558 SCULPTURE AND ARCHITECTURE OF ATHENS. 



their whole extent, as well as the Ion? walls that led to the Muny- 

 chia and the Piraeus. The gates mentioned in ancient authors, 

 have 1) MI .t-rTtained: and every public monument, that could be 

 rrro ;nise:l, has been inserted in a general map ; as well as detailed 

 plans given of each. Extensive excavitions were necessary for (his 

 purpose, particularly at the Great Theatre of Bacchus ; at the 

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

 Alcibiades, Demosthenes, and /Eschines, 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, aid 

 various others in the environs of Athens, has been procured a com- 

 plete and valuable collection of Greek vases. The colonies sent 

 from Athens, Corinth, &c. into Magna Grecia, Sicily and Etruria, 

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

 country; and, as the earliest modern collection of vases were made 

 in those colonies, they have improperly acquired the name of 

 Etruscan. Those found by Lord Elgin at Athens, ./Eginae, Argos, 

 and Corinth, will prove the indubitable claim of the Greeks to the 

 invention and perfection of this art. Few of those in the collec- 

 tions of the King of Naples at Portici, or in that of Sir William 

 Hamilton, excel some which Lord Elgin has procured, with respect 

 to the elegance of the form, the fineness of the materials, the deli, 

 cacy of the execution, or the beauty of the subjects delineated on 

 them ^ and they are, for the most part, in very high preservation. 

 A tumiiius, into which an excavation was commenced under Lord 

 Elgin's eye (hiring his residence at Athens, has furnished a most 

 valuable treasure of this kind. It consists of a large marble vase 

 five feet in circumference, enclosing one of bron/p thirteen inches 

 in diameter, of beautiful sculpture, in which was a deposit of burnt 

 bones, and a lachrv mafory of alabaster, of exquisite form ; and on 

 the bones lay a wreath of myrtle in gold, having, besides leav< s, both 

 buds and flowers, This tumulus is situated on the road which 

 leads from Port Pirceus to the Salamiuian Ferry and Elcusis. 

 May it not be the tomb of Aspasia ? 



From the Theatre of Bacchus, Lord Elgin has obtained the very 

 ancient sun. dial, which existed there during the time of v&schylus, 

 Sophocles, and Euripides ; and a large statue of the Indian, or 

 bearded Bacchus, dedicated by Thrasyllus in gratitude for his 

 Laving obtained the priz? of tragedy at the Panatheniac festival. 



