THE OLD GREEK VOLUNTEER 485 



another scene, Miltiades and the Persian admirals appear; Cynegirus, 

 brother of the tragic poet, ^schylus, is there also, seizing the prow of 

 the galley to which he held fast until the axe severed his arm and in- 

 terfered with his determination to capture a whole ship, single handed. 

 Theseus, hero-god, inspires their valor as he rises from out of the earth 

 and the gods and goddesses, above the battle, on the quiet heights of 

 Olympus, look down on the pictured scene — all of which furnished to 

 the oncoming generations a most potent and patriotic reminder of the 

 services and sacrifices of their citizen-soldiers. 



But by far the most artistic and celebrated memorial to the achieve- 

 ments of the Athenian, in arms, was the beautiful little Temple of 

 Victory, on the Acropolis, the Holy Hill of Athens. At the Fore-Gate, 

 near the splendid flight of marble stairs — over seventy feet broad — 

 stood, and stands to-day, the patriotic shrine on a mighty bastion 

 twenty-six feet high. This lofty spot was a most appropriate site for 

 a temple of Victory; for from this height the Athenian saw Salamis 

 and .^gina near by and the distant coast of Argolis, the citadel of 

 Corinth, and the mountains of Megara — memories of the glorious past 

 and rosy hopes of future victories. 



Other temples, by allegorical sculptures, represented indirectly the 

 great struggle of the Persian wars, but little " Victory " wrote clear its 

 motive in its marble-band, which portrayed the contest of actual Greeks 

 and Persians in the decisive battle of Plataea (479 B.C.). The little 

 Ionic temple of Pentelic marble is only twenty-seven feet long and 

 eighteen feet wide, but its frieze, running around the whole structure in 

 high relief, is eighty-six feet long, and the four fluted columns, at 

 either end, thirteen feet high, are made from single blocks of marble. 

 Within the temple-room was an ancient, wooden image of the goddess, 

 Athena, wingless, with pomegranate and helment in either hand. The 

 breast-high balustrade, about the three precipitous edges of the bas- 

 tion, was adorned with marble slabs of winged Victories, erecting 

 trophies and sacrificing to their queen, Athena — all clad in those won- 

 derfully transparent robes of marble gauze, which, clinging to the 

 figure or floating across the marble field, have remained the most re- 

 nowned example of their kind in the history of sculpture. 



One of the most unique soldier's monuments in military annals is 

 the serpent-column of bronze which once supported the golden tripod, 

 dedicated by the Greeks, at Delphi, nearly twenty-four centuries ago, 

 in commemoration of the victory of Plataea. Emperor Constantino re- 

 moved it to his new capital and it still stands in the Hippodrome at 

 Constantinople with the muster-roll of the loyal peoples inscribed upon 

 its coils. 



Among the many memorials erected by the Greeks, surely the most 

 characteristically ancient, in religious motive and martial emphasis, 



