Edward Lee Hicks

“ In 1834 it was declared the capital of the new kingdom of Greece. Great exertions have been made since then to restore the city; streets have been opened, levelled, widened; the ancient sewers have been cleared and repaired, and the marshes of Cephisus drained. Excavations of ancient sites and buildings have been carried out,—chiefly through the efforts of the Archæological Society of Athens, but the antiquaries and scholars of all Europe have anxiously watched their endeavours, and France and Prussia have vied with Great Britain in the prosecution of Athenian discovery. ”

“ We are told that Sulla was wont to take credit for having "spared Athens." He did not indeed destroy it, but his conduct on this occasion alone would suffice to fix an indelible stain upon his memory. With this disastrous exception, Athens prospered under the Roman rule, and students from all parts of the Grseco- Roman world flocked thither to attend the lectures of the philosophers and rhetoricians, or to view the countless works of art that adorned the city. Athenian society grew more and more academic. ”

“ It was natural for the thoughts of a Greek, especially of an Athenian, to turn to the decoration of his city ; it was politic that the central city of the Ionian confederacy should be adorned with a beauty equal to her prestige. The buildings connected with the name of Cimon had been chiefly for utility or defence ; those of Pericles were mainly ornamental. The first edifice completed by him seems to have been the n. Odeium, on the E. of the Dionysiac theatre, to serve as a place for recitations by rhapsodists, and for musical per formances. ”

“ Two other good streets, Athena Street and Æolus Street, traverse this at right angles. The other streets, with the exception of Stadium Street on the N.E., between the chamber of deputies and the University, are generally narrow and winding. Altogether, Athens, like the rest of Greece, is in a condition of increasing prosperity, and reaps the blessings of freedom. It is true that in our own country the ardent philhellenism of forty years ago has cooled down, and Greece is no longer an object of popular and sentimental admiration. ”

“ This new impulse made itself felt in building activity. The Dionysiac theatre was now first completed ; and though, as we have already seen, many of the sculptures and other marbles recently uncovered on its site are the restorations of a very much later age, yet we may confidently assume that in all material points the theatre as we are now able to view it represents the condition of the building as it idium. ”

“ Birth of Athena," over the eastern entrance, may symbolise to us the sudden growth of Athenian great ness, while in the contest between the armed goddess of peaceful wisdom and the violent god of sea, which adorned the western front, we may see an allegory of the long struggle between the agricultural and the maritime interests which forms the central thread of Athenian history. Erech- Opposite to the Parthenon, on the northern edge of the theium. Acropolis, stands another remarkable temple, far smaller in size, and built in the most graceful forms of the Ionic order. ”

“ Round the eastern end of the Acropolis, ipods, starting from the eastern entrance of the Dionysiac theatre, then leaving the Odeium of Pericles to the left, and thence sweeping westward to the Agora, there ran a street which formed a favourite promenade in ancient Athens, commonly known as the "Street of Tripods." ”

“ At length, in 146 B.C., Greece became a Roman province, and Athens succumbed peacefully to the Roman yoke. During the inglorious period of Athenian history which has just been sketched, several new buildings were reared by the munificence of foreign princes. Ptolemy Philadelphia gave his name to a large gymnasium the Ptolemseum built by him near the Theseium. Attalus I., king of Pergamus, erected a stoa on the north-east of the Agora, and laid out a garden in the Academy. ”

“ The Erechtheium appears to be designed expressly to contrast with the severe sublimity of the Parthenon ; and on the side which confronts those mighty Doric shafts, the columns of the smaller building are allowed to trans form themselves into Canephori. The temple of Athena Polias, which contained the ancient wooden image of the goddess, and formed the centre of her worship, suffered from fire in the Persian War (479 B.C.) A building so sacred would hardly have been allowed to remain for long in ruins ; but it was reserved for Pericles to set about a complete restoration of it. ”

“ The royal palace is a large building of Pentelic marble, situated in the eastern quarter of the city, on the highest part of the gentle eminence which rises from the level of the Ilissus and Cephisus towards Lycabettus. The University (τανεπιστήμιον) was founded in 1837, and numbers over 1200 students, while its staff of 52 professors includes the names of some of the most learned Greek archæologists in Europe. In fact, the schools and other educational institutions of Athens are very numerous, and thoroughly efficient. ”

“ Apollo near the Olympium, was also ascribed to Pisis tratus, whose grandson and namesake dedicated an altar within it (Thucyd., vi. 54) . To Pisistratus was ascribed the founding of the Lyceium, or temple of Apollo Lyceius, Lyceiiu which stood on the right bank of the Ilissus, a short distance from the city. The names both of Pericles and Lycurgus the orator are also associated with this building ; yet it is not known who added the gymnasium close by, which afterwards became famous as the favourite haunt of Aristotle, and the birthplace of the Peripatetic philosophy. ”

“ Themistocles thus, in giving up Port Phalerum, gave Athens three harbours instead of one. The fortifications of Pineeus were conceived on a grand scale, and carried out with no sign of hurry. The whole circuit of Piraeeus and of the town of Munychia was enclosed alike on the sea and land sides by walls of immense thickness and strength, which were carried up to a height of more than 60 feet this being only half the height intended by Themistocles! (see Grote, Hist. Greece, c. xliv.) The laying out of the new seaport belonged rather to the regime of Pericles (Grote, c. xlvii.) ”

“ The ancient theatres were open to the sky ; but the most remarkable feature of this odeium, built by Herodes in honour of his deceased wife Regilla, was its roof of cedar, fragments of which were actually dis covered in the excavations made upon this site in 1857. It is a fortunate circumstance that the best and only Tour of extant account of ancient Athens came from the pen of a Pausanias. traveller who visited the city just at the time when the munificence of Hadrian and of Herodes had left nothing more to be added to its embellishment. ”

“ Augustus himself received the honour of a small circular shrine upon the Acropolis, dedicated to Augustus and Roma. His son-in-law Agrippa was honoured by an equestrian statue in front of the Pro- pylcea, the pedestal of which still exists. The Agrippeium was a theatre erected by Agrippa in the Cerameicus. It is possible, moreover, that the Diogeneium the only gymnasium mentioned in the Ephebic inscriptions of the imperial period was built about this time. Its site has recently been thought to have been discovered about 200 yards east of the Tower of the Winds. ”

“ The archæological journals of Athens are full of information concerning the progress of excavations, and publish the texts of newly-discovered inscriptions. The population in 1871 was over 48,000, exclusive of the population of the Piræeus, which would bring the total up to about 60,000. The harbour is visited by ships of all nations. A railway connects the Piræeus with the city, and enters the ancient town about half-way between the site of the Dipylum and Pirsean gates. The terminus stands in the midst of what once was the Agora in Cerameicus. ”

“ But nearly all the subordinate figures are preserved in a more or less injured condition in the British Museum. The noble head of the horse of the car of Night, the seated female figures of " The Fates," and the grand torso commonly known as the " Theseus," are familiar to us all. It would be out of place here even to enumerate the many attempts that have been made to reconstruct the groups of either pediment. The sculptures on the W. represented the contest between Athena and Poseidon for the possession of Attica ”

“ Everywhere upon the slopes Early rock of the hills just mentioned traces have lately been dis- dwellings. covered of ancient dwellings hewn out of the solid rock. But while all these rock-dwellings are extremely ancient, yet some appear less primitive than others ; it is remarked that those which exist on the Areopagus and on the hill sides nearest to the Acropolis are of a smaller and ruder type, those more distant from the citadel being somewhat more convenient in plan and extent. Legend declares the Athenians to have originally dwelt in rock-hewn caves (Dyer’s Athens, ch. i.) ”

“ In tracing the circuit of the ancient walls, we may take our start from the N.W. side of the city, at the one gate whose site is absolutely certain, the Thriasian gate (called also the Sacred gate, as opening upon the sacred way to Eleusis, and also TO AtTnAoj/, as consisting of two gates, perhaps one within the other) , which is marked by the modern church of the Holy Trinity, a little N. of the bottom of Hermes Street a spot attractive to the modern tourist through the beautiful " street of tombs " here laid bare by recent excavations. ”

“ It was burnt by Aristion during Sulla s siege of Athens, but afterwards rebuilt. Mention has already been made of the building of the Long Walls and the laying out of the Pirseeus by Pericles ; but it was the Acropolis itself which witnessed the greatest splendours of his administration. Within its limited area arose buildings and statues, on which the genius of Phidias the sculptor, of Ictinus and Mnesicles the architects, were employed for years; while multitudes of artists and craftsmen of all kinds were busied in carrying out their grand designs. ”

“ The whole building was of Pentelic marble. The Megaron or great vestibule in the centre consisted of a front of six fluted Doric columns, mounted upon four steps, which supported a pediment, and measured 5 feet in diameter and nearly 29 in height, with an intercolumniation of 7 feet, except between the two central columns, which were 13 feet apart, in order to furnish space for a carriage-way. Behind this Doric colonnade was a vestibule 43 feet in depth, the roof of which was sustained by six inner columns in a double row, so as to divide the vestibule into three aisles or compartments ”

“ It is situated in long. 23° 44′ E., lat. 37° 58′ N., towards the south of the central plain (πεδίν) of Attica, about 41/2 miles from the harbour of Piraeus, and nearly 4 from the Bay of Phalerum. The survey of Pausanias (i. 2–30) , when compared with existing remains, and supplemented by the numerous incidental notices of ancient authors, enables us to form a more perfect conception of the topography of ancient Athens than of any other Greek city. Recent excavations have added greatly to our knowledge of it, and the literature of the subject is very extensive (see p. 11, infra) . ”

“ His ambition was to excel as a sophist, but he owed his fame yet more to the enormous wealth he inherited from his father, which he spent in works of public munificence. Various towns of Greece and even of Italy were enriched by his bounty, but Athens most of all. In addition to his many other benefactions, two architectural works in parti- 1 The name Cerameicus is never used by writers of pre-Roman times for the old market; they always speak of " the Agora." Pausanias uses both words in their more modern meanings respectively. ”

“ It is doubtful whether the " Long Walls " formed a distinct portion of his designs ; but he may certainly be regarded as the founder of the greatness 1 The best account yet given of the Dionysiac theatre is to be found in Dr Dyer s recent work on Athens.
of Athens, the works and embellishments carried cut by Pericles being only a fulfilment of the far-sighted aims of Themistocles. Thucydides (ii. 13) makes the circuit of the city wall to be 43 stades (about 5 miles) , exclusive of the unguarded space between walls ; this is found to correspond accurately enough with the existing remains. ”

“ Far more reasonable is the view of Dr Dyer ( A thens, App. iil) He thinks that the lower and smaller bema dis covered by Dr Curtius was the bema of Clisthenes, which did (however much Plutarch s statement is discredited by his own absurd explanation) face in the direction of the sea. The orator would thus speak from the arc of the semicircle, having the audience above him. The Thirty may well have defaced the Pnyx, and it would have been natural for Thrasybulus after the anarchy to restore it on a large scale, hewing out what is still known as the bema. ”

“ A similar haste marked the rebuilding of the city walls, a work in which men and women, old and young, took zealous part, not scrupling to dismantle any building or monument, private or public, which could sup ply materials for the building. But in rebuilding the walls Rebuilding Themistocles gave them a wider circuit, especially towards of | he the N. and N.E. (Thucyd., i. 90, 93) . At the same time w he determined to construct new harbours, and to fortify the Piraeeus, regarding the navy of Athens as her principal source of strength. ”