625 



ATHENS. 



ATHENS. 



both of walls and towers, still exist, formed in some parts of large 

 squared stones cramped with iron. (Thucyd. i. 93.) 



We shall now endeavour briefly to describe those localities in 

 ancient Athens which seem at present to be pretty well identified. 

 The principal edifices, such as the Erechtheium, the Parthenon, and the 

 Theseium, will be more full described as works of art in the division 

 of the ENGLISH CYCLOP-EDIA devoted to ARTS AND SCIENCES. It appears 

 probable that even in its best days the first appearance of Athens 

 was not very pleasing, and that its attractions were mainly due to 

 the public edifices. The streets were- narrow, crooked, undrained and 

 unlisted, and lined for the most part with mean houses of only a 

 single story in height. It was not till the Macedonian period that 

 any private houses of a superior character began to be erected. The 

 great streets however which led from the city gates were generally 

 bordered with colonnades, under which were the entrances to the 

 houses. A Greek traveller of the latter part of the 4th century B.C. 

 (Dicaearchus, Hud. ' Min. Oeog.' vol. ii.) describes the city as dusty, 

 and biuily supplied with water, * and the streets ill laid out, a fault 

 which I attributes to the great antiquity of the place. Most of the 

 houses were mean, and only a few good. " A stranger on the first 

 view," he adds, " might doubt if this is Athens ; but after a short 

 time he would see that it was." 



The most striking object is the Acropolis, or Citadel, a rock which 

 rises abruptly from the plain, and is crowned with the Parthenon. 

 Opposite to the west end of the Acropolis, and separated from it by 

 a depression, is the Areiopagus, or Hill of Mars, on the eastern and 

 highest extremity of which was the court of the Areiopagus. The 

 steps which led up from the valley of the Agora are still left, and 

 immediately above them is the place where the Areiopagites sat as 

 judges in the open air. The stone bench which they occupied, and 

 which runu round three sides of a quadrangular excavation in the 

 rock, still remains. On the eastern and western sides are raised 

 blocks, which Wordsworth suggests may be those mentioned by 

 Pausanias as those on which the accuser and the accused sat during 

 the trial of criminal causes in the court of the Areiopagus. It was 

 here as will be remembered that St. Paul addressed the men of 

 Athens. At the foot of the hill are the ruins of a small chapel 

 dedicated to St. Dionysius the Areiopagite, in commemoration of his 

 conversion here by St. Paul. 



Adjacent to the Areiopagus on the west was the Pnyx, where the 

 public meetings were held in the more ancient period of the state, 

 and where a btma, or pulpit of stone, still marks the place from 

 which the assembly was addressed. This be'ma is a rectangular block 

 11 feet broad, rising from a graduated base; the present height is 

 about 20 feet, but the summit is broken. The ascent was by a flight 

 of steps on each side of it. The Pnyx was a nearly semicircular area, 

 sloping very gradually downwards from the be'ma, and containing 

 about 12,000 square yards; affording therefore ample accommodation 

 for the whole body of Athenian citizens. The remainder of the rock 

 was thickly inhabited. 



North of the Areiopagus is the Gymnasium of Ptolemsens, and 

 farther north the Temple of Theseus, built of Pentelic marble, one 

 of the best preserved buildings of ancient Athens. At first sight it 

 JK difficult to believe we are really contemplating a building that 

 was erected about 470-465 B.C. The Theseium is a Doric temple 

 104 feet long and 

 45 feet wide ; its 

 height to the summit 

 of the pediment is 

 33J feet. It is a 

 peripteral hexastyle, 

 that is, it is sur- 

 rounded with columns, 

 and has six on each 

 front ; there are 13 

 columns on each flank. 

 The eastern or prin- 

 cipal pediment W;IH 

 adorned with sculp- 

 tures, as well as the 

 ten metopes of this 

 front, and the four 

 adjacent to them on 



Temple of Theseus, from Stnart's Athens. 



each flank : casts of three of these metopes, which appear to refer 

 to the exploit* of Theseus and Hercules, and also of the frieze, are in 

 the Elgin Room of the British Museum. Penrose has recently dis- 

 covered traces of sculptures on the western pediment also. Within 

 the last three or four years the Theseium has been restored, and a new 

 roof placed upon it in imitation of the original one. It is now used as 

 the National Museum of Athens. It is proper to mention that the 

 identity of this building with the ancient Theseium has been lately 

 denied by Ross, who considers it to be really the Temple of Ares ; 

 but his theory has found little if any acceptance. 



Nearly due east of the Temple of Theseus are the remains of what 

 i probably the Stoa or Portico of Hadrian, one of the monuments 



A great deal of pains appears however to have been taken to ensure a 

 "uppljr of water (ee Leake, ' Top. of Athena,' p. 202 ; and Appendix, zlil., 

 on the Supply of Water at Athen<). 



0100. llIV. VOL. I. 



with which this munificent emperor embellished the city of Athens. 

 It is not exact to state, as has been done, that the architectural 

 character of the west colonnade of this building corresponds to that 

 of the Arch of Hadrian ; still it seems most likely that these remains 

 are part of the great work of that emperor, described by Pausanias 

 (i. 18), who informs us that the Stoa of Hadrian was adorned with a 

 hundred and twenty columns of Phrygian marble, and contained apart- 

 ments whose roofs were " gilded and made of alabaster : " it contained 

 also a library, and the apartments were decorated with statues and 

 paintings. The Gymnasium of Hadrian was probably near the Stoa. 

 South of the Stoa is the Tower of the Winds, or more correctly the 

 Horologium of Andronicus Cyrrhestes, which served both as the 

 public clock and weathercock of the city. The building is an octa- 

 gonal tower, having its sides facing the eight points into which the 

 Athenian compass was divided. It is supposed to have been erected 

 about 100 B.C. The summit of the building, which was crowned by 

 a large weathercock, is 44 feet from the foundation. A semicircular 

 turret, which contained the cistern for the clepsydra, is attached to 

 the south wall. The entrance to this building was by distyle 

 Corinthian porticoes on the north-east and north-west sides. 



The south-east quarter of the city, which is entered by the Arch of 

 Hadrian, was one of the oldest parts of it next to the Acropolis. 

 This building, of Pentelic marble, consisted when complete of a 

 circular arch with Corinthian columns, the entablature of which 

 supported another ordinance of Corinthian columns, surmounted by 

 an entablature, with a pediment in the centre. (Stuart, iii. 90 ; Leake, 

 i. 199.) An inscription upon the frieze on the south-east side of the 

 arch still testifies that the emperor gave his name to the part of the 

 city between this edifice and the Ilissus. Here stood the magnificent 

 Temple of Jupiter Olympius, which being recommenced about 175-165 

 B.C., on the site of an older temple, and worked upon at intervals, 

 was at length finished by Hadrian. The dimensions of this magnificent 

 edifice have been recently ascertained by Penrose to be, length 354 

 feet, and breadth 171 feet. The temple was peristyle, having a triple 

 row of 10 columns at the ends, and a double row of 20 at the sides, 

 with 3 between antse at each end of the cella, in all 120 columns. 

 Fifteen columns of Pentelic marble, 60 feet high, and above 6^ feet 

 in diameter, being the largest now standing in Europe, are all that 

 now remain of the 120 which once adorned this noble building, one 

 of the largest erected by the Greeks in honour of their deities. A 

 sixteenth column was thrown down in a storm on the 2(ith of 

 October, 1852. This temple and its sacred inclosure were filled with 

 statues : two of the emperor were made of stone from Thasos, and 

 two others of stone from Egypt ; the statue of the deity was a 

 chryselephantine (gold and ivory) statue of colossal size. 



The fountain called Callirrhoe, or Enueacrunus (the Nine Springs), 

 the only source of fresh water in the neighbourhood, was only a short 

 distance from the south-east angle of the great temple. There were 

 wells, as Pausanias remarks (i. 14), all through the city, but this was 

 the only source of pure water; and it was that employed by females 

 prior to their nuptials, and in all important religious ceremonies. 

 An aqueduct from Cephisia on the Cephisus was constructed for the 

 use of the city by Hadrian and Antoninus his successor. Tim 

 reservoir of water was made at the foot of Mount Lycabettus, and 

 adorned with a frontispiece of four Ionic columns. This monument, 



of which two column* 

 were standing in 175 !, 

 is now destroyed. The 

 piers of some of the 

 arches of this aqueduct 

 still remain a little to 

 the east of the village 

 of Dervish-agu, about 

 six miles north from 

 Athens. 



Beyond the quarter 

 called Hadrian's City, 

 on the left side of the 

 Ilissus, is the Pana- 

 thenaic Stadium, con- 

 structed, or rather 

 perhaps completed, by 

 Lycurgus the orator, 



B.C. 350, and adorned with Pentelic marble by Herodes Atticus, 

 in the reign of Hadrian. All the marble has disappeared ; but part 

 of the masonry at the south-east or circular end, and the cavea, or 

 part destined for the exhibition of the Panathenaic games, remain. 

 Its length in the interior is 675 feet. Leake estimates it to have 

 been 6apable of accommodating 40,000 persons on the marble seats, 

 while as many more could find a place on the slopes of the hills above 

 them. On the summit of the hill, a little to the west of the Stadium, 

 are some remains which are supposed to be those of a Temple of 

 Tyche, or Fortune, mentioned by Philostratus as standing near the 

 Stadium. On the opposite hill was probably the tomb of Herodes. 

 A bridge, the foundations of which according to Leake are still 

 discernible, crossed the Ilissus opposite the Stadium. 



On the hill of the Museium, which is separated from the Acropolia 

 by a depression, we find the monument of the Syrian mentioned by 



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