The position of the Propylæa, the magnificent gatehouse of Pentelic marble designed by the architect Mnesicles, is admirably shown in this drawing. All the five doorways, which were closed by doors of bronze, are seen against the sky. Immediately to the left is the north wing (the Pinacotheca); to the right the bastion surmounted by the little Niké Temple. High above all rises the Parthenon. Coming down to the foreground, we may note, on the right, the great supporting wall of the Theatre of Herodes Atticus with the blue Hymettos behind it; and, to the left, the pinkish coloured rock of the Areopagus, with Lycabettos above.
rising out of the plain in the neighbourhood of Athens, including Lycabettus, Areopagus, Pnyx, and Museum Hill. Though not nearly so high as Lycabettus, the Acropolis was better fitted for defence, as it was almost inaccessible from all sides except the west, and had a flat summit of considerable extent. In itself it is not equal to the Castle Rock of “modern Athens,” being only 150 feet high, 1150 long, and about 500 in breadth. But it is a far more striking object from many points of view, partly owing to its position on a rising ground, partly because it is crowned with the noble ruins of the Parthenon. Many traces still remain of its original fortifications, which were of a Cyclopean character, and were attributed to the Pelasgian race. This name, indeed, survives in the Pelasgicon (otherwise called Pelargicon), an elaborate outwork consisting of a series of terraced battlements with nine gates (Enneapylon), of which some remains can still be made out. On the eastern side there can also be seen the lower courses of a wall which had been built to fill up a depression in the hill.
Although Attica is not much more than half the size of Cornwall, there was a time when its inhabitants were divided into many different communities, practically independent of each other. The city of Athens was then confined to the Acropolis and a small extent of ground in its immediate neighbourhood on the south-east. According to tradition it was Theseus who welded together the various demes or townships into one organised community under his single rule; and in commemoration of this rare achievement in Greek history the festival of Synœcia long continued to be celebrated. Theseus is mentioned both in the Iliad and the Odyssey, and his two sons fought in the Trojan war, yet it was not he but his successor Menestheus who commanded the Athenian forces in the war, owing to certain impieties committed by him which entailed upon him the loss of his crown. No hero was credited with more wonderful performances than Theseus both by land and sea, and even in the underground world, though his efforts there were not so successful. His most memorable exploit in the eyes of the Athenians was the destruction of the Minotaur, a monster with the body of a man and the head of a bull, which was kept at Knossus, the capital of the Cretan empire of Minos, and to which Athens had to devote a sacrifice of seven youths and seven maidens every nine years. When the time came round Theseus volunteered to accompany the victims, in order to deliver them; and with the help of Ariadne, the king’s daughter, who furnished him with a clue to the labyrinth in which the monster was confined and a sword, he succeeded in his perilous mission, and brought back his young companions safe and sound. He had arranged with his father Ægeus that in that event he would hoist a white sail instead of the usual black one; but unfortunately he omitted to give the sign, and the aged king, who was looking out from the Acropolis, where the temple of Niké now stands, being overcome with grief at the apparent failure of his son’s heroic undertaking, threw himself down among the rocks and perished. According to another version of the story, he was waiting on the shore and threw himself into the sea. To commemorate the event embodied in this tradition the Athenians were in the habit of sending a ship to Delos every year to offer to Apollo a sacrifice of a less distressing nature. During the month in which this took place, no public act was permitted that was considered to be out of keeping with it, such as the execution of a criminal; and it was owing to this that Socrates was so long confined in prison after sentence of death had been passed upon him.
Theseus was believed to have given the Athenians his countenance and aid at the battle of Marathon, and a few years afterwards they were commanded by the Delphian oracle to bring back his bones from the island of Scyros, where he had met a violent death. The injunction was obeyed in 469 B.C. by Cimon, the son of Miltiades, who discovered a gigantic skeleton, and brought it to Athens amid great rejoicing. It was then reinterred in a sanctuary devoted to Theseus’ memory, which is often mentioned by subsequent Greek writers, and afforded a refuge within its spacious precincts to the poor and oppressed, whether bond or free, who felt themselves to be in danger. Unfortunately the historical references to this sanctuary, as well as the fact that it was in honour of a hero, not of a god, forbid us to identify it with the noble Doric temple standing between the Areopagus and the Agora or Market-place, which is now commonly known as the Theseum. The probability is that the latter building was a temple in honour of Hephæstus or of Hephæstus and Athena. It is built of white Pentelic marble, with thirty-four columns in all, the sculptures on it being of Parian marble, and is second only to the Parthenon in majestic beauty. Traces of the bright red and blue colouring, which was used even in the decoration of marble, can be distinctly seen; and part of the coffered roof is still in position, adorned with painted stars. During the Middle Ages it was turned into a church dedicated to St. George, and it is doubtless owing to this cause that it still survives in such an excellent state of preservation.
For centuries before the time of Theseus the Acropolis had been the seat of a civilisation not much inferior to that of Mycenæ. Homer speaks of a “well-built house of Erectheus” to which Athena used to repair; and on the Acropolis, under what is believed to have been the earliest temple of Athena, part of the foundations of a palace, apparently similar in plan to those of Mycenæ and Tiryns, has been discovered. The fortifications, too, are very similar, and there is a long inner staircase leading to a postern in the northern wall that corresponds to those found in the ancient structures referred to. There is another prehistoric name with which tradition connects the primitive history of Athens, and on account of which it was sometimes called Cecropia. According to some, Cecrops came from Egypt; according to others he was autochthonous (as the Athenians claimed to be), and had the appearance of being half man and half serpent.
