552 SCULPTURE AND ARCHITECTURE OP ATHENS. 



horseback; others are about to mount: some are in chariots; 

 others on foot : oxen, and other victims are loading to sacrifice : 

 the nymphs called Cane) liorae, Skiophorae, &c. carrying the sa- 

 cred offerings in baskets and rases ; priests, magistrates, warriors, 

 &c. &c. forming altogether a series of most interesting figures, in 

 great variety of costume, armour, and attitude. Some antiquaries, 

 who have examined this frize with minute attention, seem to think 

 it contained portraits of many of the leading characters of Athens, 

 during the Peloponnesian war, particularly the Pericles, Phidias, 

 Socrates, Alcibiades, &c. The whole frize, which originally was 

 six hundred feet in length, is, like the temple itself, of pentelic 

 marble, from the quarries in the neighbourhood of Athens. 



The tympanum over each of the porticoes of the Parthenon, 

 was adorned with statues. That over the grand entrance of the 

 temple from the west, containing the mythological history of Miner. 

 va's birth from the brain of Jove. In the centre of the group was 

 seated Jupiter, in all the majesty of the sovereign of the gods. 

 On his left, were the principal divinities of Olympus ; among 

 whom Vulcan came prominently forward, with the axe in his hand 

 which had cleft a passage for the goddess. On the right was Victo. 

 ry, in loose floating robes, holding the horses of the chariot which 

 introduced the new divinity to Olympus. One of the bombs fired 

 by MorsLni, the Venetian, from the opposite hill of the Museum, 

 injured many of the figures in this tympanum ; and the attempt of 

 General Kccnigsmark, in 1687, to take down the figure of Miner, 

 va, ruined the whole. By purchasing the house of one of the 

 Turkish janizaries, built immediately under and against the co- 

 lumns of the portico, and by demolishing it in order to excavate, 

 lord Elgin has had the satisfaction of recovering the greatest part 

 of the statue of Victory, in a drapery which discovers the fine form 

 of the figure, with exquisite delicacy and taste. Lord Elgin also 

 found there the torsi of Jupiter and Vulcan, the breast of the Mi- 

 nerva, together with other fragments. 



On the opposite tympanum had been represented the contest 

 between Minerva and Neptune for the honour of giving a name to 

 the city. One or two of the figures remained on this tympanum, 

 and others wi-re on the top of the wall, thrown back by the explo. 

 sion which destroyed the temple ; but the far greater part had 

 fallen : and a house being built immediately below the space they 

 had occupied, lord Klgin, encouraged by the succession of his for. 



