FLOOR.] 
SECOND ELGIN HOOM. 
75 
At the North end of the Room, on the West side, is a head 
of iEsculapius, from the Blacas Collection ; and on the East 
side are casts of two Chairs from the Theatre of Dionysos at 
Athens. 
SECOND ELGIN ROOM. 
As the principal portion of the series of sculptures from 
the Parthenon is here exhibited, forming the chief contents of 
this room, a short account of that building may be prefixed 
to the description. The most ancient temple of Minerva, 
called the Hecatompedon, which stood on the summit of the 
Acropolis of Athens, having been burnt by the Persians, B.C. 
480, a more splendid edifice was erected between thirty and 
forty years afterwards, during the administration of Pericles. 
It was constructed of Pentelic marble, in the Doric order of 
architecture, and was of the form termed peripteral octostyle. 
The architect was Ictinus, but the sculptural decorations were 
executed from the designs and under the direction of Phidias. 
Two models, made by Mr. R. C. Lucas, are placed in this 
room, one of which represents the building as it is believed to 
have been in its original state, the other as it appeared in A.D. 
1687, immediately after the bombardment of Athens by the 
Venetian General, Morosini, when a shell, falling into the 
middle of the temple, exploded a powder-magazine established 
there by the Turks, and laid the adjoining portion in ruins. 
It will be seen from these models that the cella, or enclosed 
building within the colonnade, was decorated externally with a 
continuous frieze in low relief, whilst the entablature sur- 
mounting the colonnade had a frieze formed of metopes 
alternating with triglyphs, each metope containing a sculp- 
tured group in high relief. 
Attached to the Western wall of the room are fifteen of the me- 
topes, and a cast from another, -which is now in the Museum of the 
Louvre, at Paris. They are all from the South side of the Parthenon, 
and represent combats between Greeks and Centaurs. Casts from 
three other metopes, still remaining at Athens, and representing 
various subjects, are inserted in the adjoining walls. 
Around the room are placed in a continuous line the slabs removed 
by Lord Elgin from the frieze of the cclla, with casts of a iVw other 
slabs still existing on the temple, forming altogether more than one- 
half of the entire series. They are arranged, as far as possible, in 
