ARCHITECTURAL INSCRIPTION. 5^3 



its commencement has been referred to a time subsequent to the 

 burning of a temple of Minerva, which is recorded to liave haj)pened 

 in the ninety-third olympiad. * The accident is erroneously thought 

 by Stuart to have befallen the building in question, whereas the 

 words of Xenophon describe the edifice to be the old temple of 

 Minerva ; that is to say, the Hecatompedon, which the Greeks, in 

 conformity with their general policy, suffered to remain unrepaired, 

 as a monument of the sacrilegious violence of the barbarians who 

 invaded Greece. Pausanias mentions several instances of this in- 

 tentional neglect, and speaks of two temples in the vicinity of 

 Athens which were suffered to remain, as he expresses it, ■^[zikccutoi, 

 for the reason assigned. The Erectheum was burned by the Persians, 

 together with the whole of the Acropolis, but Herodotus alludes to 

 it as still standing in the third year of the eighty-third olympiad, 

 viii. 55. ■ ■ • ■ • ■-■ ■ 



Pericles, who entertained the idea of rebuilding all the temples 

 injured by the Persians, began with those of the Acropolis. The 

 Parthenon was in all probability first undertaken, and completed 

 before any progress was made in erecting the Propylsea ; for he only 

 survived the completion of the latter building five years. Eleven 

 years had elapsed before its commencement, since the death of Cimon 

 insured to Pericles the sole conti'ol of the Athenian people: in 

 this interval the Parthenon was probably erected. The Erectheum 

 may have been begun after the Propylaea were finished, a short time 

 before his death ; although the inscription describes it as unfinished 

 in the archonship of Diodes, twenty-one years subsequent to that 

 event, and two years before the conclusion of the Peloponnesian war. 

 But the interruption given to the progress of all works of ornament 

 during that contention will sufficiently account for the delay in 

 finishing it. 



The Erectheum was erected upon the site of the ancient temple, 

 and in this instance the Greeks departed from their usual practice, by 



* Xenoph. Hist. Graec. i. G. 



