Such a building, on such a site, found in such a case, suggests thoughts which bring all the ages of the world together. The old glory of Olympia passed away; free Elis—whatever we say of free Pisa—no longer gathered the competitors of free Hellas from Massalia to Trapezous to strive in a national solemnity before the national gods of Hellas. But Olympia lived on as long as the Roman masters of Hellas clave to the gods of Rome, and saw the gods of Rome in the gods of Hellas. A day came when the lord of Rome cast away his faith alike in Zeus of Olympia and in Jupiter of the Capitol; a day followed when a later prince forbade either worship, when the games of Olympia ceased as a rite of the forbidden worship, when her temples were forsaken or destroyed or made into materials for new temples of the new creed. Presently barbaric invasions swept away the new temple and the old alike. Zeus was still worshipped on Tainaros; St. Andrew still helped his votaries at Patras; but the temples, pagan and Christian, of the Olympian Altis lay hidden and forgotten, and the hill of Kronos looked down on solitude instead of on the great religious centre of the Hellenic race. Ages after, the zeal of strangers working on Hellenic ground brings to light the ruins of the pagan temples, and with them the ruins of the Christian Church. We rejoice in both discoveries; only let it be remembered that each alike is part of the history of Hellas and of the history of man. We will at least believe that there is no fear that the recovered church of Olympia may share the same fate which the narrowness of classical barbarism decreed for the ducal tower of Athens.


INDEX.


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