(Αθήναι, Αθηναῖος), "the eye of Greece" (to use Byron's phrase), the capital of Attica, and the birthplace of the most distinguished poets, orators, philosophers, statesmen, historians, and artists of antiquity, is situated in Long. 23° 44' E., Lat. 37° 58' N., in the central plain of Attica, about four miles from the coast. See ATTICA. The city of Athens consisted of three distinct parts: 1. The town on the rock, or the Acropolis, also simply called ἡ πόλις; 2. The city of Athens below and around the Acropolis, generally called τὸ δωρεῖον; and sometimes ἡ κάτω πόλις, or lower city; and 3. The port towns, including Peiraeus, Munychia, and Phalerum.
The origin of Athens, like that of most other ancient and renowned cities, is involved in the obscurity of fable. Its reputed founder was Cecrops, an Egyptian, who brought from Sais the worship of the goddess Neith, called by the Athenians Ἀθηνᾶ, and who, in the opinion of the learned, was contemporary with Moses. The new city was built on the rock of the Acropolis, which originally contained all the habitations of the Athenians, and received from Cecrops the name of Cecropia. But in the time of Erechtheus, called by later writers Erichthonius, the second of the early kings in succession from Cecrops, and the person who is said to have instituted the festivals called Athenaia, in honour of Ἀθηνᾶ or Minerva, it lost the name which it had derived from its founder, and acquired that of Ἀθηνᾶ, Athens, from the goddess to whose worship it was principally dedicated.
We have received little or no information respecting the ancient size or dimensions of Athens under its earliest kings. It is stated generally supposed, however, that even as late as the time
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1. The principal works on the Topography of Athens, which has been discussed at length, and with great accuracy and research, by modern antiquaries and travellers, are Stuart's Antiquities of Athens; Dodwell's Classical Tour, vol. I.; Mr Hawkins's Dissertation on the Topography of Athens in Walpole's Memoirs, vol. I.; Colonel Leake's Topography of Athens, with some Remarks on its Antiquities; P. W. Forchhammer's Topographie von Athen, Kiel, 1841, 8vo; Wordsworth's Athens and Attica, London, 1836; and Mr Cramer's Geographie et Historique des Anciens Grecs, vol. II., p. 309. These writers, with the exception of Mr Cramer, have in general employed the works of Pausanias, his guide-book, its antiquities and most remarkable edifices. But as it is admitted on all hands that Pausanias has neglected to notice several important buildings pointed out by other authors, and that his description is, besides, defective in several particulars, we have availed ourselves of the additional information supplied by Mearsius in his Athenae Atticae, and by succeeding antiquaries, in order that we might be enabled to form as accurate a list as possible of the principal edifices and monuments of this celebrated city. of Theseus the town was almost entirely confined to the Acropolis and the adjoining hill of Areos or Mars. But during the six or seven centuries which elapsed between the Trojan war and the reign of Peisistratus, it appears to have increased considerably both in extent and population; while the administration of that enlightened and patriotic usurper, so far from proving an impediment to the prosperity of the city, operated in aid of its improvement; as has often happened when power chances to fall into the hands of a person of taste and munificence. By establishing a public library, and by editing the works of Homer, Peisistratus and his sons fixed the Muses at Athens. Nor in the midst of all this attention to the cultivation of the arts and the embellishment of the city, had the means of defence against external aggression been neglected. For, since Athens was able to withstand a siege by the Lacedemonians, during the reign of Hippias, one of the sons of Peisistratus, we may conclude that it already possessed walls and fortifications of sufficient height and strength to ensure its safety.
But the invasion of Xerxes, and the subsequent irruption of Mardonius, effected the entire destruction of the ancient city, and reduced it to a heap of ruins; with the exception only of such temples and buildings as, from the solidity of their structure, were enabled to resist the action of fire and the work of demolition. During their temporary ascendancy in Greece, the Persians displayed the same iconoclastic fury which had marked their career of conquest in Egypt with havoc and desolation. But when the battles of Marathon, Salamis, Platæa, and Mycale, had dissipated the forces of the invader, and liberated Greece from the danger of subjugation to a foreign power, Athens, restored to peace and security, soon rose out of its ruins with increased splendour; and having been provided by Themistocles with the military works necessary for its defence, it attained, under the subsequent administrations of Cimon and Pericles, to the highest pitch of beauty, strength, and magnificence. The former, indeed, is known to have erected the temple of Theseus, the Dionysiac Theatre, the Stoa, and the Gymnasium, and also to have embellished the Academy, the Agora, and other parts of the city, at his own expense; while the latter completed the fortifications which had been left in an unfinished state by Themistocles and Cimon—rebuilt several edifices which the Persians had destroyed—and, above all, immortalized himself by the construction of the temple of Eleusis, the Parthenon, and the Propylæa, edifices unrivalled alike for classical purity of design and perfection of execution.
It was, indeed, under the administration of Pericles that Athens attained to that eminence in art which has excited the wonder and admiration of all succeeding ages: it was to this illustrious man that the city was principally indebted for the splendours of its architectural decorations, and the republic for its prosperity and its power. At the period in question the whole of Athens, with its three ports of Peiræus, Munychia, and Phaleron, connected by means of the celebrated Long Walls, formed one great city, inclosed within a vast peribolos of massive fortifications, extending to not less than 174 stadia, of which the circuit of the city amounted to 43, the long walls taken together to 75, and the circumference of the three harbours to 56. There is some difficulty in ascertaining the amount of the population of Athens at this period. Xenophon informs us that it contained more than 10,000 houses, which, at the rate of ten persons to a house, would give 100,000 souls for the whole population of the city. By a census of Pericles, mentioned by Plutarch in his life of that statesman, it, however, appears that the number of Athenians entitled to exercise the rights of citizenship was confined to 14,040; and at no subsequent period does this number appear to have much exceeded 20,000, which indeed may be taken as the average amount of the free adult male population of Athens, enjoying the rights of citizenship. See Attica.
From the researches of Colonel Leake and others, it appears that the ancient city considerably exceeded in extent the modern town; for, although the scanty remains of the old fortifications are insufficient to enable us to judge of their circumference, it is nevertheless evident, from the measurement furnished by Thucydides, that they inclosed a much larger space than that contained within the present line of wall, particularly towards the north. It is probable, indeed, that, on this side, the extremity of the city reached as far as the foot of Mount Lyceabettus; and that, to the westward, its walls followed the course of the small brook which terminates in the marshy ground of the Academy, until they met the point where some of the ancient foundations are still to be seen near the Dipylum; while, to the eastward, they approached close to the Ilissus, a little below the present church of the Mologitades or Confessors. The entire peribolos of the fortifications, including the walls of the city, the longitudinal inclosure, and the defences of the ports, cannot therefore have been less than 19 miles; but from the extreme irregularity of the space inclosed, it is impossible to form any accurate estimate of its dimensions. Ancient writers inform us, however, that Athens was nearly equal in extent to Rome within the walls of Servius; and Plutarch compares it in point of size to Syracuse, which Strabo estimates at 180 stadia, or upwards of 22 miles in circumference.
The number of gates in the fortifications of ancient Athens Gates, is uncertain; but the names of nine have been preserved by Diodorus, the classical writers. These are Dipylum (otherwise called Ceramicon), Diomea, Diocharis, Melitides, Peiræa, Acharnæa, Itonia, Hippades, and Heraclea. The Dipylum was situated in that part of the wall which separated the inner from the outer Ceramicon, and formed the communication between them; from which circumstance it was sometimes called the gate of Ceramicon. A little to the south of the Dipylum was the Sacred Gate, from its leading into the Sacred Way; also called the Thriasian gate, or gate of Thria, from its conducting to or forming the outlet in the direction of Eleusis and Megara. On the north-west side of the Acropolis, in a hollow adjoining a small church built on a rock and dedicated to St Athanasius, there still remain some appearances of the foundations of a gate; and here, accordingly, Colonel Leake and others have fixed the site of Dipylum. The Diomea, probably so called from Diomea, one of the Attic demi, which itself received its name from the hero Diomus, was nearly opposite the entrance of the suburban gymnasium called Cynosarges, a place dedicated to Hercules, and situated to the north-east of Athens. The gate of Diocharis fronted the entrance of the Lyceum, near to the fountain of Panops; while that called Melitides was situated in the southern part of the wall, towards the sea and Phaleron; and the Peiræa, as its name sufficiently implies, led to the harbour of the Peiræus. Traces still exist of the Melitides and Peiræa, as well as of the Dipylum.
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1 This must have been true even in the time of Homer, who applies to it the epithets of ἀναγκαῖος and ἀναγκαῖος, which seem to indicate a place of some consideration.
2 Plutarch, in Vit. Cimbr.
3 Taking the itinerary stadium at 575 English feet, or the length resulting from the equation of 19 English miles with 174-5 stadia, it would of course follow that the peribolos of fortifications was just the same number of miles in extent. But it has been ascertained that the Greek stadium in the time of the Roman emperors exceeded the itinerary stadium by 30 feet, or, in other words, was equal to 605 English feet; which, taken as the true value of the measure, would consequently give \( \frac{605}{174} = 3.48 \) miles as the entire circumference. (Leake's Topography, p. 369.) There can be little doubt that the gate called Acharnæa was so named from its leading to the demus of Acharnae, the situation of which was probably at or near the modern village of Menidi, close by the spot where the present road to that village intersects the line of the ancient walls. The site of the Ionian gate, mentioned in the dialogue of Xerxes, is placed by Colonel Leake about half-way between the Iliussus and the foot of the hill of Museum, where the road leading direct to Phalerum from the modern Inté-kapsei or Albanian gate cuts the line of the ancient walls. Of the Hippodæus we only know that it was the gate on the outside of which was the sepulchre of the family of the orator Hyperiades. It seems to have derived its name from some equestrian statues erected near it; and it is not improbable that the Hippodæus may have been the gate between Dipylum and the Peiræac, of which some vestiges still exist on the north side of the Hill of Nymphs, commonly, but erroneously, called Mount Lycabettus. Lastly, the Herme or Hieræac was so called from its being the gate through which corpses were usually conveyed to the burying-ground, but its precise site cannot now be discovered. Athens, in fact, was surrounded on every side with an immense cemetery. On the north-west and north, from the northern long wall to Mount Lycabettus, generally but falsely called Anchesmus, there was a continued succession of sepulchres; and the excavations made in search of sepulchral antiquities have proved that there were similar burying-grounds on the outside of the southern long wall.
Pausanias commences his description of Athens apparently from the Peiræac gate. We shall imitate his example, and follow nearly the same course; supplying his omissions as we go along, and conjoining with our accounts of ancient edifices and monuments notices of their existing state and condition where any traces or vestiges of them still remain. On entering the city, the first building remarked by Pausanias was the Pompæum. This was so called from its being the depository of the sacred vessels (ρυμαία) used in certain processions, which, being of great value, had a separate building appropriated for their safe custody. In the Pompæum there was also a statue of Socrates by Lysippus, together with several portraits of eminent individuals, amongst which that of Isocrates has been particularly mentioned. Near this edifice stood a temple of Demeter (Ceres), containing statues of that goddess, of her daughter Persephone, and of Iacchus, executed by Praxiteles; and beyond it were several porticoes leading from the city gates to the outer Ceramicus; while the intervening space was occupied by some temples, the Gymnasium of Hermes, and the house of Polytion, where some Athenians of distinction (probably Alcibiades and his companions) are said to have celebrated mysteries similar to those of Eleusis.
There were two places in Athens known by the name of Ceramicus: one without the walls, forming part of the suburbs; and the other within, including a considerable and very important section of the city. The outer Ceramicus was covered with the sepulchres of the Athenians who had been slain in battle, and buried at the public expense, with the exception of those who fell at Marathon, and who were interred on the spot where they had died so gloriously; and it appears to have communicated with the inner Ceramicus by means of the gate Dipylum, which is understood to be the Ceramic entrance alluded to by Philostratus. The Ceramicus intra muros probably included the Agora, the Stoa Basileios, and the Poecilæ, besides various other temples and public buildings. Antiquaries, it is true, are not decided as to the general extent and direction of this portion of the ancient city; but, from the researches and observations of Colonel Leake, it seems pretty certain that it lay entirely on the south side of the Acropolis, where it was of course bounded by the city walls, which ran close to the fountain Callirhoe, or Enneacrunus; and that, consequently, its breadth could not have exceeded one-half of its length. We shall now give some account of the edifices in this part of the ancient city, reserving what we have to say of the outer Ceramicus until we come to describe the suburbs.
The first building mentioned by Pausanias is the Stoa Ceramike Basileios, so called because the archon basileus held his offices there, and which probably stood at the western extremity of the Areopagus. Its roof was adorned with statues of baked clay; and adjoining it were statues of Cimon, and Evagoras, king of Cyprus. Behind this portico was another, containing paintings of the twelve gods, and of Theseus and "the fierce democracy,"—thus implying that he was the first to establish equal rights among the citizens of Athens; together with a picture by Euphranor, representing the achievements of the Athenian auxiliary cavalry at the battle of Mantinea. The temple of Apollo Patroos was situated in the vicinity of the latter portico, and was dedicated to that god in his capacity of Alexicacus, that is, the averter of evil, such as the plague and other epidemics. The Metroum, a temple consecrated to the mother of the gods, was the grand depository of the archives of the state, and served also as a tribunal for the archon eponymus. Adjacent to the Metroum was the senate-house (Bouleuterion), containing statues of Zeus the Counsellor, of Apollo, and of the Athenian demos; and close to the council-wall stood the Tholus, where the Prytanes usually held their feasts and sacrifices; while somewhat higher up were the statues of the eponymi, or heroes, who gave names to the Athenian tribes, with those of Amphiarus, Lycurgus the orator, and Demosthenes. Near the latter stood a temple of Ares (Mars), having several statues within, and around it those of Hercules, Theseus, and Pindar, who was thus honoured for the praise he had bestowed upon the Athenians; close to which were the figures of Harmodius and Aristogeiton. All the statues here mentioned were carried away by Xerxes when he plundered Athens, but were afterwards restored by Antiochus, as we learn both from Pausanias and from Arrian. Above the Stoa Basileios was a temple of Hephaestus (Vulcan), and also one dedicated to Aphrodite (Venus) Urania, containing a statue of the goddess in Parian marble, executed by the chisel of Phidias; both of which edifices were situated near the western extremity of the hill or ridge of Areopagus.
One of the most important of the Ceramic edifices was Stoa Poecilæ, so called from the celebrated paintings etc., with which it was adorned, although its more ancient name appears to have been Peisianactos. The paintings were almost exclusively devoted to the representation of national subjects, as the contest of Theseus with the Amazons, the battle of Marathon, and other achievements of the Athenians; and were mostly executed by Polygnotus, Micon, and Pamphilus, the most celebrated amongst the early Greek artists. Here were also suspended the shields of the Scionavans of Thrace, together with those of the Lacedemonians taken in the island of Sphacteria; and it was in this portico that Zeno first opened that celebrated school, which thence received the appellation of Stoic, and was destined to exercise a most powerful influence both on the philosophy and legislation of succeeding times. The Poecile is also memorable as the scene where no less than 1500 citizens of Athens are said to have been destroyed by the Thirty Tyrants. Some ancient walls which are still extant near the church of Panagia Fanaromeni, Colonel Leake supposes, with some probability, to be the remains of this once celebrated portico. Near the Stoa Poecile was a statue of Hermes Agoraeus, which, from its position close to a small gate, was sometimes termed Ἐφύρης πρὸς τὴν πόλιν.
The epithet Agoraeus naturally leads us to conclude that this brazen figure of the god, described by the Roman satirist as *forum aeternum maxima formido*, stood in the Agora or market-place, by much the largest portion of which was in the quarter of Ceramica. Xenophon also informs us, that at certain festivals it was customary for the knights to make the circuit of the Agora on horseback, beginning at the statue of Hermes just mentioned, and paying homage as they passed along to the statues and temples around it.
There is sufficient reason to believe, however, that the Agora never extended to the southward and eastward of the ascent to the Acropolis; but it seems to have included a very large space to the west and north-west of the Propylaea; which is accounted for upon the supposition, which a number of circumstances conspire to render probable, that the marketplace, or at least its most frequented parts, had shifted their position at different periods of the republic. In the more remote ages, when Acropolis or Cecropia was almost the only inhabited part of the site of Athens, it is natural to believe that the Agora resorted to from the neighbouring country must have been situated a little below the entrance of Cecropia, free admission to which could scarcely have been permitted to strangers in those barbarous ages. But when the principal sacred edifices were erected on the south side of the Acropolis, and the city began to spread over the valleys to the south and west of the citadel, the Agora may have extended into the western side of the same space, with that most ancient place of popular assembly, the Pryx, above the middle of it. It has been supposed by Colonel Leake and others, that about the time of Augustus, when the city had been considerably extended in the north of the Acropolis, and when the Agora had been polluted by the massacre of the Athenians in the time of Sulla, a new Agora was built in the north of the Acropolis; and a portal still existing in that neighbourhood has been generally regarded as a remnant of this new Agora. But the style of this portal, as well as the inscriptions on it, show that it was not a gate, but a portion of a building erected out of the donations of Julius Caesar and Augustus in honour of Athena Archegetis. As for the population of that part of the city, we know that in the time of Thucydides and Xenophon it was not occupied by houses, but consisted of gardens. There is accordingly no ground for supposing that Athens ever had more than one Agora.
Our detailed description of the Agora must necessarily be brief. It contained a street lined with Hermi, and forming the communication between the Stoa Basilicios and the Poecile. The Macra Stoa was a range of porticoes extending from the Peiraeic gate to the Poecile, behind which rose the hill called Colonos Agoraeus, where Meton erected a table for astronomical purposes. The Leocorium stood also in the Ceramicae, which, as classical readers know, is often used synonymously with Agora. Pausanias makes no mention of this monument, which was erected in honour of the daughters of Leos, who had devoted themselves for their country, and near which the tyrant Hipparhus was slain by Harmodius and Aristogeiton. The Ceramicae also contained the Agrippaeum or theatre of Agrippa, the Palaestra of Taureas, and the Stoa of the Thracians and of Attalus. The portion strictly appropriated as a market-place was divided into sections, distinguished from one another by appellatives descriptive of the various articles exhibited for sale. Thus we read of the γυναικεία ἀγορά, where women's apparel was usually sold; of the ἱδρυματική ἀγορά, or fish-market; of the ἰππαρχεία ἀγορά, or clothes-market; and of the ἐπώκη Ἀγγίστου, Θεοῦ, Κέρασμα, where, among other things, stolen goods were, it seems, publicly disposed of. The quarter denominated Cyclos from its form, was the slave and provision-market. A peculiar stand was allotted to each vender, who, when he had once chosen his station, was not allowed afterwards to change it. The common-hall of the Athenian mechanics was situated in the Ceramicae, which seems to have been the great resort of the lower orders, including courtezans, who, according to Lucian and the scholiast on Aristophanes, principally frequented this part of the city. In the north of the Acropolis, or the district commonly called that of the new Agora, there was an altar to Pity, and two gymnasia; one founded by Ptolemy the son of Juba the Libyan, the other supposed to have been established by Ptolemy Philadelphus, and each denominated Ptolemaicum. To the northward of Fanaromeni there was found among the ruins, many years ago, an inscribed pedestal, which had supported a statue of Ptolemy the son of Juba; and Juba is said by Pausanias to have been honoured with a statue in the Gymnasium of Ptolemy. So much for the Ceramic edifices.
The next structure which demands our attention is the Theseum. Theseum or temple of Theseus, which stood, and happily still stands, at no great distance from the site of the monuments last mentioned. The circumstances which led to the erection of this noble edifice are deserving of commemoration. About eight centuries after the death of Theseus, the Athenians suddenly became ashamed of the ingratitude of their ancestors towards their great benefactor, in driving him out of Athens to die by violence in a foreign country. This tardy fit of remorse is said to have been occasioned by a rumour, which readily gained belief, that the spectre of the patriot hero had been seen fighting against the Persian host at Marathon. The Pythia was consulted in reference to the supposed apparition, which of course was duly authenticated; and generously directed the Athenians to remove his remains to the city, which even his spirit had defended, and to honour him as a demigod. His bones, with a brazen helmet and a sword lying beside them, were discovered in the island of Scyrus, by Cimon, son of Miltiades. They were received at Athens with processions and sacrifices. Games and festivals were instituted in his honour; a heroum was erected to him on the Colonus Hippius, and a temple, the Theseum, in the city. This building was equalled in sanctity only by the Parthenon and Eleusinum; its sacred inclosure was so large as occasionally to serve as a place of military assembly. It was built about 465 years before the Christian era, and about 30 years anterior to the erection of the Parthenon. The Theseum is a peripteral hexastyle, with 13 columns on the sides, and it faces the east. The cella within measures 40 feet in length and 20 feet in breadth. It has a proaon and a posticum, each of which is formed by a prolongation of the side walls of the cella, having two columns between the antae; but the depth of the proaon is greater than that of the posticum, and the depth of the porch of the proaon is greater than that of the porch at the back of the temple. The side porticoes are only 6 feet in breadth; but the 34 columns of the peristyle are nearly 3 feet 4 inches in diameter at the base, and about 19 feet in height, with an intercolumniation of 5 feet 4 inches, except at the angles, where the interval is smaller. The stylobate is formed of only two steps; and the height of the temple, from the bottom of the stylobate to the summit of the pediment, is 33½ feet. The eastern or chief front only of the temple was adorned with sculptures; and, accordingly, the ten metopes of that front, with the four adjoining metopes of either flank, are those in which the labours of Hercules and Theseus are represented in alto-reliro, while the other metopes are plain. The roof of the cella of the Theseum is modern; the greater part of the beams and lacunaria of the porticoes are wanting; and the sculptures have been purposely defaced by the Turks. When the temple was converted into a Christian church, the two columns of the proaon were removed to make room for the altar; and a door was at the same time pierced in the western wall. But when Athens was taken by the Turks, who were in the habit of riding into the churches on horseback, this door was shut up, and a smaller one made in the southern wall. In other respects, however, the temple is complete. It is formed entirely of Pentelic marble, and stands upon an artificial foundation constructed of large quadrangular blocks of ordinary limestone. At the north-western angle of the temple, where the hill upon which it stands is precipitous, six courses of the foundation now appear above ground, and are gradually receiving so much injury from the effect of the periodical rains as to threaten the safety of this part of the building. The sculptures of the Theseum are upon the 18 metopes already mentioned, upon a frieze over the entrance of the proaon, and upon another over that of the posticum. All the metopes in the front of the temple which can be deciphered relate to the labours of Hercules, the kinsman, friend, and companion of Theseus; whilst those on the two flanks relate exclusively to the achievements of the hero to whom the edifice was more immediately dedicated. The subject of the frieze over the columns and antae of the posticum or back vestibule was the most celebrated event in the life of Theseus, his contest with the Centaurs; and, from the analogy of the front and flank metopes, it may reasonably be presumed that the panel over the proaon, which has been completely defaced, related to the exploits of Hercules. The interior of the Theseum, as we learn from Pausanias, was anciently decorated with paintings, representing the achievements of Theseus, particularly his battle with the Amazons, and the fight of the Centaurs and Lapithae, where his prowess was most remarkably signalized. The stucco upon which they were painted is still apparent, and shows that each painting covered the entire wall from the roof to within 2 feet 9 inches of the pavement.
Some difficulty exists as to the relative sites of the Anacaeum and Aglaureum, which Pausanias next proceeds to describe. We know, however, that the Anacaeum stood below the Aglaureum; and from comparing the statements of Herodotus, Pausanias, and Euripides in reference to the latter, Colonel Leake has made it pretty evident that the position of this ancient sanctuary of the Athenians was near the northern foot of the Acropolis, in some part of the precipices which are situated to the eastward of the Grotto of Apollo and Pan. These precipices were called the long rocks (πανοι τερπος); and here it appears to have been that the Persians under Xerxes ascended the steepest part of the hill, near the temple of Aglauros, in order to scale the ramparts of the citadel; an enterprise in which they were completely successful. The Aglaureum was rather a sanctuary or sacred inclosure (τερπος) than a temple, and some traces of its existence are still discoverable near the centre of the north side of the Acropolis. The Anacaeum, or temple of the Dioscuri, a building of great antiquity, stood immediately below the Aglaureum, close to the rock of the Acropolis, and near the gate which now leads into an exterior inclosure of the citadel, forming the modern approach from the town to the Propylaea. It is said to have contained several paintings by Polygnotus and Micon. Near to the Aglaureum was the Prytaneum, where the written laws of Solon were deposited. It stood above the level of the main body of the city, and formed the commencement of a street called Tripodes, leading to the sacred inclosure of Bacchus, near the theatre; a circumstance which seems to fix its site at the north-eastern angle of the Acropolis, one of the very finest situations in Athens, commanding a view of the sea, as well as of all the northern part of the city and its plain. Not far from the supposed site of the Prytaneum is a church of Panagia Vlastiki, where are still seen the remains of some important building, probably the temple of Serapis, which is the first edifice mentioned by Pausanias upon descending from the Prytaneum into the lower parts of the city. "The ruins at the church of Vlastiki," says Colonel Leake, "are in a line between the new Agora and the arch of Hadrian: the building therefore to which they belonged probably stood in the direct leading from the Agora to the Olympieum and Hadrianopolis, of which the arch of Hadrian formed the termination." The numerous buildings erected by Hadrian in this part of the city were denominated Hadrianopolis, as we learn from an inscription on the remains of the triumphal arch just mentioned.
The Olympieum, Olympicum, or Olympium, one of the oldest ancient temples in Athens, was supposed to have been originally founded by Deucalion. But it seems to have fallen into decay at a very early period; for about the year 530 before the Christian era, Peisistratus commenced a new and more magnificent structure upon the site of the old building. The ancient Athens, however, was not the only place... in the world where it was found easier to begin than to finish a temple. The expensive wars in which the Athenians were not long afterwards engaged put a stop to the progress of the building; and nearly four centuries elapsed, including the most flourishing periods of the republic, before any attempt was made to complete it. At length, however, Antiochus Epiphanes, king of Syria, about the year 174 B.C., undertook this task, and a magnificent edifice of the Corinthian order was begun by Cossutius, a Roman architect. But upon the death of Antiochus in 164 B.C. the work was again interrupted; and on the capture of Athens by Sulla, 78 years afterwards, the columns prepared for the building were carried away by order of the conqueror, and erected as part of the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus at Rome. The Olympieum was in this imperfect and mutilated condition when the kings and states in alliance with or in subjection to Augustus undertook the completion of the edifice at their joint expense. But, from various causes, the work was once more interrupted; and the honour of completing and dedicating the temple, as well as of erecting the statue of the divinity, formed (if we may believe Pausanias) of ivory and gold, was reserved for Hadrian, six centuries and a half after its foundation by Peiristratus.
There can be little doubt that the cluster of magnificent columns of Pentelic marble at the south-east extremity of the city of Athens, near the Ilissus, belonged to the celebrated temple of the Olympian Zeus. They are of the Corinthian order, sixteen in number, six feet and a half in diameter, and above sixty feet in height, standing upon an artificial platform, supported by a wall, the remains of which show that the entire peribolos or circuit must have been about 2300 feet, or little short of half a mile. From the existing remains, it appears that the temple consisted of a cella, surrounded by a peristyle, which had ten columns in front and twenty on the sides; that the peristyle, being double on the sides and quadruple at the posticum and pronaos, consisted altogether of 120 columns; and that the whole length of the building was 354 feet, and its breadth 71.
"Such vast dimensions," says Colonel Leake, "would alone be sufficient to prove these columns to have belonged to that temple, which was the largest ever built in honour of the supreme pagan deity, and one of the four most magnificent ever erected by the ancients, even if Thucydides had not pointed out this side of the city as the position of the Olympieum, or if Vitruvius had not left us a description of this edifice exactly conformable with the existing ruins."
To the taste and munificence of Hadrian Athens was also indebted for a temple of Hera (Juno), another dedicated to Zeus (Jupiter) Panhellenicus, and a temple common to all the gods, or Pantheon. But the most remarkable edifice next to the Olympieum, erected by this emperor, was that which has been denominated the Stoa or Gymnasium of Hadrian. When complete, it was a quadrangle of 376 feet by 252, adorned at the western end with a portal and colonnade of Corinthian columns, 120 in number, and each three feet in diameter; but of these, which were formed of Phrygian marble, only ten are at present standing. In the centre are the ruins of a building which now forms part of the church of Megali Panagia, and consists, on one side of the remains of an arch, and on the other of an architrave, supported by a pilaster, and three Doric columns, each one foot nine inches in diameter, and of a declining period of the arts: round the inside of the inclosure, at a distance of twenty-three feet from the wall, are also vestiges of a colonnade; and in the northern wall, which still exists, there is one large quadrangular niche thirty-four feet in length, and two circular niches equal to it in diameter. The general form and distribution of this building, which Pausanias notices as the most magnificent of Hadrian's works, are those of a stoa, or place of resort for walking, conversation, and reading; and the apartments projecting from the wall of the peribolos accord precisely with the oecus mentioned by Pausanias, which were resplendent with alabaster and gilding, and adorned with pictures and statues. The building at the church of the great Panagia in the centre answers, Colonel Leake thinks, to the library with which we know from several ancient authors besides Pausanias, that this magnificent stoa was provided.
Besides the street leading from the Prytaneum to the Olympieum, there was another which branched off from the same place towards the Leneum or sacred inclosure of Bacchus, adjacent to the theatre, which was called the Tripodes, &c. from the tripods there dedicated by the leaders of the choirs victorious in the scenic contests decided in the Dionysiac theatre. Several of these tripods were placed upon temples dedicated to Bacchus and other deities, and erected either in the quarter of the Tripodes or within the inclosure of the Leneum; others, again, stood upon columns and rocks near the theatre, as the remains of the monuments still indicate. Of the former description was the beautiful little choragic monument of Lysicrates, vulgarly called the Lantern of Demosthenes, the apex of which proves beyond a doubt that it once supported a tripod, while its closed construction shows that the victorious choragus who built this gem of art (ρυπος ἐκοσμοῦντος τῆς σπείρας) preferred bestowing all the expense on external decorations. From the inscription on this monument it appears to have been erected in the archenship of Evrenetus, in the year 355 B.C.; and it is consequently the oldest known specimen of the Corinthian order, although considerably posterior to the epoch of its invention. Colonel Leake thinks that the street of Tripodes passed at the foot of the rocks under the east end of the Acropolis; and that, after reaching the south-eastern angle of the rocks, it had one branch leading into the Leneum, and another into the theatre of Bacchus. The Leneum, situated on the western side of the theatre, was a most ancient sanctuary of Bacchus; having within its peribolos or inclosure two other temples similarly dedicated, with a couple of statues, one of which was surmamed Eleuthereus,—and containing several pictures representing different events in which the rosy god
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1 Thucyd. I. ii. c. 15; Pausan. Attic. 23; Plutarch, Solon; Vitruv. Proem. in l. vii.; Liv. xli. c. 29; Sueton. August. 60; Spartan. Vit. Hadrian.
2 There was a seventeenth column belonging to the western front standing until the year 1760, when it was taken down by order of the governor of Athens, to build a new mosque in the Bazaar. (Stuart's Anecd. of Athens, vol. iii. p. 15; Chandler's Travels in Greece, c. 15.)
3 Topography of Athens, 43. See also note, p. 401. The other three temples alluded to in this extract were that of Artemis (Diana) at Ephesus, that of Apollo near Miletus, and the Doric temple sacred to Demeter and Persephone at Eleusis. The first was 425 feet long by 220 broad, the second 368 by 165 feet, and the third 216 by 178 feet.
4 Eusebius, Chron. Can.; Codradosorus, Chron. in Hadrian.; Synecclous Chron. p. 249.
5 Topography of Athens, 120. Spoon and Wheeler received the building to be the temple of Jupiter Olympus, in which they were certainly mistaken; but Stuart thought it the Pocelie, which is incompatible with the fact he himself admits, that the columns were the work of Roman times.
6 Stuart's Anecd. of Athens, vol. i. c. 4; Leake's Topography, 155.
7 The inscription, which is upon the architrave, testifies that Lysicrates, son of Lysitheles, led the chorus when the boys of Acamantis gained the victory, when Theon played the flute, when Lydiades wrote the piece, and when Evrenetus was archon.
8 This order was first employed in the construction of the temple of Athena Alea at Tegea about the year 385 B.C., or half a century prior to the period in question. (Pausan. Arcad. c. 45.) was believed to have participated. This is the temple to which Thucydides alludes as that of Dionysus in Limnus, or Bacchus in the marshes. The Dionysiac Theatre was situated near the south-eastern angle of the Acropolis, where vestiges of it are still to be seen. Like most of the other theatres of Greece, its extremities were supported by piers of solid masonry, while the middle of it was excavated in the side of the hill. From the existing ruins, however, it is difficult to form any correct estimate of the dimensions of this theatre; but if we are to credit Plato's statement, that it was capable of containing more than 30,000 spectators, it must have descended much lower down into the plain than has been generally imagined, or than the actual remains would lead us to suppose. The Hierum of Epidaurus, which could not have contained more than 15,000 spectators, allowing only eighteen inches for each person, was 366 feet in diameter; and the theatres at Argos and Sparta, as well as that near Dramatza in Epirus, were about 500 feet in diameter, yet could not have admitted more than 30,000 spectators, allowing for each the width of seat or room just mentioned. If Plato's statement be correct, it seems therefore to follow, that the diameter of the Dionysiac theatre must have been not less than from 450 to 500 feet, and consequently that it must have extended quite close to the foot of the hill, where, indeed, the level space necessary for the orchestra and the scene could alone have been found. This celebrated theatre contained statues of all the great tragic and comic poets, the most conspicuous of which were naturally those of Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, among the former, and that of Menander among the latter; and Dicaearchus informs us that it was accounted the most beautiful structure of the kind in existence. A little to the eastward stood the Odeion of Pericles, with a roof formed out of the masts and yards of the Persian ships captured at Salamis, and rising to a point like the pavilion of Xerxes, which the whole structure indeed was intended to represent. It was richly decorated with columns; and during the dominion of the Thirty Tyrants, was generally occupied by their satellites. During the siege of Athens by Sulla, Ariston, general of Mithridates, who was intrusted with the defence of the city, set fire to this monument of Athenian glory, lest the enemy should make use of the timber for the purpose of assaulting the Acropolis; and although Vitruvius informs us that it was afterwards restored at the expense of Ariobarzanes, king of Cappadocia, not a vestige or trace of the edifice remains. In the immediate vicinity of the citadel were a temple of Æsculapius, with a fountain; the temples of Themis, Aphrodite Pandemos, and Persuasion; the monument of Hippolytus; besides the temple of Demeter Chloe, some remains of which are supposed to exist at the foot of the Acropolis, near the ascent which formerly led to the citadel.
The ancient city of Cecrops is now a fortress or citadel, with a thick irregular wall inclosing a large area about twice as long as it is broad, and standing on the outer ledges of an elevated rock abruptly terminating in precipices on every side, except the front, which is towards the Peiraeus or west, and by which alone it is accessible. Some portions of the ancient wall may still be seen on the outside particularly at the two extreme angles; and in many places it is patched with fragments of columns and marbles taken from the ruins. The physical character of this remarkable rock continues nearly the same as in the days of the most remote antiquity; and notwithstanding all the devastations which war, time, and fanatical barbarism have committed, it still contains a large portion of the remaining antiquities of Athens, and consequently demands a corresponding share of the researches both of the artist and topographer. Anciently the Acropolis was filled with monuments of Athenian glory, and exhibited an amazing concentration of all that was most perfect in art and most magnificent in architectural decoration. It appeared, so to speak, as one entire offering to the divinity, surpassing in excellence, and unrivalled in richness and splendour. It was the peerless gem of Greece, the glory and the pride of art, the wonder and envy of the world. Heliodorus, surnamed Periegetes or the Guide, employed no less than fifteen books in describing it; the curiosities of various kinds, with the pictures, statues, and pieces of sculpture, supplied Polemo Periegetes with matter for four volumes; and Strabo seems to think that as many more would have been required for a minute description. The number of statues, in particular, was prodigious. Tiberius Nero, who had a remarkable taste for appropriating works of art which the genius and means of others had executed, plundered the Acropolis, as well as Delphi and Olympia; yet notwithstanding this spoliation, Athens, in the time of Pliny, had no fewer than three thousand remaining, of which the most valuable portion was in the Cecropian city on the rock. Even Pausanias seems to be distressed by the multiplicity of objects which here engaged his attention, and uncertain where to commence his description. Such was the Acropolis. What it is, Stuart and Revett, and Cockerell and Leake, and other writers, have told us; and to their learned and accurate researches we are indebted for the correct knowledge, which we have at length attained, of those magnificent buildings which adorned the citadel of Athens. We do not say that many curious discoveries connected with the monuments of the Acropolis may not still be made, when its platform shall have been cleared of the wretched buildings which now cover its surface and disfigure its appearance; but in regard to the three great edifices, namely, the Propylaea, the Parthenon, and the Erechtheum, it is probable, from what has been already discovered, that but little remains to be done.
The western side of the Acropolis, which, as we have already said, furnished, and still furnishes, the only access to the summit of the hill, was about 168 feet in breadth; an opening 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 fortify the citadel. This work, the greatest production of civil architecture in Athens, 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 Ictinos, at the enormous cost, if we may believe Heliodorus, of two thousand and twelve talents. Of the space which formed the natural entrance to the Acropolis, 58 feet near the centre were left for the great artificial entrance, and the
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1 Thucydides, ii. 15. 2 Topography of Athens, 60. 3 Philostratus, in his Life of Apollonius Tyranus, says, Ἐπίκλησις τῆς Προπύλαιας ἐπὶ Ἀθηναίων ἀπὸ τῆς Ἁρπάγου, i. b. c. 5; and Demosthenes, in his oration against Andronicus, gives a similar indication of the Propylaea having been considered upon a level with the Parthenon in point of architectural skill and decoration; ἐπὶ τῆς Ἁρπάγου καὶ τῆς Προπύλαιας ἐπὶ Ἀθηναίων ἀπὸ τῆς Ἁρπάγου, ed. Reiske. 4 Ibid. 162. 5 This is incredible; for, according to Thucydides, it appears, from Thucydides, that the expense of all the works of Pericles, including the Odeion, the mystic temple at Eleusis, the Parthenon, and one of the long walls, as well as the Propylaea, did not amount to three thousand talents; and it is therefore inconceivable that the last-mentioned edifice, one of five of which the Parthenon was the chief, should have cost two-thirds of this sum. See a very learned note on this subject by Colonel Leake. (Topography of Athens, p. 406.) remainder on either side was closed by wings projecting 32 feet in front of the grand central colonnade. The entire building received the name of Propylea from its forming the vestibule to the five gates or doors, still in existence, by which the citadel was entered. 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, the Propylaeum properly so called representing the curtain, and each of the two wings presenting a face and flank or gorge like two adjoining bastions. This incomparable edifice was constructed entirely of Pentelic marble. The Propylaeum or great vestibule in the centre consisted of a front of six fluted Doric columns, mounted upon four steps which supported a pediment, and measuring five feet in diameter and near 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 the Doric colonnade was a vestibule 43 feet in depth, the roof of which was sustained by six Ionic 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 aisle 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 exhausted to beautify, might well excite the admiration of even a plain matter-of-fact topographer like Pausanias, and at once account for and justify the enthusiasm with which he expresses himself when speaking of the roof of the Propylaeum. 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, which was the same 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 upon a higher level, there being five steps of ascent from the level of the latter to that of the former. From the eastern or inner portico there was a descent of one step into the adjacent part of the platform of the Acropolis.
The wings of the Propylaeum were nearly symmetrical in front, each presenting on this side a wall adorned only with a frieze of triglyphs, and with antres at the extremities. The extreme simplicity of the wings in this direction was characteristic of the work of defence of which they formed so important a part; while the flanks of the bastions (if we may be allowed the expression) were also uniform in their construction, each presenting a Doric front of three columns in antis, each three feet in diameter, supporting pediments, the summits of which were on a level with the frieze of the Propylaeum properly so called. Besides, the inner or southernmost column of each wing stood in a line with the great Doric columns of the Propylaeum; and as both these columns and those of the wings were upon the same level, the three porches were all connected together, and the four steps which ascended to the Propylaeum were continued also along the porches 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 twelve 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 south and east sides, was formed by a wall connected with and of the same thickness as the lateral wall of the Propylaeum, and, on the west side, had its roof supported by a narrow pilaster, standing between the north-west column of the wing and an anta, which terminated its southern wall. In front of the southern or right wing there stood, so late as the year 1676, a small Ionic temple, dedicated to Niké Apteros (Wingless Victory). Wheler informs us that it was built of white marble, and about fifteen feet in length by eight or nine in breadth; and we learn from Spon that it was then used by the Turks as a powder-magazine. The left wing of the Propylaeum was decorated with paintings by Polygnotus, representing a series of events connected with the siege of Troy; and the structure was ornamented with equestrian statues. After the ruin of Athens, the Propylaeum ceased to be the entrance of the Acropolis. The passage between the columns of the centre was walled up almost to their capitals, and above was a battery of cannon. The way wound before the front of the ancient structure; and turning to the left among rubbishy and wretched walls irregularly huddled together, the stranger proceeded to the back of the vestibule and the five door-ways, without almost suspecting that he was in the midst of that celebrated structure which formed the external glory and defence of the rock of Cecrops.
The Parthenon, or temple of the Virgin Goddess, was placed upon the highest platform of the Acropolis, which was so far elevated above its western entrance that the pavement of the peristyle of this renowned edifice was upon the same level as the capitals of the columns of the eastern portico of the Propylaeum. It was also called Hecatompedon (from its being a hundred feet broad), and was constructed entirely of white marble from the quarries of Mount Pentelicus. It consisted of a cella, surrounded with a peristyle, having eight Doric columns in the two fronts, and seventeen in the sides, or forty-six in all; each column six feet six inches in diameter at the base, and thirty-four feet in height, standing upon a pavement or platform, to which there was an ascent of three steps. The total height of the temple above its platform was about 68 feet; its length 228, and its breadth 102 feet English. Within the peristyle, at both ends, there was an interior range of six columns, five feet and a half in diameter, standing before the end of the cella, and forming a vestibule to its door, two steps above the pavement of the peristyle. The cella, which was 63 feet in breadth within, was divided into two unequal chambers, of which the western was about 43½ feet in length, and the eastern 98 feet. The ceiling of the former was supported by four columns of about four feet in diameter, and that of the latter by sixteen columns of about three feet.
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1 Helliod. op. cit. Harpocrat. v. Daphnioum. 2 Ἡράκλειον Ἀθηνῶν ἀναγεῖται ἐπὶ τῆς ἀκρόπολος, καὶ ἀνέχεται ἀνάγλυφα τῶν ἀνδρῶν παρὰ τὴν ἀκρόπολος. (Attic. c. 22.) 3 This little gem of ancient architecture has lately been almost completely restored; for during the excavations made in 1835, nearly all the stones of which it had originally consisted were recovered, and under the superintendence of very competent persons it has been rebuilt with the original materials and on its original site, where it has the appearance of an entirely new building. 4 In the year 1853 M. Beulé, at the expense of the French government, removed the rubbish of the two Turkish batteries that covered up the true entrance to the Athenian Acropolis, and discovered below the unsightly mass the two towers that formed the defences of the gate, and between them a marble curtain, with remains of a Doric entablature over a Doric doorway of a simple but beautiful style. Within this fine marble stairs that formed the ascent to the Propylaea are still entire. Since the time of Stuart and Leake, the Greek government has removed the whole of the ruins that encumbered the existing remains, and the Turkish tower and mosque, and the ground plan of the Parthenon has been more accurately ascertained. The accurate measurements were made by Mr Pennethorne in 1837, confirmed in 1838 by two German artists, M. Hofer and M. Schubart, and the plans laid down by Geo. Knowles in 1850. The singular discoveries that have been thus brought to light are not unimportant to architecture. It is discovered that the lines formerly supposed to be straight lines, are regularly formed segmental curves of a long radius. Thus the lines of the pediment and of the surface of the pavement are found to be parabolic segments of large radius. The platform is found to be just 233 feet by 108 feet. The exterior dimensions of the cella = 158 feet 6 inches by 72 feet 6 inches. The cella was divided by a wall of 4 feet in thickness into the Parthenon proper, the interior of which is 97 feet 6 inches by 64 feet, and an opisthodomos of 44 feet 6 inches, by 64 feet. Thickness of the end walls of the cella, 7'75 feet; of the side walls, 4 feet. The diameter of the base of the columns is 6 feet 6 inches. The intercolumniations are 8 feet, except at the angles of the peristyle on the sides, where these are only one diameter of the columns. The principal division of the cella had two interior rows of columns of ten in each row, with three additional at the west end. They were 11 feet from the side walls of the cella and the septum. The space between the rows is 23 feet. The statue of the goddess is now ascertained to have stood within the columns, 70 feet from the porch of the eastern portico, and 34 feet from the septum dividing the Parthenon from the opisthodomos. The opisthodomos had 4 interior Doric columns of the same diameter as the columns of the peristyle, placed 17 feet from the side walls of the cella, and 11 feet from the septum. In the eastern chamber of the Parthenon, the smallness of the diameter of the columns leaves little doubt that there was an upper range, as in the temples of Paestum and Ægina. But it is to be lamented that no remains of any of them have been found, as these might have presented new proofs of the taste and invention of the architects of the age of Pericles. Such, then, was the simple construction of this magnificent temple, which, by its united excellencies of materials, sign, and decoration, internal as well as external, has been universally considered the most perfect which human genius and skill ever planned and executed. Its dimensions were sufficiently large to produce an impression of grandeur and sublimity, which was not disturbed by any obtrusive subdivision of parts; and, whether viewed at a small or a great distance, there was nothing to divert the mind of the spectator from contemplating the unity as well as majesty of mass and outline; circumstances which form the first and most remarkable characteristic of every Greek temple erected during the purer ages of Grecian taste and genius. Nor was it until the eye had become satiated with the contemplation of the entire edifice that the spectator could be tempted to examine the decorations with which this building was so profusely adorned; for the statues of the pediments, the only decoration which was very conspicuous from its magnitude and position, being inclosed within frames, which formed an essential part of the design of either front, had no more obtrusive effect than an ornamented capital to a single column.
It is not our intention, in this place, to attempt any detailed or minute description of an edifice which would require a volume for its complete illustration. We may observe, generally, that as it was one of the great objects of Pericles to furnish employment in every branch of art to the ingenious and skilful artists with whom Athens at that period abounded, so he had contrived that the temple should be of a design the best adapted to the decorations of sculpture, and that it should be adorned with every species of it which was most esteemed among the Greeks. Within the cella was a specimen of chryselephantine sculpture, having but one rival in Greece, and that by the same master; under the colonnade, and in other parts of the temple, stood numerous statues in bronze; in the frieze or pediments were two compositions near eighty feet in length, each consisting of about twenty entire statues of colossal size; under the exterior cornice, in harmony with the projecting features of that part of the building, were ninety-two groups, raised in high relief, from tablets about four feet three inches square; and, lastly, along the outside of the cell and vestibules ran a frieze of about three feet four inches in breadth and 520 in length, to which a relief, slightly raised above the surface of the naked wall
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1 This has been found to hold particularly in the Parthenon, Theseum, and also in the Corinthian temple of Jupiter Olympus, but especially in all the Doric remains.
The curves are so gentle as to be not perceptible to one standing directly in front, unless the eye be practised in such observations; but if the spectator be placed at one end, and look along the course, it will be seen.
This explains an obscure passage in Vitruvius, in which the words scarnilli superiores had formerly puzzled the commentators, but which has been correctly translated by Wilkins.
The following table is given by Mr Penrose in his Investigation of the Principles of Athenian Architecture:
| 1. Temple of Jupiter Olympus. | Feet in Length. | Actual Rise. | Rise in 100 Feet. | |-----------------------------|----------------|--------------|------------------| | Flank | 354'2 | '25 nearly | '07 | | Front | 104'2 | '150 | '145 | | Flank | 221' | '233 | '165 | | 3. Stylobate of Parthenon. | | | | | Front | 101'3 | '228 = flank x 1/12 | '225 = 1'145 | very | | Flank | 228'1 | '355 | '156 = 1'105 nearly. | | Entablature in front | 100'2 | '171 = 1'228 | '171 | | Ditto on flanks restored | 227' | '307 | '135 | | 4. Theseum. | | | | | Front | 45' | '633 | '140 | | Flank | 104'2 | '101 | '100 | | 5. Propylæa. | | | | | Entablature from E. portico.| 68'1 | '119 | '175 |
It thus appears, that in the Theseum and the first Parthenon the agreement is remarkable; but it will be seen that the curvature of the lines in the Parthenon of Pericles is greater by one-half. "The effect of the curvature in the temple of Theseus may have shown the architect that an increased curvature would be attended with advantage." This introduction of gently curved lines no doubt adds to that peculiarly harmonious blending of the parts of the architecture so observable in all genuine Grecian buildings.
2 The beautiful white marble with which they were imbued, the Athenians was undoubtedly one of the great concurring causes of their unrivalled pre-eminence in architecture and statuary. Admitting as fine a surface, and presenting as beautiful a colour, as ivory, with a still sharper edge, it was admirably calculated to encourage the successive efforts of artists studious to excel their predecessors in the effects produced. (Topography of Athens, 211, 212.)
3 Topography of Athens, p. 209, et seq.; Stuart's Antiquities of Athens, vol. ii. p. 57. which it crowned, was peculiarly applicable. This frieze represented the procession to the Parthenon on the grand quinquennial festival of the Panathenaea. No part of the work is now attached to the temple, but a tolerably correct idea of it may be formed from the drawings of Carrey, taken before the explosion which ruined the building, added to the designs of Stuart, and the fragments of the original which have been disinterred from the ruins and are now deposited in the British Museum. The procession is represented as advancing in two parallel columns from west to east; one proceeding along the northern, and the other along the southern side of the temple, part facing inwards after turning the angle of the eastern front, and part meeting towards the centre of that front. Of the metopes on the frieze of the peristyle, ninety-two in all, viz., fourteen on either front and thirty-two on either flank of the temple, the greater part on the northern side and the two fronts have perished by wanton violence or by casual destruction; whilst of those which belonged to the southern side, where the progress of dilapidation had been less ruinous, fifteen are now in the British Museum and one in Paris. From these fragments, together with the drawings of Carrey and Stuart, it has been conjectured, with much probability, that the metopes of the northern side related to the war of the Amazons, whilst those on the opposite side of the temple related principally to the other great fabulous Athenian contest with the Centaurs. The two pediments of the temple were decorated with magnificent compositions of statuary, one representing the birth of Athena (Minerva), and the other the contest between that goddess and Poseidon (Neptune) for the possession of Attica; the birth being delineated on the western and the contest on the eastern pediment. The statue of the virgin goddess stood in the eastern chamber of the cella, and consisted of ivory and gold. On the summit or apex of the helmet was placed a sphinx, with griffins on either side. The figure of the goddess was represented in an erect martial attitude, and clothed in a robe reaching to the feet. On the breast was a head of Medusa wrought in ivory, and a figure of Victory about four cubits in height. The goddess held a spear in her hand, and an eegis lay at her feet; while on her right, and near the spear, was a figure of a serpent, believed to represent that of Erichthonius. According to Pliny, the entire height of the figure was twenty-six cubits; and the artist Phidias had ingeniously contrived that the gold with which the statue was encrusted might be removed at pleasure. The battle of the Centaurs and Lapithae was carved on the sandals; the gigantomachia and the battle of the Amazons were represented on the egis which lay at her feet; and on the pedestal was sculptured the birth of Pandora. Pausanias also notices statues of Iphicrates, Pericles, his father Xanippus, Anacreon, and a brazen Apollo by Phidias. A portion of the southern wall was adorned with the battle of the giants; and here also were represented the conflict of the Athenians and Amazons, the battle of Marathon, and, lastly, the defeat of the Gauls in Mysia, sculptured at the expense of Attalus. The statue of Zeus Polieus stood between the Propylaea and the Parthenon; and the brazen colossus of Athena by Phidias, dedicated from the tenth of the spoils of Marathon, and commonly called Athena Promachos, appears to have occupied some part of the space between the Erechtheum and Propylaea, near the Pelasgic or northern wall. The architect of the Parthenon was Ictinus, who appears to have designed as well as executed the building; while Phidias had the control of the whole sculptural decorations, and with his own unrivalled hand executed those prodigies of art with which this great temple was adorned.
The Erechtheum, or Temple of Erechtheus, so called from its reputed founder Erechtheus, otherwise named Erichthonius, stood on the northern side of the Acropolis, and was one of the most ancient structures of Athens, being alluded to by Homer in the second book of his Iliad. There is, however, some confusion respecting this edifice, which seems to have been of a double construction, or divided into two parts, from the circumstance of the entire building being often called the temple of Athena Polias as well as the Erechtheum; a practice which, as Colonel Leake remarks, is not at all surprising, considering that the temple of Athena Polias was the most important part of the building, and that the statue of the goddess here worshipped was the most sacred in Attica, not even excepting that of the Parthenon. The truth, however, seems to be, that the Erechtheum contained two subdivisions; the eastern or more important forming the temple of Athena Polias, the peculiar protectress of the citadel; and the western, that of Pandrosos. The former had a hexastylo front; before the colonnade was an altar of Zeus, and under it were altars of Poseidon and Hephaestus; on the wall of the portico were the pictures of the Butadse; and within the cella were the Erechtheian salt-well, the wooden statue of Athena, with the lamp and brazen palm-tree before it, the altar of oblivion, the sacred serpent, the wooden statue of Hermes, the chair of Daedalus, and the Persian spoils. The Pandrosion, or chapel sacred to Pandrosos, one of the daughters of Cecrops, consisted of two chambers, of which the western was narrow, and opened into the portico at either end. The northern portico consisted of six Ionic columns, four in the front, with one on either flank; and it stood not far from the edge of the precipice, at the foot of which was the temenos of Aglauros. The southern portico was smaller than the northern, and its roof was supported by six caryatides, standing upon a podium, and disposed like the columns of the northern portico, four in front and two on the flanks. In the western or narrow chamber of this chapel grew the tree of Athena, and the crooked Pancyprius, which was held in such high veneration by the Athenians, and which the Persians, during their invasion, had burned but not destroyed. As to the eastern or interior chamber, which was contiguous to the cella of Athena Polias, Colonel Leake thinks with Stuart that it formed the Cecropium, and quotes an inscription which countenances that opinion. "That Cecrops," says he, "was buried in this edifice appears to have been the common belief; and upon an inscribed marble (brought to England by Dr Chandler, and presented by the Society of Dilettanti to the British Museum), wherein different parts of this building are specified, we find the Cecropium mentioned in a manner which leaves no doubt of its having been an integral part of the building." The number of statues in the Acropolis was prodigious; and there were likewise several biers or sanctuaries, such as that of Zeus Polieus, Artemis (Diana) Brauronia, and the genius of good men. The whole of the Acropolis was surrounded by walls built on the natural rock of which the entire hill is composed. But the most ancient part of these defences was constructed by the Tyrrhenian Pelasgi, who, in the course of their multitudinous migrations, settled in Attica, and were employed by the Athenians of that early period in the erection of those ramparts which are often mentioned in the history of Athens under the name of Pelasgicum. Before the Persian war, however, they had fallen into decay; for on that occasion it was found necessary to erect palisades and other temporary defences. At a subsequent period the hill was re-fortified by Cimon and Themistocles; and it is probable that the greater part of the existing wall, although disfigured by the reparations of various ages, consists of the original Hellenic work hastily raised by these celebrated men, before the alarm occasioned by the Persian invasion had entirely subsided. "A part of the southern wall," says Colonel Leake, "where the profile is not less than 60 feet in height,
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1 Topography of Athens, edd supra; Pliny, l. xxxvi. c. 5; Pausan. Attic. 25. In his descent from the Propylaia, in the direction of the outer Ceramicus and Academy, Pausanias describes the Cave or Grotto of Pan and the Areopagus, both of which lay nearly in his route, and were the only objects of importance which had not yet been noticed by him. The grotto sacred to Apollo and Pan he describes as a cavern converted into a temple, and as situated under the Propylaia, near to a spring of water. Now, under the wall of the northern wing of the Propylaia, near the road which forms the present access to the citadel from the centre of the town are both the cavern and the spring; the former containing two excavated ledges for the altars and statues of the two deities, together with several niches for votive offerings; and the latter supplying water to an artificial fountain a little way down the hill, whence the streamlet is conveyed by means of an aqueduct to the principal mosque, near the Bazaar.
The Areopagus, or hill of Ares, so called, it is said, in consequence of that god having been the first person tried there for the crime of murder, was beyond all doubt the rocky height which is separated from the western end of the Acropolis by a hollow forming a communication between the northern and southern divisions of the city. It appears, however, that the court of Areopagus, and the temple of the Sema occupied only the eastern or highest summit of the hill, which agrees with the authorities indicating that other buildings were situated on the more western parts of the ridge. This court consisted originally of an open space, in which were an altar dedicated to Athena Areia, and two rude seats of stone for the plaintiff and defendant, or the accuser and accused, as the case might be. But we learn from Vitruvius, that at a later period this space was inclosed and roofed in with tiles, and the ancient mode of administering justice in the open air altogether abandoned. The Persians occupied a position on the Areopagus at the time when they made their attack on the western end of the Acropolis. Near to the spot on which the court stood was the temple of the Furies, as well as the building on which the sacred ship of the great Panathenaic festival was deposited.
In ancient times, a place at the foot of the Pnyx was the most common place of public assembly, especially during elections; but latterly it was less frequented for that purpose than the Dionysiac theatre, which has been already described. It appears to have been situated over against the Areopagus, in view of the Propylaia, and not very far from the city walls; and it was constructed for the meetings of the people, not with the magnificence of a regular theatre, but with a simplicity characteristic of the earlier and severer age of Grecian liberty. The orators addressed the people, not from rostra splendidly decorated, but from a Býgus, or plain pulpit of stone, which looked to the sea.
Some traces of this ancient structure still exist on a height or eminence, the situation and bearings of which, to the N. of the Museum, and the W. of the Areopagus, accord perfectly with the position of the Pnyx, as determined by the statements of the Greek writers. The whole range of hills which rises to the S.W. of the citadel, and above the ancient place of the popular assembly, bore the name of Pnyx. Plato informs us that it was opposite the Pnyx, and Antigonus Curytius relates a fabulous story, which would lead us to imagine that anciently it approximated more closely to the Acropolis than is at present the case. The Museum was another elevation S. of the Pnyx, and, like the Pnyx, it was within the peribolus or circumference of the ancient walls. It derived its name from the poet Musaeus, who was believed to be interred there. At a later period a monument was erected on this eminence by Philopappas, a descendant of the kings of Commagene in Syria, who, having been consul in the reign of Trajan, retired to Athens (as we learn from the inscription) to spend the remainder of his days "from toils and cares remote," in the bosom of that renowned city. Among the inferior courts of judicature mentioned by Pausanias, after describing the Areopagus, were the Paralysium, where petty causes were tried; the Trigonum, so called from its shape; and the Batrachium and Phenecium, which probably received their names from some peculiarities of colour in the edifices where they were held. The Palladium was a court where persons accused of murder were commonly tried. Those, however, who confessed to the act of slaying, but set up a justification of the deed—as, for example, that it had been done in self-defence—were sent to be judged in the Delphinium, a tribunal which probably derived its name from being situated near the temple of Apollo Delphinius.
This completes our survey of the principal buildings, monuments, and localities, within the city, which we have described as fully as the limits to which the present article is confined would possibly admit; omitting nothing which we considered of material importance, either for conveying a just notion of the ancient splendour and magnificence of Athens, as contrasted with its actual state of decay and ruin, or for enabling the reader to understand and appreciate the innumerable allusions, references, and descriptions, with which the Greek writers, whether poets, historians, philosophers, or orators, abound.
The whole of the north-western part of the city, comprising the hills Museum, the Pnyx, and the hill of the Nymphs Melite, appears to have borne the name of Melite; but it was subdivided into quarters. The valley between the Museum and Pnyx was called Colytus or Colytus, and the district north of the Pnyx and south of the hill of the Nymphs bore the name of Scambonidae. The whole of this part of the city appears to have been densely peopled, and many of the illustrious persons in Athenian history are said to have dwelt there. On the south of the Museum the city extended a little way beyond the river Ilissus, and the south-western part of the city bore the name of Cole, that is, hollow or low ground; it appears to have been mainly used as a burying-ground.
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1. Stuart's Antiquities of Athens, vol. ii.; Leake's Topography, p. 257 and 264. 2. The position of the cave of Apollo and Pan is exactly indicated on a coin of Athens, which has been published by Stuart (Antiquities of Athens, vol. ii., p. 37) and Barthélémy (Journal des Savants, 1809, p. 27). It presents a view of the north-western side of the Acropolis, with the Propylaia to the right, the Parthenon to the left, and the colossal statue of Athena Promachos between them; whilst the grotto of Pan is represented a little to the left of the stairs which formed an ascent for foot passengers from the north side of the city to the Propylaia. (Topography of Athens, p. 62, 63.) 3. Juv. Poll. viii. 10; Eschyl. Eumenides, 690; Herod. viii. 52. 4. Juv. Poll. viii. 10; Harpocr. v. Ἀρεόπαγος; Aristoph. Frogs, 659, ubi et Schol.; Plutarch, Themist.; Plato in Crit. 5. Galen in Harpocr. Epistle iii. 3; Demosth. in Aristotel. p. 643; Juv. Poll. viii. 10. 6. March in These.; Tzetz. Chil. viii. Hist. 102, v. 326; Philost. Soph. ii.: Tertull. de Asia, cap. 20; Xenoph. Hell. v. i. 23; Esch. Tucid. ad Crit. Harpocr. v. Ἀρεόπαγος. 7. Topography of Athens, 116; Dodwell, vol. i. p. 401. From an inscription cited by Spon we learn that Cole belonged to the tribe Hippothoontis, Rien. tom. ii. p. 425. The famous Ilissus, from which Athens was principally supplied with water, and which Plato in a well-known passage of his *Phaedrus* has described as a perennial stream, is now almost always dry, its waters being drawn off, either to irrigate the neighbouring gardens or to supply the artificial fountains of the modern city. It rises to the N.E. of the town, and after a course of a few miles, loses itself in the southern marshes. Not far from the supposed site of the Lyceum, and close to the walls of Athens, it is joined by another stream, or rather water-course, which is believed to be the Eridanus of Panaxias. The fountain of Callirhoe or Enneacrunos supplied the only spring water used by the Athenians, that of the other wells being either salt or brackish. According to Thucydides, it was situated on the S. side of the city, close to the temples of Bacchus and Zeus Olympus; but other authors affirm that it rose near the stream of the Ilissus; and here, in fact, Spon and Wheeler observed a fountain, a little below the south-eastern angle of the Olympieum, to which the natives still applied the name of Kalirroi. Colonel Leake says that it now forms a pool, which in the drought of summer becomes muddy and scanty, but which is still resorted to as the only place in the neighbourhood furnishing sweet water.
Near the fountain of Callirhoe or Enneacrunos stood an Odeum (which the reader will be careful to distinguish from that of Pericles, formerly mentioned), adorned with various statues of the Egyptian Ptolemies, as well as of Philip, Alexander, Lysimachus, and Pyrrhus, and probably erected by some prince of the Macedonian dynasty. This seems to have been a sort of minor theatre, intended for recitation and music without action. In Agre, a south-eastern suburb of Athens, and on the left bank of the Ilissus, a little above Enneacrunos, was the Eleusinum, or temple of Demeter and Persephone, set apart for the celebration of the lesser Eleusinian mysteries. It is conjectured to have stood on the southern bank of the Ilissus, opposite the western point of the little island of the Ilissus, where the foundations of an ancient building are still observable. Plutarch informs us that the Stadium was erected by Lycurgus the son of Lycophron for the celebration of games during the great Panathenaic festival. Pausanias describes it as an astonishing structure, rising in the shape of an amphitheatre above the Ilissus, and extending to the banks of that stream. It was originally constructed about the year 350 B.C. for the purpose just mentioned; and about five centuries afterwards it was covered with seats of Pentelic marble by Herodes Atticus, who is said to have been interred within its walls. The marble seats have all disappeared, but the entire cavae remains, together with the masses of masonry by which the semicircular end on the south was formed out of the torrent-bed of the Ilissus; and similar ruins are also observable at the opposite end, with the piers of a bridge over the Ilissus, and the site of a building on the summit of either hill. The temple of Triptolemus, which Pausanias also places above Enneacrunos, was probably the beautiful little Ionic building which the drawings of Stuart have preserved from oblivion. It formed in his time the church of Panagia on the Rock, but has now almost entirely disappeared. Travellers have sometimes taken this building for the Eleusinum; but it is scarcely credible that the edifice where the sacred mysteries of Ceres were celebrated should have been of so small dimensions.
Higher up the river was Agre, containing the temple of Artemis Agrotora, an altar dedicated to Boreas, and another sacred to the Muse Iliadae. In the vicinity, too, were some gardens, and a temple of Aphrodite celebrated for a statue of the goddess, executed by Alcmenes, a pupil of Phidias. But the most interesting spot in this quarter, on the outside of the walls of the city, was the Lyceum, a sacred inclosure dedicated to Apollo Lycius, where the polemarch originally held his court. It was decorated with fountains, plantations, and ornamental edifices by Peisistratus, Pericles, and Lycurgus, and became the usual place of exercise for such of the Athenian youth as devoted themselves to military pursuits. Nor was it less frequented by philosophers and others fond of retirement and study. The Lyceum is indissolubly associated with the immortal name of Aristotle, who delivered his prelections, esoteric as well as exoteric, while walking within its sacred inclosure, and whose followers, thence called Peripatetics, have added to the celebrity of the spot which formed the favourite resort of the greatest philosopher of the ancient world. The position commonly assigned to the Lyceum is on the right bank of the Ilissus, nearly opposite to the church of Petros Stauromenos, which is supposed to correspond with the temple of Artemis Agrotora, on the other side of the river. We shall now proceed briefly to notice some of the remarkable places or suburbs connected with Athens.
Cynosarges was a spot consecrated to Hercules, and possessed a gymnasium, with groves frequented by the philosophers, as well as a sort of consistorial tribunal for deciding in all questions of legitimacy. After the battle of Marathon, when the city was threatened by the Persian fleet, which had doubled the promontory of Sunium (Cape Columns), the Athenian army took up a position at Cynosarges, in order to cover the capital from attack, and to give battle to the enemy should they venture to land, which, however, they did not. Philip, the son of Demetrius, is said to have encamped on the same spot with a very different intention, and to have destroyed the groves and buildings around it, as well as those of the Lyceum. Cynosarges is supposed to have been situated at the foot of Mount Lycaebetus, now the hill of St George, and to the southward of the place called Asomato.
On the opposite side in the west, and outside the city walls, was the exterior Ceramicus, of which we have already spoken incidentally. Here were interred Pericles, Phormio, Thrasybulus, and Chabrias; in this vast cemetery the bravest and the best men, who had proved themselves the ornaments of their country and the benefactors of their species, lay as it were in state beside that celebrated capital which their valour had defended or their genius illustrated; and, as far as the Academy, the road was lined on either side with the sepulchres of those Athenians who had fallen in battle. Over each tomb was placed a stele or pillar, whereon were commemorated the names and tribes of the deceased. Among the several monuments enumerated by Pausanias we may notice those of the soldiers who fought at Tanagra before the Peloponnesian war, on the Eurymedon under Simon, at Potidaea under Callias, and at Amphipolis and Delium. One column commemorated the names of those who had fallen in Sicily; that of Nicias, however, was excepted, in consequence of his having surrendered to the enemy; while, on the other hand, Demosthenes was adjudged worthy of having his name inscribed, because, although he had capitulated for his army, he refused to be included individually in the treaty, and made an attempt on his own life. Here, also, were the cenotaphs of those who fell in the naval combat on the Hellespont, at the battle of Cheronaea, and in the course of the Lamian war; here rose the tombs of Cleisthenes, who increased the number of the Attic tribes, of Tolmides, of Conon and Timotheus, whose
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1 Plat., *Phaedr.*, p. 229; Leake's *Topogr.*, p. 49; Wheeler's *Travels*, p. 366; Spon, tom. ii. p. 122. 2 Pausan. *Attic.*, 14 and 19; Philostr. *Vit. Heroi.*; Stuart, *Antiq. of Athens*, iii. 5; Leake, 116. 3 Diog. Laert. *Vit. Antithem.*; Steph.; Leake, p. 150. 4 Pausan. *Attic.*, 29; Plutarch, *Vit. Lycurg.*, in *Dec. Rhet.*; Leake, p. 150. exploits were only surpassed by those of Militiades and Cimon; and here rested from their labours, in honoured repose, Zeno and Chrysiippus, Harmodius and Aristogeiton, Ephialtes and Lycurgus, besides many others whom it would be tedious to enumerate. The games called Lampadephoria were celebrated in the outer Ceramicus.
The Academy (of which we have already spoken under that head) was situated at the extremity of this cemetery, about six stadia from the gate Dipylum. It was originally a deserted and unhealthy spot; but it was afterwards surrounded with a wall built at a great expense by Hipparchus, and was planted, divided into walks, and supplied with fountains of water, by Cimon. Before the entrance was an altar of Love; within was a temple of Athena, containing a temple of Prometheus, with an altar in the vestibule, whereon were figured in relief Hephaestus and Prometheus, and whence also the race of the Lampadephoria usually commenced. Here likewise was a sanctuary of the Muses, built by Xenophon, containing statues of the Graces, dedicated by his disciple Speusippus, and a statue of Plato by Silanion, dedicated by Mithridates, a Persian. The Academy had likewise altars of Hermes, of Hercules, and of Zeus Catechites, also surnamed Morius, from the sacred olives called moria, which grew near the sanctuary of Athena; and contained the garden of Attalus, where the sophist Lacydes had his school, besides a bōleos or tank, and some magnificent plane-trees of unusual height and size, which the Roman barbarian Sulla caused to be cut down during the siege of Athens. The modern name of Athymnia leads the traveller directly to this once favourite haunt of philosophers and poets; where the divine spirit of Plato poured forth its lofty fancies and sublime speculations in a stream of eloquence which the gods themselves might envy; where genius was married to science, and poetry to philosophy; and where the foundations were laid of a school which was destined to exert a powerful and (we may add) perennial influence on the opinions of mankind. But the name is the only memorial that remains of the Academy. "It is now," says Mr Hawkins, "an open piece of ground, not exceeding five acres, and presents nothing remarkable in its appearance. A few scattered olives grow on it; and some paces farther west we saw a number of gardens and vineyards, which contained fruit trees of a more exuberant growth than in any other part of the plain."
Another suburb was situated on the lofty height overhanging the city in the N.E., and now called the hill of St George. This hill used to be identified with one mentioned by Pausanias under the name of Anchesmus, but Mr Wordsworth in his work on Attica has very happily made out that the hill is no other than the Lycabettus, which is so often mentioned by ancient authors as in the immediate vicinity of Athens.
We have already had occasion to allude generally to the fortifications of Athens, including the celebrated Long Walls which connected the city with its several ports. The latter were first planned and commenced by Themistocles, after the termination of the Persian war; evidently with the intention of preventing any future invader from intercepting the communication between the City and the Peiraeus, and thus starving the former into submission. But the hero of Salamis did not live to execute this great undertaking, which was continued after his death by Cimon, and finally completed by Pericles. These walls, which were deservedly considered by the ancients as one of the greatest objects of curiosity at Athens, were flanked at intervals with towers, some traces of which are still to be seen, and, together with a portion of the walls of the City and of the Peiraeus at either end, formed an inclosure, which constituted one of the three great garrisons into which Athens was divided, and which, in this light, was sometimes denominated the long fortress (τὸ μακρὸν τεῖχος). From an expression of Plato, quoted by Harpocratius (Σαυρόποιος τεῖχος), as well as from the description of the Athenian fortifications given by Thucydides (ii. 13), it is perfectly evident that the City of Athens was connected with the port-towns by three walls, viz., the Phaleric, 35 stadia long, and the two long walls, each of which was 40 stadia in length. The northern long wall and the Phaleric were built first, and the intermediate one was built at the suggestion of Pericles, for the purpose of rendering the communication between Athens and Peiraeus more secure. The long walls remained entire for about 54 years after their completion; that is, until the capture of Athens by the Peloponnesian forces, when they were dismantled and much injured; but 11 years subsequent to this disaster they were rebuilt by Conon, with the assistance of Pharmabazus, and the interior as well as the exterior rampart was guarded at intervals by towers and other defences. In the siege of Athens by Sulla, however, they were again broken down, and almost entirely destroyed. With regard to the existing remains, "they are chiefly remarkable," says Colonel Leake, "towards the lower end, where they were connected with the fortifications of Peiraeus and Phalerum. The modern road from Athens to the port Drako, at something less than 2 miles short of the latter, comes upon the foundations of the northern long wall, which are formed of vast masses of squared stones, and are about 12 feet in thickness. Precisely parallel to it, at the distance of 550 feet, are seen the foundations of the southern long wall; the two thus forming a wide street running from the centre of the Phaleric hill, exactly in the direction of the entrance of the Acropolis."
Maritime Athens was divided into three districts and as Maritime many havens or ports; namely, Peiraeus, Munychia, and Athens. Phalerum. From the earliest times Peiraeus was a demus; but it did not become a harbour for ships until the administration of Themistocles; for hitherto Phalerum had been the usual port, as there the sea was nearest the city. The harbour of Peiraeus was subdivided into three lesser havens, named Caustaurus, Aphrodisium, and Zea. The first was appropriated as a dock-yard for the construction and repair of ships of war; the second seems to have been the middle or principal port; and the third, which was the outermost, appears from its name to have contained the granaries in which the Athenians deposited the corn imported from the countries on the Euxine and other places for the supply of the capital. The most remarkable edifices and sites in the Peiraeus were the maritime bazaar or emporium called Macra Stoa, consisting of five porticoes, so connected together as to form in fact only one grand or long portico; the marketplace, called Hippodameia; the Deigma or exchange; the Seragium or public bath; the Phreattyss or court of criminal justice, with a sort of admiralty jurisdiction; a theatre, of which some remains are still to be seen; and, lastly, the tomb of Themistocles. The Peiraeus is now known by the name of Port Drako or Leone, from a colossal figure of a lion which once stood upon the beach, but was removed by the Venetians in the year 1687. The port of Munychia, so called, it is said, from Munychus, an Orchomenian, was situated at the outer extremity of a promontory or narrow neck of land, at no great distance from the Peiraeus. Strong by nature, Munychia, when inclosed within fortified lines connecting it with the other harbours, became a most important position, from the security it afforded to the maritime dependencies of Athens; and accordingly we find it always mentioned as the point which was most particularly guarded when any attack was apprehended on the seaward side. This port, which is nearly circular, is known to the
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1 Leake, Topography of Athens, 290. 2 Topography of Athens, in Walpole's Mem. vol. i. p. 488, note. 3 Leake's Topography of Athens, p. 351. See also p. 354 and 357. Greeks of the present day by the name of Stratioki. Phalerum, the most ancient of the Athenian ports, ceased to be of any importance in a maritime point of view after the erection of the docks in the Peiraeus; but it was nevertheless inclosed within the fortifications of Themistocles, and, as we have already seen, gave its name to one of the long walls, by means of which it was connected with Athens. Its modern name is Porto Fanari.
Ever since the year 1833, excavations and investigations of every kind have been carried on at Athens, partly by private enterprise and partly by the government of Greece; and the topographical discoveries which have been made within the period that has elapsed since, are very considerable; but far more numerous are the discoveries of works of art, inscriptions, and architectural remains. It would lead us too far here to give an account of all these matters, but in order to enable the reader to pursue the study of Athenian topography more in detail, we shall subjoin a list of the more important works on the subject:—1. Wordsworth, *Athens and Attica*, London, 1836; 2. Münzer, *De Monimentis Athenarum*, Göttingen, 1836; 3. A. Westermann, in the *Neue Jahrbücher für Philologie und Pädagogik*, vol. xlii., p. 230, fol. The dissertations upon the particular buildings and localities are almost countless.
Having thus completed the description of Athens, with its suburbs and dependencies, all that now remains to be done is to notice a few of the most remarkable epochs in its history, and to conclude with some account of the modern town, collected from the most recent authorities.
The history of Athens, from the death of Alexander to the present time, may be compressed within comparatively narrow limits. Soon after the premature decease of the Macedonian hero, the citizens revolted; but they were defeated by Antipater, who garrisoned Munychia. Another insurrection followed with no better success. The garrison and oligarchy were reinstated; Demetrius, surnamed the Phalerean, was appointed governor of the city; and no less than 300 statues were erected in honour of this man, by the degenerate descendants of those Athenians who had thought a place in the foreground of a picture, painted at the public expense, an adequate reward for the victory of Marathon. But Demetrius, surnamed Poliorcetes, "the shame of Greece in peace, her thunderbolt in war," withdrew the garrison, and restored the democracy; a service for which he was deified by the Athenians, who assigned him a residence in the opisthodomos of the Parthenon, as a guest worthy of being entertained by Athena herself; and afterwards placed the Peiraeus, with Munychia, at his disposal. As usual, however, they soon became weary of their idol, expelled his garrison, and regained their independence; chiefly, as is said, by the intercession of Craterus the philosopher, who persuaded Demetrius to leave them in possession of their liberty. Antigonus Gonatas, the next king of Macedonia, proved less scrupulous than "the Taker of Cities," and again seized upon Athens, where he established a garrison. But, on the death of Demetrius, son of Gonatas, the people, aided by Aratus, recovered their liberty; and the Peiraeus, Munychia, Salamis, and Sunium, were restored to them, on payment of a considerable sum of money by way of equivalent. Disregarding this arrangement, however, Philip, the son of Demetrius, invaded Attica, and, encamping near the city, burned and destroyed the sepulchres and temples of the villages, slaughtered the inhabitants, and laid waste the greater part of the country.
Driven to despair by these barbarous proceedings, the Athenians were forced to solicit the protection of the Romans, which was readily granted, and to receive a garrison into the citadel, which it continued to occupy until the war with Mithridates, king of Pontus. But, taking advantage of the embarrassments of Rome, occasioned by one of the most arduous contests in which she had yet engaged, the Athenians, at the instigation of Aristan, general of the royal linguist, rose upon their protectors and expelled the garrison. This act of ingratitude met with an exemplary punishment. War was immediately declared; and Sulla soon afterwards appeared in Attica at the head of a powerful army. Unable to withstand the fury of the Romans, Archelaus, the Athenian general, relinquished the defence of the long walls, and retired into the Peiraeus and Munychia. Sulla, on the other hand, immediately laid siege to the Peiraeus, as well as to the city itself where Aristan commanded; and having received information that some persons had been overheard conversing in the Ceramicae, and blaming Aristan for his neglect of the avenues near the Hectaphalcos, where the wall was accessible, he instantly resolved to assault the town in that quarter. Accordingly, about midnight he entered the city by the gate Dipylum, which he forced, and, having overcome every obstacle between it and the Peiraeus gate, was soon master of Athens. Aristan fled to the Acropolis; but being at length compelled to surrender from want of water, the supply of which had been cut off, he was dragged from the sanctuary of Athena, where he had sought refuge, and instantly put to death. This event took place in the year of Rome 668, or about 86 years before the Christian era. Sulla raged against the unfortunate city with the fury of a barbarian; burning the Peiraeus and Munychia, defacing the monuments in the town and suburbs, and not even sparing the sepulchres of the dead in the Ceramicae.
In the civil war between Caesar and Pompey, the Athenians declared for the champion of liberty. But although the battle of Pharsalia placed them at the mercy of Caesar, that great and generous conqueror, "whose brow was girt with laurels more than hair," scorned to sully the lustre of his renown by any act of vengeance, and, with a magnanimity native to his character, dismissed the envoys who had been sent to propitiate him, with this fine observation:—"I am content to spare the living for the sake of the dead." The same lingering affection for liberty which had led the Athenians to side with Pompey, also induced them to take part with Brutus and Cassius, in the wars of the second triumvirate; and they had even the spirit to erect statues to the two Roman patriots, beside those of their own deliverers, Harmodius and Aristogitone. But at Philippi, as at Pharsalia, the gods declared against liberty; and the Athenians were again on the losing side. Nor were they more fortunate in the contest which ensued between Octavianus and Antony; for, having joined the latter, who gave them Ægina, Cea, and other islands, they incurred the resentment of Augustus, now become master of the Roman world, who treated them with the utmost harshness and severity. Under Tibertius the city declined, but it still continued to enjoy a considerable share of freedom, and was regarded as an ally of the Romans. Germanicus conferred upon it the privilege of having a lictor to precede the magistrates; but he was censured for this act of condescension, as "the race of noble bloods" was now believed to be extinct, and the Athenian people a mixture of all nations. Nerva also proved rather indulgent to Athens; and under his successor, Trajan, Pliny exhorted Maximus, when intrusted with the government, to be mindful of the ancient glory of that classic land, and to
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1 For a full and accurate account of the present state of the Peiraeus and its adjoining ports see Colonel Leake's work, p. 312, 325, and 326. 2 The fine, though somewhat irreverent, sentiment expressed in the following line of Lucan, is not altogether inapplicable here:— "Victrix causa dils placuit, sed victa Catoni." rule Greece as if it had still been composed of free cities. Hadrian, prouder of the archbishopric of Athens than of his imperial dignity, gave the city a digest of laws compiled from the codes of Draco, Solon, and other legislators, and testified his affection for it by unbounded munificence. Antoninus Pius, who succeeded Hadrian, and Antoninus the philosopher, also proved themselves benefactors of Athens, though on a less magnificent scale than their predecessors.
In the reign of Valerian, the northern barbarians first appeared in the north of Greece, where they laid siege to Thessalonica. This extraordinary apparition having alarmed all Greece, the Athenians restored their city wall, which Sulla had dismantled, and otherwise placed the town in a state of defence sufficient to secure it against a coup-de-main. But under Gallienus, the next emperor, Athens was besieged, and the archbishop abolished; upon which the strategos or general, who had previously acted as inspector of the Agora, became the chief magistrate. Under Claudius the city was taken, but recovered soon afterwards. Constantine the Great gloried in the title of General of Athens, which had been conferred upon him, and expressed high satisfaction on obtaining from the people the honour of a statue with an inscription; a distinction which he acknowledged by sending to the city a yearly gratuity of grain. He also conferred on the governor of Attica and Athens the title of Meyas Doros, or Grand Duke, which soon became hereditary; and his son Constans bestowed several islands on the city, in order to supply it with corn. In the time of Theodosius I., that is, towards the end of the fourth century, the Goths laid waste Thessaly and Epirus; but Theodorus, general of the Greeks, acted with so much prudence that he saved the Greek cities from pillage and the inhabitants from captivity; a service which was most gratefully acknowledged. But this deliverance proved only temporary. The fatal period was now fast approaching; and, in a real barbarian, Athens was doomed to experience a conqueror yet more savage and remorseless than Sulla. This was Alaric, king of the Goths, who, under the Emperors Arcadius and Honorius, overran both Italy and Greece; sacking, pillaging, and destroying. Never indeed did the fury even of barbarian conquest discharge itself in a fiercer or more desolating tempest. The Peloponnesian cities were overturned; Arcadia and Lacedaemon were both laid waste; the gulf of Leptanto and Egina were illuminated with the flames of Corinth; and the Athenian matrons were dragged in chains to satisfy the brutal desires of these rampant barbarians. The invaluable treasures of antiquity were removed; stately and magnificent structures were reduced to heaps of ruin; and Athens, stripped of the monuments of her ancient splendour, was compared by Synesius, a writer of that age, to a victim of which the body had been consumed, and the skin only remained.
After this dreadful visitation Athens sank into insignificance, and became as obscure as it had once been illustrious. We are indeed informed that the cities of Hellas were put in a state of defence by Justinian, who repaired the walls of Corinth, which had been overturned by an earthquake, and those of Athens, which had fallen into decay through age. But from the time of this emperor a chasm of nearly seven centuries ensues in its history; except that, about the year 1130, it furnished Roger, the first king of Sicily, with a number of artificers, who there introduced the culture of silk, which afterwards passed into Italy. The worms, it seems, had been brought from India to Constantinople in the reign of Justinian.
Doomed apparently to become the prey of every spoiler, Athens again emerges from oblivion in the thirteenth century, under Baldwin and his crusaders, at a time when it was besieged by a general of Theodore Lascaris, the Greek emperor. In 1427 it was taken by Sultan Murad; but some time afterwards it was recovered from the infidels by another body of crusaders, under the Marquis of Montferrat, a powerful baron of the West, who bestowed it, along with Thebes, on Otho de la Roche, one of his principal followers. For a considerable time both cities were governed by Otho and his descendants, with the title of dukes; but being unable to maintain themselves in their Greek principality, they were at length succeeded by Walter of Brienne, who, soon after his succession, was expelled by his new subjects, aided by the Spaniards of Catalonia. The next rulers of Athens were the Acciòsì, an opulent family of Florence, whose possession it remained until 1455, when it was taken by Omar, a general of Mahomet II., and thus fell a second time into the hands of the barbarians. The victorious sultan settled a Mahometan colony in his new conquest, which he incorporated with the Ottoman empire; and Athens, as well as Greece, continued to form an integral part of the Turkish dominions, until the treaty of Adrianople in 1829, following up the provisions and stipulations of the treaty of London, 7th July 1827, established within certain limits the new state of Greece, of which ancient Athens is now the capital.
From the period of the Ottoman conquest to the commencement of the insurrection in 1821, Athens was only known in history by two attempts, on the part of the Venetians, to expel the Turks and make themselves masters of the city. The first of these took place in 1464, only nine years after its capture by the Osmanlis, and proved an entire failure. But the second, which was undertaken in 1687, more than two centuries later, was crowned with a temporary and fatal success. In the month of September of that year, Count Konigsmarck, a Swede in the service of Venice, having disembarked at the Peiraeus a force of 8000 foot and 870 horse, forming part of the armament under Francesco Morosini, afterwards doge, marched to Athens; and having summoned the citadel without effect, he erected a battery of heavy ordnance on the hill of the Pnyx, and placing two mortars near the Latin convent at the western foot of the Acropolis, bombarded it for several days. The fire of the cannon was chiefly directed against the Propylea, and the modern defences below that edifice; whilst the mortars continued, without intermission, to throw shells into the citadel. The consequence was, that the beautiful little temple of Niké Apteros, the frieze of which is now in the British Museum, was completely destroyed by the breaching battery; and the Parthenon, besides being greatly injured by the bursting of the shells, was, towards the close of the attack, almost rent in pieces by the explosion of a powder magazine, which reduced the middle of the temple to a heap of ruins, threw down the whole of the wall at the eastern extremity, and precipitated to the ground every statue on the eastern pediment. The western extremity was fortunately less injured, and a part of the episthodomos was still left standing, together with some of the lateral columns of the peristyle adjoining to the cell. But the shock was nevertheless abundantly disastrous; and when the Turks afterwards regained possession of the citadel (from which, on this occasion, they were expelled), they did all in their power to complete the destruction which the Venetians had so vigorously begun, by defacing, mutilating, or burning for lime every fragment of the edifice within their reach.
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1 "You will revere the gods and heroes their founders," said he; "you will respect their pristine glory, and even their age; you will honour them for the famous deeds which are truly, and even for those which are fabulously, recorded of them: remember it is Athens you approach."
2 It has been often remarked of the Turks that they are encamped rather than settled in Europe. Far from improving the countries they govern, they scatter everything that comes within their reach: they destroy monuments, but build none; and when at length... In the course of the late revolutionary war, Athens sustained three sieges. The first was laid by the Greeks in 1822. Having carried the town by storm, and driven the Turks into the citadel, they established a strict blockade of the fortress, which was continued until the advance of the pasha at the head of 4000 men induced them to abandon their enterprise, and fly, with the Athenians, to Salamis and Ægina. Two months afterwards, the pasha having left Athens to the defence of 1500 men, the Greeks again ventured to attack the town, and succeeded in obliging the Turks to seek refuge in the citadel, which they forthwith determined to besiege; but, from ignorance and want of means, no progress whatever was made in the operation until they obtained possession of the well which supplied the garrison with water, when the Turks agreed to capitulate upon condition of being immediately embarked with their families, and sent to Asia Minor. On various pretences, however, the embarkation was delayed from time to time; and when intelligence at length arrived that a large Turkish force was advancing upon Athens, the Palicari, instead of manning the walls and preparing for a vigorous defence, rushed in a body to the houses where the prisoners were confined, and commenced an indiscriminate massacre, in which the young and beautiful inmates of the harem, the aged and infirm, and the brave but defenceless spahis and janissaries, fell alike beneath the merciless yataghan. This atrocity, for which no possible palliation can be alleged, and which, in every circumstance of cruelty, exceeded that previously perpetrated at Tripolizza, reflects indelible dishonour on the Greek character, and proves that they inherit the faithlessness of their ancestors, with the innate ferocity of their former masters. The third siege was laid by the Turks in 1826. The Greeks had left a strong garrison in the Acropolis, with provisions for several months; and a spring of water having been discovered in the cave of Pan, and inclosed by Odysseus within the defences of the citadel, there was no danger of its being starved into surrender. But the Turks having established batteries near the Pnyx and on the hill of the Museum, and having drawn a line of trenches round the citadel, with the view of intercepting all communication between the besieged and the Greek army, the garrison was hard pressed; and although Colonel Fabvier succeeded in forcing his way through the Turkish lines with 500 men and a supply of ammunition, and thus affording immediate relief, yet the total defeat of the Greek army under General Church, at the battle of Athens, fought in the hope of raising the siege, led soon afterwards to the surrender of the Acropolis, which remained in the hands of the Turks until the termination of the revolutionary war.
In 1812 Athens could boast of a population of 12,000 souls, but during the war the greater part of the city was laid in ruins, and most of the inhabitants were dispersed. In 1834, it was declared the capital of the new kingdom of Greece. Great exertions have been made to restore the city; streets have been opened, levelled, and widened, though most of them are still narrow, winding, and irregular; the ancient sewers have been cleaned and repaired; and the marshes of the Cephissus, the exhalations of which were extremely noxious, are in the course of being drained. The ancient buildings have also been cleared of their rubbish, and some important discoveries have been made. The small temple of Victory has already been spoken of. The other marble fragments of buildings discovered have been placed in the temple of Theseus. The royal palace is a large building of Pentelic marble, situated in the east part of the city, on the highest part of the gentle eminence which rises from the level of the Ilissus and Cephissus towards Lycabettus. A theatre, a barracks, a military hospital, the royal stables, and many large private buildings, have all been raised since 1834. The houses, built in the modern German style, are generally supplied with jalousies and balconies; and have shops and coffeehouses on the ground floor. A university was established here in 1837, and has an anatomical theatre, a considerable library, and 34 professors and teachers, with (in 1845) 195 students. The gymnasium, a preparatory school to the university, is attended by about 800 regular students, besides many more attending particular lectures. It has eight professors, divided into three classes:—1. Ancient Greek, Latin, Geometry, Algebra, Logic, and Moral Science; 2. Ancient Greek, Geometry, Algebra, Psychology, History; 3. Ancient Greek, Latin, Algebra, Geography, History, and the French and English Languages. There are also a military and an ecclesiastical academy, a normal, Lancasterian, infant, and other schools, especially one established by the American missionaries, now in a very flourishing condition, and a splendid establishment for the education of young ladies, founded by the munificence of a benevolent lady, and called the Δασκαλεία. The population of the city in 1845 amounted to 27,800. Porto Leone (the ancient Peiraeus) contained at the same date 1000 houses. A good road has been made between it and the city, a distance of five miles, and a constant communication is kept up by means of fiacres; a large customhouse, a quay, and a lazaretto, have been erected; and the port presents rather a bustling appearance. The harbour is deep and secure, but has a very narrow entrance. The government is constructing a pier, which will afford accommodation to several hundred merchant vessels. Outside, about two miles to the westward, there is a great roadstead, with nearly eighteen fathoms of water.
the name of several towns and villages in the United States of America. The principal are, 1, the capital of a county of the same name in the S.E. of the state of Ohio, finely situated on the Hockhocking River, 40 miles from its mouth. It is the seat of the Ohio university and of an academy. Pop. 1593. 2. A town in the county of Clark, state of Georgia, on the W. bank of Oconee River. Pop. 3000. It contains the university of Georgia.