.) by a rock-wall, and at the W. end there stands a cubical block, allowed to rise out of the solid rock when this upper terrace was levelled. There is good reason for considering this as the altar for the sacrifices (rà Teρíσria) with which every assembly of the ecclesia was opened (Bursian, Philologus, 1854, p. 369, foll.; Dyer, Athens, p. 462). The lower and considerably larger terrace is separated from the upper terrace by another wall cut out of the solid rock. This wall, which is nearly 126 yards long, is not quite straight, but encroaches slightly upon the upper terrace, and forms at the centre a very obtuse angle. At this point there rises, projecting from the wall, a large cubical mass, cut out of the solid rock, resembling somewhat, though on a larger scale, the altar described above. It is itself 11 feet square and 5 feet high, and stands on a platform consisting of three very massive steps. This remarkable monument has been recognised by tradition as the σkáλα Tоv Anuoobéveos, and almost every traveller since Chandler's time has regarded it as no other than the famous bema of the ancient Athenian assembly. The rock-wall from which it projects forms the chord of a vast semicircular space, the enclosure of its arc being a wall of "Cyclopean" masonry. The radius of the semicircle measures between 76 and 77 yards from this outer wall to the bema. Here, then, was the auditorium of the Pnyx. But several difficulties beset the identification. Towards the bottom of the lower bema Prof. E. Curtius (Attische Studien, pt. i.) has discovered another similar though smaller bema. Again, Plutarch asserts that the bema which had originally faced towards the sea was by the Thirty Tyrants turned round the other way, in their hatred of the maritime democracy. Moreover, if the block of marble above mentioned be rightly identified as the bema, then it would have the auditorium sloping downwards from it, an arrangement ill suited for addressing a tumultuous popular assembly. Dr Curtius accordingly pronounces the entire identification to be a mistake, and would regard this spot as a primitive precinct and rock-altar of the Most High Zeus. It would not be difficult, if space allowed, to disprove Dr Curtius's theory. Far more reasonable is the view of Dr Dyer (Athens, App. iii.) He thinks that the lower and smaller bema discovered by Dr Curtius was the bema of Clisthenes, which did (however much Plutarch's statement is discredited by his own absurd explanation) face in the direction of the sea. The orator would thus speak from the arc of the semicircle, having the audience above him. The Thirty may well have defaced the Pnyx, and it would have been natural for Thrasybulus after the anarchy to restore it on

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a large scale, hewing out what is still known as the bema, giving the semicircular wall a wider sweep, and raising the tiers of seats at least to a level with the new bema, if not above it. For there is no reason to suppose that the surface of the lower terrace has undergone no change in the lapse of centuries, or that the "Cyclopean" wall surrounding it never exceeded its present height. A building of greater architectural importance and of The Diony. equal interest belongs to this same period. Dramatic siac theatre, performances at Athens originally took place in wooden theatres extemporised for the occasion; but the fall of one of these led, in the year 500 B.C., to the erection of the marble theatre on a site already consecrated to Dionysus as the Lenæum, upon the S.E. slope of the Acropolis. (Suidas, s. v. IIparivas.) We may be sure that the first stone theatre was comparatively simple in construction, consisting of a kotlov or auditorium, with tiers of rock-hewn seats, and an opɣnʊτpá, or space for the chorus, while the stage itself and its furniture were of wood. The excavation of the Dionysiac theatre in 1862 has made every one familiar with the row of marble thrones for the various priests and officers of state, the elaborate masonry of the stage, the orchestra floor, and other features. But these and other interesting decorations of the theatre belong to a later age. It was under the administration of Lycurgus the orator (337 B.C.) that the building was first really completed; and many of the sculptures which have been lately brought to light belong to a restoration of the theatre in the 2d, or perhaps even in the 3d, century A.D.1

wall.

Enough has now been said of the condition of Athens before the Persian War. It was surrounded by a ring-wall Thesean of narrow circuit, some doubtful traces of which are supposed to remain. At its centre stood the Acropolis, already crowded with temples and sanctuaries, some upon summit, some built at its foot, and others—like the famous grotto of Pan, on the N.W. slope-mere caves in its rocky Grotto of sides.

the

Pan.

The Persian invasion, which forced the Athenians to take After the refuge in their "wooden walls," and to leave their city at Persian the mercy of the barbarian, marked an important epoch in war. the annals of Athenian building. Upon the retreat of Mardonius, the Athenians returned to Attica to find their city virtually in ruins. Its fortifications and public buildings had been destroyed or burnt, and the private dwellings had been wantonly defaced or ruined by neglect. Amid the enthusiasm of hope which followed upon the great deliverance of Greece, a natural impulse led the Athenians to rear their city more glorious from its ruins. Themistocles fanned their patriotism with the foresight of a statesman, and Athens rose again with marvellous rapidity. This haste, however, though creditable to their patriotism, and, indeed, necessary in order to forestall the jealous opposition of Sparta, was not without its evils. The houses were rebuilt on their old sites, and the lines of the old streets, narrow and irregular as they had been, were too readily followed. A similar haste marked the rebuilding of the city walls, a work in which men and women, old and young, took zealous part, not scrupling to dismantle any building or monument, private or public, which could supply materials for the building. But in rebuilding the walls Rebuilding Themistocles gave them a wider circuit, especially towards of the the N. and N.E. (Thucyd., i. 90, 93). At the same time walls. he determined to construct new harbours, and to fortify the Piraeus, regarding the navy of Athens as her principal source of strength. It is doubtful whether the "Long Walls" formed a distinct portion of his designs; but he may certainly be regarded as the founder of the greatness

1 The best account yet given of the Dionysiac theatre is to be found in Dr Dyer's ascent work on Athens.

Gates.

The
Piraeus

and its
buildings.

of Athens, the works and embellishments carried out by Pericles being only a fulfilment of the far-sighted aims of Themistocles. Thucydides (ii. 13) makes the circuit of the city wall to be 43 stades (about 5 miles), exclusive of the unguarded space between walls; this is found to correspond accurately enough with the existing remains. In tracing the circuit of the ancient walls, we may take our start from the N.W. side of the city, at the one gate whose site is absolutely certain, the Thriasian gate (called also the Sacred gate, as opening upon the sacred way to Eleusis, and also Tò Aímulov, as consisting of two gates, perhaps one within the other), which is marked by the modern church of the Holy Trinity, a little N. of the bottom of Hermes Streeta spot attractive to the modern tourist through the beautiful "street of tombs" here laid bare by recent excavations. From the Thriasian gate the wall of Themistocles ran due E. for some distance; thence, skirting the modern theatre, it ran N.E., parallel to the modern Piraeus Street as far as the Bank, when it returned in a S.E. direction across the site of the present Mint, as far as the Chamber of Deputies. Thence towards the S.E. it included nearly all the modern Royal Gardens, and then ran S.W., following the zig-zag of the hills above the north bank of the Ilissus, until westwards by a straight course parallel with the Acropolis it reached the Museium Hill. Thence it may be traced in a direction N. W. and N., following more or less the contour of the hills, until we return to our starting-point at the Dipylum gate. Eight other gates (exclusive of wickets, Tulides, which must have existed) are mentioned by ancient authors-the Piræan, Hippades, Melitides, Itonian, Diomeian, Diocharis, Panopis, and Acharnian. Their exact sites cannot be certainly fixed, but some of them may be determined within narrow limits, such as the Piraan gate, which led out of the Agora, and opened upon the long walls. Having completed the defences of the city proper, among which must be included the building of the north wall of the Acropolis (Dyer, p. 121), Themistocles proceeded to fortify the Piraeus.

Athens, like most of the old Greek towns, was built, for greater security, at a distance from the coast, and only when more settled times brought her greater prosperity was a harbour formed at the nearest bay of Phalerum, near the modern church of St George. It is said that Themistocles would gladly have transported the Athenian population bodily from the upper city to the coast, there to form a great maritime state. Though this was impossible, yet he could strengthen Athens on the seaward side. The isthmus of Piraeus, though somewhat more distant than Phalerum, presented obvious advantages as a seaport. It formed on its north side the spacious and secure basin of Piraeus (now Port Drako), the north and south shores of which towards the entrance fall back into two smaller bays-harbours within the harbour-known respectively as the κwpòs λýv and κáv@apos. The neck of the isthmus on the south is formed by Port Zea (now Phanari), the entrance of which was secured by Phreattys, the headland of Munychia. Round to the east of the district of Munychia, again, and facing Phalerum, was the harbour known anciently as Munychia, and now as Port Stratiotiki. Themistocles thus, in giving up Port Phalerum, gave Athens three harbours instead of one. The fortifications of Piraeus were conceived on a grand scale, and carried out with no sign of hurry. The whole circuit of Piraeus and of the town of Munychia was enclosed alike on the sea and land sides by walls of immense thickness and strength, which were carried up to a height of more than 60 feet-this being only half the height intended by Themistocles! (see Grote, Hist. Greece, c. xliv.) The laying out of the new seaport belonged rather to the regime of Pericles (Grote, c. xlvii.) It was then that

|

Hippodamus, the eccentric architect, planned the Agora which bore his name; and the various public buildings which adorned Piraeus doubtless arose with growth of Athenian commerce. The harbour-basin was lined with porticoes, which served as warehouses and bazaars. Two theatres existed in the town, and numerous temples. The local deity was Artemis Munychia; but the large number of foreigners (uéтoikot) who became naturalised at this port led to the introduction of many foreign forms of worship. Artemis herself came to be identified with the Thracian Bendis, and her festival (rà Berdideia) is referred to in the immortal opening of Plato's Republic.

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If not a part of the original designs of Themistocles, it Long wal was at least a natural development of them, to carry "Long. Walls" from the newly-fortified Piraeus to the upper city, and thus combine them both into one grand system of fortification. The experiment of connecting a town by long walls with its port had been already tried between Megara and Nisæa (Grote, Hist. Greece, c. xlv.), and it was now repeated on a grander scale under Cimon. From the portion of the city wall between the Museium and the Nymphs' Hill a sort of bastion was thrown out to S.W. so as to form an irregular triangle, from the apex of which a long wall," about 4 miles long, was carried down to the N. portion of the Piræean fortifications; this was termed Tò Bópelov Teixos. Another "long wall" of somewhat shorter length ran down to the wall of Phalerum, which had hitherto served as the port of Athens; this was rò Paλnpikòv Teîxos. A third wall, between the two, parallel to the first, and but a few yards from it (Tò vórɩov TEIXOS, rò Sià péσov Teîxos), was afterwards added by Pericles, and the maritime fortifications of Athens became complete. But the city owed still more to the munificence of Cimon. Out of the spoils of his Persian campaign he fortified the S. side of the Acropolis with a remarkably solid wall, which terminated in a sort of bastion at the W. end. Here he reared a little temple of Athena Nike (otherwise called the Wingless Victory), although the existing sculptures of Wingles the frieze are pronounced on account of their style to Victory belong to a somewhat later date (Pausan., i. 28, 3; Corn. Nep., Cimon, ii; Plutarch, Cimon, xiii.) It was Cimon who first set the example of providing the citizens with agreeable places for promenade (Plutarch, ibid.), by planting the Agora with plane trees, and laying out the Academy with trees and walks. It is probable that some of the porticoes in the Agora were built by Cimon; at all events, the most beautiful one amongst them was reared by Stoa Pisianax, his brother-in-law, and the paintings with which Pœcile. Polygnotus, his sister's lover, adorned it (representing scenes from the military history of Athens, legendary and historical) made it ever famous as the ΣToà ToɩKíλŋ. One more building, the most perfect existing relic of ancient Athens, was also built by Cimon. The Theseium (as we Thesei still may venture to call it, in spite of the doubts lately cast upon its identification) is a hexastyle Doric temple standing on an eminence due N. of the Areopagus, and is the first object which meets the eye of the tourist who approaches the city from the Piraeus. Having served in Byzantine times for a Christian church, it is now a museum of antiquities, and contains some of the choicest treasures discovered by recent excavations.

We have now brought this sketch of Athenian topography Periclea down to the most distinguished period of Athenian history era. and Athenian architecture-the era of Pericles. As the champion of Hellenic freedom against the Persians, as the head of the Ionic confederation, Athens had suddenly grown to be the foremost city in Greece. But when one by one the confederate states sank into the position of subject1 See Dyer, Athens, p. 230, foll., who thinks it is really the temple of the Amazons.

Odeium.

thena 'romahus.

allies; when the yeμovía of Athens passed insensibly into a | Tuparvís (Thucyd., ii. 63); when the contribution of ships and men was commuted in most cases for a money payment, and the funds of the confederation were transferred from the Apollonium at Delos to the Athenian Acropolis,-an enormous revenue became at the disposal of the Athenian Government. It is to their credit that so little of it found its way into private pockets. It was natural for the thoughts of a Greek, especially of an Athenian, to turn to the decoration of his city; it was politic that the central city of the Ionian confederacy should be adorned with a beauty equal to her prestige. The buildings connected with the name of Cimon had been chiefly for utility or defence; those of Pericles were mainly ornamental. The first edifice completed by him seems to have been the Odeium, on the E. of the Dionysiac theatre, to serve as a place for recitations by rhapsodists, and for musical performances. It was burnt by Aristion during Sulla's siege of Athens, but afterwards rebuilt. Mention has already been made of the building of the Long Walls and the laying out of the Piraeus by Pericles; but it was the Acropolis itself which witnessed the greatest splendours of his administration. Within its limited area arose buildings and statues, on which the genius of Phidias the sculptor, of Ictinus and Mnesicles the architects, were employed for years; while multitudes of artists and craftsmen of all kinds were busied in carrying out their grand designs.1 The spoils of the Persian War had already been consecrated under Cimon to the honour of the national goddess, in the tatue of erection of a colossal statue of Athena by Phidias between the entrance of the Acropolis and the Erechtheium; her warlike attitude gained her the title of ПIpóμaxos, and the gleam of her helmet's plume and uplifted spear was hailed by the homeward seaman as he doubled Cape Sunium (Pausan., i. 28). But the national deity was to receive yet greater honours at the hand of Pericles. That an old temple stood on the site afterwards occupied by the Parthenon is proved, less by the doubtful expressions of Herodotus (viii. 51, 55), and the testimony of later compilers like Hesychius, than by recent excavations, which reveal that a large temple must have been at least begun upon this spot when the Persian invaders destroyed the old buildings of the Acropolis by fire. Here, then, Pericles proceeded to rear what has ever since been known as the Parthenon.. The designer of this masterpiece of architecture arthenon. was Ictinus; the foundations of the old temple were at his suggestion extended in length and breadth, and thus arose upon the S. side of the Acropolis a magnificent temple of the virgin goddess. It was completed in the year 438 It stood upon the highest platform of the Acropolis, so that the pavement of the peristyle of the Parthenon was on a level with the capitals of the columns of the east portico of the Propylæa. The temple was built entirely of white marble from the quarries of Mount Pentelicus. Ascending a flight of three steps, you passed through the great east entrance into the Pronaos, wherein was stored a large collection of sacred objects, chiefly of silver. From the Pronaos a massive door led into the cella, called Hecatompedos (véws ó 'Exatóμtedos), because it measured in length 100 Attic feet. The treasure here bestowed consisted chiefly of chaplets and other objects of gold. The west portion of the cella was railed off (by Kyxides), and formed the Parthenon proper, i.e., the adytum occupied by the chryselephantine. statue by Phidias of Athena Parthenos, a work which yielded the pre-eminence only to one other statue by the same artist, viz., the Zeus at Olympia. In this adytum were stored a number of silver bowls and other articles employed at the Panathenaic festi

The

B.C.

1 See the animated description in Plutarch, Pericles, 12, foll.

vals. The westernmost compartment at the rear of the cella was the Opisthodomus, which served as the national treasury; hither poured in the tribute of the Athenian allies. It is important to remember that the Parthenon was never intended as a temple of worship; for this purpose there already existed another temple, presently to be described as the Erechtheium,—standing upon the primeval site of that contest between Athena and Poseidon which established the claim of the goddess to the Attic citadel and soil. The Parthenon was simply designed to be the central point of the Panathenaic festival, and the storehouse for the sacred treasure. The entire temple should be regarded as one vast ávánμa to the national deity, not as a place for her worship. Thus directly in front of her statue in the cella there stood an erection, which has been mistaken for an altar, but which is more probably to be regarded as the platform which the victorious competitors in the Panathenaic contests ascended to receive, as it were from the hand of the goddess, the golden chaplets and vases of olive oil that formed the prizes (see Michaelis's Parthenon, p. 31). This consideration lends significance to the decorations of the building, which were the work of Phidias. Within the outer portico, along the outside of the top of the wall of the building, ran a frieze 3 feet 4 inches in height, and 520 feet in total length, on which were sculptured figures in low relief 2, representing the Panathenaic procession. Nearly all of these sculptures are in the British Museum, and the entire series has been recently made complete by casts from the other fragments, and arranged in the order of the original design. The marvellous beauty of these reliefs, which was heightened originally by colour, has been long familiar to all the world from numerous illustrated descriptions. The procession of youths and maidens, of priests and magistrates, of oxen for sacrifice, of flute-players and singers, followed by the youthful chivalry of Athens on prancing steeds-is represented as wending its way from the west towards the eastern entrance. Outside of the building, on the N. and S. sides, the metopes between the Doric triglyphs were filled with sculptures representing scenes from the mythical history of Athens. But the glory of the Parthenon were the sculptures of the E. and W. pediments. Unhappily but a few figures remain, and none are wholly perfect, of the statues which formed these groups; and Pausanias appears to have thought it superfluous to give a minute description of objects so familiar to every connoisseur and traveller. The sculptures on the eastern pediment related to the birth of Athena; the central group was early destroyed by the Byzantine Christians in converting the Parthenon into a church, with the Pronaos for its apse. But nearly all the subordinate figures are preserved in a more or less injured condition in the British Museum. The noble head of the horse of the car of Night, the seated female figures of "The Fates," and the grand torso commonly known as the "Theseus," are familiar to us all. It would be out of place here even to enumerate the

many attempts that have been made to reconstruct the groups of either pediment. The sculptures on the W. represented the contest between Athena and Poseidon for the possession of Attica; and although scarcely any portions of these figures are now existing, yet they are better known to us than the E. pediment by means of the faithful (if clumsy) sketches made by the Frenchman Carrey in 1674, when they were in a comparatively perfect state. Those who desire to know all that is to be known concerning the sculptures of the Parthenon should consult the beautiful work of Michaelis, Der Parthenon, while the

See the remarks of Mr Ruskin, Aratro Pentelica, p. 174. He who desires to enjoy these sculptures, should come from a perusal of Michaelis's eloquent work Der Parthenon, and spend a day in the British Museum with the guide-book in his band.

Erechtheium.

Propylæa.

measurements and architectural details of the edifice have | ways, still in existence, by which the citadel was entered.
never been so splendidly given as by our countryman
Penrose, in his Principles of Athenian Architecture.

We will turn now to the other buildings of the Acropolis, none of which, however, are so full of significance as the Parthenon itself. For, indeed, standing as it does on the highest point of Athenian soil, its erection marked the culminating point of Athenian history, literature, politics, and art. The " Birth of Athena," over the eastern entrance, may symbolise to us the sudden growth of Athenian greatness, while in the contest between the armed goddess of peaceful wisdom and the violent god of sea, which adorned the western front, we may see an allegory of the long struggle between the agricultural and the maritime interests which forms the central thread of Athenian history.

Opposite to the Parthenon, on the northern edge of the Acropolis, stands another remarkable temple, far smaller in size, and built in the most graceful forms of the Ionic order. The Erechtheium appears to be designed expressly to contrast with the severe sublimity of the Parthenon; and on the side which confronts those mighty Doric shafts, the columns of the smaller building are allowed to transform themselves into Canephori. The temple of Athena Polias, which contained the ancient wooden image of the goddess, and formed the centre of her worship, suffered from fire in the Persian War (479 B.C.) A building so sacred would hardly have been allowed to remain for long in ruins; but it was reserved for Pericles to set about a complete restoration of it. However, the Peloponnesian War seems to have interrupted his designs, and in the year 409 B.C. the edifice was still unfinished, and soon after this it was totally destroyed by fire. But soon afterwards it must have been rebuilt, without doubt retaining all its original features. The temple in its present state consists of an oblong cella extending fom E. to W. From each side of the W. end of the cella projects a portico, forming a sort of transept. The eastern portico formed the temple of Athena Polias, upon the site of her ancient contest with Poseidon. The west portion was the Pandroseium, dedicated to Athena Pandrosus. The building thus formed two temples in one, and is styled by Pausanias a dirλoûν oïênμa. It seems at a later time to have been commonly called the Erechtheium, because of a tradition that Erechtheus was buried on this site.

Among the many glories of the Acropolis, the Propylæa are described by Pausanias as being exceptionally magnificent (i. 22). They rivalled even the Parthenon, and were the most splendid of all the buildings of Pericles. The western end of the Acropolis, which furnished, and still furnishes, the only access to the summit of the hill, was about 160 feet in breadth,—a frontage so narrow, that to the artists of Pericles it appeared practicable to fill up the space with a single building, which, in serving the main purpose of a gateway, should contribute to adorn as well as to guard the citadel. This work, which rivalled the Parthenon in felicity of execution, and surpassed it in boldness and originality of design, was begun in the archonship of Euthymenes, in the year 437 B.C., and completed in five years, under the directions of the architect Mnesicles. Of the space which formed the natural entrance to the Acropolis, 58 feet near the centre were left for the grand entrance, and the remainder on either side was occupied by wings projecting 32 feet in front of the central colonnade. The entire building received the name of Propylæa from its forming the vestibule to the five door

1 An important inscription in the British Museum gives a survey of the works as they stood in that year, drawn up by a commission appointed for the purpose. See Greek Inscriptions in the British Museum, vol. i. No. 35.

The wall in which these doors were pierced was thrown back about 50 feet from the front of the artificial opening of the hill, and the whole may therefore be said to have resembled a modern fortification, although, in fact, the Propylaa was designed, not for defence, but for decoration. The whole building was of Pentelic marble. The Megaron or great vestibule in the centre consisted of a front of six fluted Doric columns, mounted upon four steps, which supported a pediment, and measured 5 feet in diameter and nearly 29 in height, with an intercolumniation of 7 feet, except between the two central columns, which were 13 feet apart, in order to furnish space for a carriage-way. Behind this Doric colonnade was a vestibule 43 feet in depth, the roof of which was sustained by six inner columns in a double row, so as to divide the vestibule into three aisles or compartments; and these columns, although only three feet and a half in diameter at the base, were, including the capitals, nearly 34 feet in height, their architraves being on the same level with the frieze of the Doric colonnade. The ceiling was laid upon marble beams, resting upon the lateral walls and the architraves of the two rows of Ionic columns,-those covering the side aisles being 22 feet in length, and those covering the central aisles 17 feet, with a proportional breadth and thickness. Enormous masses like these, raised to the roof of a building, standing upon a steep hill, and covered with a ceiling which all the resources of art had been employed to beautify, might well overcome the reserve of a matter-offact topographer like Pausanias, and at once account for and justify the unusual warmth of his language when he is speaking of the roof of the Propyla a (i. 22). Of the five doors at the extremity of the vestibule, the width of the central and largest was equal to the space between the two central columns of the Doric portico in front, and the same also as that between the two rows of Ionic columns in the vestibule; but the doors on either side of the principal one were of diminished height and breadth, and the two beyond these again were still smaller in both dimensions. These five gates or doors led from the vestibule into a back portico 18 feet in depth, which was fronted with a Doric colonnade and pediment of the same dimensions as those of the western or outer portico, but placed on a higher level, there being five steps of ascent from the western to the level of the eastern portico. From the latter or inner portico there was a descent of one step into the adjacent part of the platform of the Acropolis.

The wings of the Propylæa were nearly symmetrical in front, each presenting on this side a wall adorned only with a frieze of triglyphs, and with antæ at the extremities. The inner or southernmost column of each wing stood in a line with the great Doric columns of the Megaron; and as both these columns and those of the wings were upon the same level, the three porticoes were all connected together, and the four steps which ascended to the Megaron were continued also along the porticoes of the two wings. But here the symmetry of the building ended; for, in regard to interior size and distribution of parts, the wings were exceedingly dissimilar. In the northern or left wing, a porch of 12 feet in depth conducted by three doors into a chamber of 34 feet by 26, the porch and chamber thus occupying the entire space behind the western wall of that wing; whereas the southern or right wing consisted only of a porch or gallery of 26 feet by 16, which, on the S. and E. sides, was formed by a wall connected with and of the same thickness as the lateral wall of the Megaron, and, on the W. side, had its roof supported by a narrow pilaster, standing between the N.W. column of the wing and an anta, which terminated its southern wall. In front of the southern or right wing of the

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