A GLANCE AT THE SITE AND ANTIQUITIES OF ATHENS.
The day is a happy one to the student-traveler from the
Western World in which he first looks upon the lovely plain of
Athens. Rounding the point where Hymettus thrusts his huge
length into the sea, the long, featureless mountain-wall of
Southern Attica suddenly breaks down, and gives place to a
broad expanse of fertile, and well-cultivated soil, sloping
gently back with ever-narrowing bounds until it reaches the
foot-hills of lofty Pentelicus. The wooded heights of Parnes
enclose it on the north, while bald Hymettus rears an
impassable barrier along the south. In front of the gently
recurved shore stretch the smooth waters of the Gulf of
Salamis, while beyond rises range upon range of lofty
mountain-peaks with strikingly varied outline, terminating on
the one hand in the towering cone of Egina, and on the other in
the pyramidal, fir-clad summit of Cithaeron. Upon the plain, at
the distance of three or four miles from the sea, are several
small rocky hills of picturesque appearance, isolated and
seemingly independent, but really parts of a low range parallel
to Hymettus. Upon one of the most considerable of these, whose
precipitous sides make it a natural fortress, stood the
Acropolis, and upon the group of lesser heights around and in
the valleys between clustered the dwellings of ancient
Athens.
 View of the Acropolis and The Columns Of The Temple Of
Jupiter Olympus.
It was a fitting site for the capital of a people keenly
sensitive to beauty, and destined to become the leaders of the
world in matters of taste, especially in the important
department of the Fine Arts. Nowhere are there more charming
contrasts of mountain, sea and plain—nowhere a more
perfect harmony of picturesque effect. The sea is not a dreary
waste of waters without bounds, but a smiling gulf mirroring
its mountain-walls and winding about embosomed isles, yet ever
broadening as it recedes, and suggesting the mighty flood
beyond from which it springs. The plain is not an illimitable
expanse over which the weary eye ranges in vain in quest of
some resting-place, but is so small as to be embraced in its
whole contour in a single view, while its separate
features—the broad, dense belt of olives which marks the
bed of its principal stream, the ancient Cephissus, the
vineyards, the grain-fields and the sunny hillside
pastures—are made to produce their full impression. The
mountains are not near enough to be obtrusive, much less
oppressive; neither are they so distant as to be indistinct or
to seem insignificant. Seen through the clear air, their naked
summits are so sharply defined and so individual in appearance
as to seem almost like sculptured forms chiseled out of the
hard rock.
The city which rose upon this favored spot was worthy of its
surroundings. The home of a free and enterprising race endowed
with rare gifts of intellect and sensibility, and ever on the
alert for improvement, it became the nurse of letters and of
arts, while the luxury begotten of prosperity awakened a taste
for adornment, and the wealth acquired by an extended commerce
furnished the means of gratifying it. The age of Pericles was
the period of the highest national development. At that time
were reared the celebrated structures in honor of the
virgin-goddess who was the patron of Athens—the
Parthenon, the Propylaea, the Erechtheum—which crowned
the Acropolis, and were the glory of the city as they were the
masterpieces of Grecian architecture. During the preceding half
century many works of utility and of splendor had been
constructed, and the city now became renowned not only in
Greece, but throughout the ancient world, for the magnificence
of its public buildings. Thucydides, writing about this time,
says that should Athens be destroyed, posterity would infer
from its ruins that the city had been twice as populous as it
actually was. Demosthenes speaks of the strangers who came to
visit its attractions. But the changes of twenty-three
centuries have passed upon this splendor—a sad story of
violence and neglect—and the queenly city has long been
in the condition of ruin imagined by Thucydides. Still, the
spell of her influence is not broken, and the charm which once
drew so many visitors to her shrines still acts powerfully on
the hearts of scholars in all lands, who, having looked up to
her poets, orators and philosophers as teachers and loved them
as friends, long to visit their haunts, to stand where they
stood, to behold the scenes which they were wont to view, and
to gaze upon what may remain of the great works of art upon
which their admiration was bestowed.
So the student-pilgrim from the Western World with native
ardor strains his sight to catch the first glimpse of the
Athenian plain and city. He is fresh from his studies, and
familiar with what books teach of the geography of Greece and
the topography of Athens. He needs not to be informed which
mountain-range is Parnes, and which Pentelicus—which
island is Salamis, and which Egina. Yet much of what he sees is
a revelation to him. The mountains are higher, more varied and
more beautiful than he had supposed, Lycabettus and the
Acropolis more imposing, Pentelicus farther away, and the plain
larger, the gulf narrower, and Egina nearer and more
mountainous, than he had fancied. He is astonished at the
smallness of the harbor at Peiraeus, having insensibly formed
his conception of its size from the notices of the mighty
fleets which sailed from it in the palmy days when Athens was
mistress of the seas. He is not prepared to see the southern
shore of Salamis so near to the Peiraeus, though it explains
the close connection between that island and Athens, and throws
some light upon the great naval defeat of the Persians. In
short, while every object is recognized as it presents itself,
yet a more correct conception is formed of its relative
position and aspect from a single glance of the eye than had
been acquired from books during years of study.
Arrived at the city, his experience is the same. He needs no
guide to conduct him to its antiquities, nor cicerone to
explain in bad French or worse English their names and history.
Still, unexpected appearances present themselves not
unfrequently. Hastening toward the Acropolis, he will first
inspect the remains of the great theatre of Dionysus, so
familiar to him as the place where, in the presence of all the
people and many strangers, were acted the plays of his favorite
poets, Eschylus and Sophocles, and where they won many prizes.
Hurrying over the eastern brow of the hill, he comes suddenly
upon the spot, enters at the summit, as many an Athenian did in
the olden time, and is smitten with amazement at the first
glance, and led to question whether this be indeed the site of
the ancient theatre. He finds, it is true, the topmost seats
cut in the solid rock, row above row, stripped now of their
marble lining and weather-worn, but yet the genuine ancient
seats of the upper tier. These he expected to find. But whence
are those fresh seats which fill the lower part of the hollow,
arranged as neatly as if intended for immediate use? and whence
the massive stage beyond? He bethinks himself that he has heard
of recent excavations under the patronage of the government,
and closer inspection shows that these are actually the lower
seats of the theatre in the time of the emperor Hadrian, whose
favorite residence was Athens, and who did so much to embellish
the city. The front seats consist of massive stone chairs, each
inscribed with the name of its occupant, generally the
priestess of some one of the numerous gods worshiped by that
people so given to idolatry. In the centre of the second row is
an elevated throne inscribed with the name of Hadrian. The
stage is seen to be the ancient Greek stage enlarged to the
Roman size to suit the demands of a later style of theatrical
representation.
 Theatre of
Dionysus (Bacchus).
After looking in vain for the seat occupied by the priestess
of the Unknown God, our traveler passes on and enters with a
beating heart the charmed precincts of the Acropolis itself.
The Propylaea, which he has been accustomed to regard too
exclusively as a mere entrance-gate to the glories beyond,
impresses him with its size and grandeur, and the little temple
of Victory by its side with its elegance.1
But the steepness of the ascent perplexes him. It seems
impracticable for horses, yet he knows by unexceptionable
testimony that the Athenian youth prided themselves upon
driving their matched steeds in the great Panathenaic
procession which once every four years wound up the hill,
bearing the sacred peplus to the temple of the goddess. A
closer examination reveals the transverse creases of the
pavement designed to give a footing to the beasts, as well
as the marks of the chariot-wheels. Nevertheless, the ascent
(and much more the descent) must have been a perilous
undertaking, unless the teams were better broken than the
various accounts of chariot-races furnished by the poets
would indicate. Entering beneath the great gate, a little
distance forward to the left may readily be found the site
of the colossal bronze statue of the warrior-goddess in
complete armor, formed by Phidias out of the spoils taken at
Marathon. The square base, partly sunk in the uneven rock,
is as perfect as if just put in readiness to receive the
pedestal of that famous work. A road bending to the right
and slightly hollowed out of the rock leads to the
Parthenon. The outer platform which sustains this celebrated
temple is partly cut from the rock of the hill and partly
built up of common limestone. The inner one of three
courses, as well as the whole superstructure, is formed of
Pentelic marble of a compact crystalline structure and of
dazzling whiteness. Long exposure has not availed to destroy
its lustre, but only to soften its tone. The visitor,
planting himself at the western front, is in a position to
gain some adequate idea of the perfection of the noble
building. The interior and central parts suffered the
principal injury from the explosion of the Turkish powder
magazine in 1687. The western front remains nearly entire.
It has been despoiled, indeed, of its movable ornaments. The
statues which filled the pediment are gone, with the
exception of a fragment or two. The sculptured slabs have
been removed from the spaces between the triglyphs, and the
gilded shields which hung beneath have been taken down. Of
the magnificent frieze, representing the procession of the
great quadrennial festival, only the portion surrounding the
western vestibule is still in place.2
Victory
Untying Her Sandals.
Temple of Victory
The Parthenon.
Still, as these were strictly decorations, and wholly
subordinate to the organic parts of the structure, their
presence, while it would doubtless greatly enhance the effect
of the whole, is not felt to be essential to its completeness.
The whole Doric columns still bear the massive entablature
sheltered by the covering roof. The simple greatness of the
conception, the just proportion of the several parts, together
with the elaborate finishing of the whole work, invest it with
a charm such as the works of man seldom possess—the pure
and lasting pleasure which flows from apparent perfection
Entering the principal apartment of the building, traces are
seen of the stucco and pictures with which the walls were
covered when it was fitted up as a Christian church in the
Byzantine period. Near the centre of the marble pavement is a
rectangular space laid with dark stone from the Peirseus or
from Eleusis. It marks the probable site of the colossal
precious statue of the goddess in gold and ivory—one of
the most celebrated works of Phidias. The smaller apartment
beyond, accessible only from the opposite front of the temple,
was used by the state as a place of deposit and safekeeping for
bullion and other valuables in the care of the state
treasurer.
Having examined the great temple, and tested the curvature
of its seemingly horizontal lines by sighting along the
unencumbered platform, and having stopped at several points of
the grand portico to admire the fine views of the city and
surrounding country, the traveler picks his way northward,
across a thick layer of fragments of columns, statues and
blocks of marble, toward the low-placed, irregular but elegant
Erechtheum, the temple of the most ancient worship and statue
of the patron-goddess of the city. This building sits close by
the northern as the Parthenon does by the southern wall of the
enclosure. It has suffered equally with the other from the
ravages of time, and its ruins, though less grand, are more
beautiful. Most of the graceful Ionic columns are still
standing, but large portions of the roof and entablature have
fallen. Fragments of decorated cornice strew the ground, some
of them of considerable length, and afford a near view of that
delicate ornamentation and exquisite finish so rare outside the
limits of Greece. The elevated porch of the Caryatides, lately
restored by the substitution of a new figure in place of the
missing statue now in the British Museum, attracts attention as
a unique specimen of Greek art, and also as showing how far a
skillful treatment will overcome the inherent difficulties of a
subject. The row of fair maidens looking out toward the
Parthenon do not seem much oppressed by the burden which rests
upon them, while their graceful forms lend a pleasing variety
to the scene. Passing out by the northern wing of the
Propylaea, a survey is had of the numerous fragments of
sculpture discovered among the ruins upon the hill, and
temporarily placed in the ancient Pinacotheca. The eye rests
upon sweet infant faces and upon rugged manly ones. Sometimes a
single feature only remains, which, touched by the finger of
genius, awakens admiration. A naked arm severed from the trunk,
of feminine cast, but with muscles tightly strained and hand
clenched as in agony, will arrest attention and dwell in the
memory.
North-west of the Acropolis, across a narrow chasm, lies the
low, rocky height of the Areopagus, accessible at the southeast
angle by a narrow flight of sixteen rudely-cut steps, which
lead to a small rectangular excavation on the summit, which
faces the Acropolis, and is surrounded upon three sides by a
double tier of benches hewn out of the rock. Here undoubtedly
the most venerable court of justice at Athens had its seat and
tried its cases in the open air. Here too, without doubt, stood
the great apostle when, with bold spirit and weighty words, he
declared unto the men of Athens that God of whom they confessed
their ignorance; who was not to be represented by gold or
silver or stone graven by art and man's device; who dwelt not
in temples made with hands, and needed not to be worshiped with
men's hands. In no other place can one feel so sure that he
comes upon the very footsteps of the apostle, and on no other
spot can one better appreciate his high gifts as an orator or
the noble devotion of his whole soul to the work of the Master.
How poor in comparison with his life-work appear the
performances of the greatest of the Athenian thinkers or
doers!
A little more than a quarter of a mile west of the Acropolis
is another rocky hill—the Pnyx—celebrated as the
place where the assembly of all the citizens met to transact
the business of the state. A large semicircular area was
formed, partly by excavation, partly by building up from
beneath, the bounds of which can be distinctly traced.
Considerable remains of the terrace-wall at the foot of the
slope exist—huge stones twelve or fourteen feet in length
by eight or ten in breadth. The chord of the semicircle is near
the top of the hill, formed by the perpendicular face of the
excavated rock, and is about four hundred feet in length by
twenty in depth. Projecting from it at the centre, and hewn out
of the same rock, is the bema or stone platform from which the
great orators from the time of Themistocles and Aristides, and
perhaps of Solon, down to the age of Demosthenes and the Attic
Ten, addressed the mass of their fellow-citizens. It is a
massive cubic block, with a linear edge of eleven feet,
standing upon a graduated base of nearly equal height, and is
mounted on either side by a flight of nine stone steps. From
its connection with the most celebrated efforts of some of the
greatest orators our race has yet seen, it is one of the most
interesting relics in the world, and its solid structure will
cause it to endure as long as the world itself shall stand,
unless, as there is some reason to apprehend will be the case,
it is knocked to pieces and carried off in the carpet-bags of
travelers. No traces of the Agora, which occupied the shallow
valley between the Pnyx and the Acropolis, remain. It was the
heart of the city, and was adorned with numerous public
buildings, porticoes, temples and statues. It was often
thronged with citizens gathered for purposes of trade,
discussion, or to hear and tell some new
thing.
Porch of the
Caryatides.
Half a mile or more to the south-east, on the banks of the
Ilissus, stood a magnificent structure dedicated to Olympian
Zeus—one of the four largest temples of Greece, ranking
with that of Demeter at Eleusis and that of Diana at Ephesus.
Its foundations remain, and sixteen of the huge Corinthian
columns belonging to its majestic triple colonnade. One of
these is fallen. Breaking up into the numerous disks of which
it was composed—six and a half feet in diameter by two or
more in thickness—and stretching out to a length of over
sixty feet, it gives an impressive conception of the size of
these columns, said to be the largest standing in Europe. The
level area of the temple is now used as a training-ground for
soldiers. Close by, and almost in the bed of the stream, which
is dry the larger part of the year, issues from beneath a ledge
of rock the copious fountain of sweet waters known to the
ancients as Calirrhoe. It furnished the only good
drinking-water of the city, and was used in all the sacrifices
to the gods. A little way above, on the opposite bank of the
Ilissus, is the site of the Panathenaic stadium, whose shape is
perfectly preserved in the smooth grass-grown hollow with
semicircular extremity which here lies at right angles to the
stream, between parallel ridges partly artificial.
Northward from the Acropolis, on a slight elevation, is the
best-preserved and one of the most ancient structures of
Athens—the temple of Theseus, built under the
administration of Cimon by the generation preceding Pericles
and the Parthenon. It is of the Doric order, and shaped like
the Parthenon, but considerably inferior to it in size as well
as in execution. It has been roofed with wood in modern times,
and was long used as a church, but is now a place of deposit
for the numerous statues and sculptured stones of various
kinds—mostly sepulchral monuments—which have been
recently discovered in and about the city. They are for the
most part unimportant as works of art, though many are
interesting from their antiquity or historic associations.
Among these is the stone which once crowned the burial-mound on
the plain of Marathon. It bears a single figure, said to
represent the messenger who brought the tidings of victory to
his countrymen.
Near the Theseium was the double gate (Dipylum) in the
ancient wall of the city whence issued the Sacred Way leading
to Eleusis, and bordered, like the Appian Way at Rome, with
tombs, many of them cenotaphs of persons who died in the public
service and were deemed worthy of a monument in the public
burying-ground. Within a few years an excavation has been made
through an artificial mound of ashes, pottery and other refuse
emptied out of the city, and a section of a few rods of this
celebrated road has been laid bare. The sepulchral monuments
are ranged on one side rather thickly, and crowd somewhat
closely upon the narrow pavement. They are, for the most part,
simple, thick slabs of white marble, with a triangular or
pediment-shaped top, beneath which is sculptured in low relief
the closing scene of the person commemorated, followed by a
short inscription. The work is done in an artistic style worthy
of the publicity its location gave it. On one of these slabs
you recognize the familiar full-length figure of Demosthenes,
standing with two companions and clasping in a parting grasp
the hand of a woman, who is reclining upon her deathbed. The
inscription is, Collyrion, wife of Agathon. On another
stone of larger size is a more imposing piece of sculpture. A
horseman fully armed is thrusting his spear into the body of
his fallen foe—a hoplite. The inscription relates that
the unhappy foot-soldier fell at Corinth by reason of those
five words of his!—a record intelligible enough,
doubtless, to his contemporaries, but sufficiently obscure and
provocative of curiosity to later generations.
There are other noted structures at Athens, such as the
Choragic Monument of Lysicrates—the highest type of the
Corinthian order of architecture, as the Erechtheum is of the
Ionic and the Parthenon of the Doric—but want of space
forbids any further description of them. Let the American
traveler visit Athens with the expectation of finding a city
occupying the most charming of sites, and containing by far the
most interesting and important monuments of antiquity, in their
original position, to be found in the whole world.
J.L.T. PHILLIPS.
Monument of
Lysicrates.
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