the Earl of Elg'm's Pursuits in Greece. 255 



of Carya, who were the only Peloponnesians who sided with 

 Xerxes in his invasion of Greece. The men had been re- 

 duced to the deplorable state of Hclotes ; and the women 

 not only condemned to the most servile employments j but 

 those of rank and family forced, in this abjoct condition, to 

 wear their ancient dresses and ornaments. In this state 

 they are here exhibited. The drapery is fine, the hair of 

 each figure is braided in a different manner, and a kind of 

 diadem they wear on their head forms the capital. Besides 

 drawings and mouldings of all these particulars, lord Elgin 

 has brought to England one of the original statues. The 

 Lacedzemonians had used a species of vengeance similar to 

 that above mentioned in constructing the Persian portico,, 

 which they had erected at Sparta, in honour of their victory 

 over the forces of Mardonius at Platsea: placing statues of 

 Persians in their rich oriental dresses, instead of columns, 

 to support the entablature." 



A ground plan has been made of the Acropolis, in which 

 are inserted not only all the existing monuments, but those 

 the position of which could be ascertained from traces of 

 their foundations. 



" The ancient walls of the city of Athens, as they existed 

 in the Peloponnesian war, have been traced by lord Elgin's 

 artists in their whole extent, as well as the lone- walls that 

 led to the Munychia and the Piraeus. The gates, mentioned 

 in ancient authors, have been ascertained : and every public 

 monument, that could be recognised, has been inserted in 

 a general map ; as well as detailed plans given of each. 

 Extensive excavations were necessary for this purpose, par- 

 ticularly at the great theatre of Bacchus; at the Pnyx, 

 where the assemblies of the people were held, where Pericles, 

 Alcibiades, Demosthenes, and yEschines, delivered their 

 orations, and at the theatre built by Herodes Atticus to the 

 memory of his wife Regilla. The supposed tumuli of 

 Antiope, Euripides, and others, have also been opened; 

 and from these excavations, and various others in the en- 

 virons of Athens, has been procured a complete and valuable 

 collection of Greek vases. The colonies sent from Athens, 

 Corinth, &c. into Magna GrjEcia, Sicily, and Etruria, car- 

 ried with them this art of making vases, from their mother 

 country; and, as the earliest modern collections of vases 

 were made in those colonies, they have improperly acciuired 

 the name of Etruscan. Those found by lo:d Elgin at 

 Ati)ens, iEginae, Argos, and Corinth, will prove the indu- 

 bitable claim of the Greeks to the invention and perfection 

 of this art: few of those in the collections of the king of 



Naples 



