The boundary wall of the enclosure (temenos) of the Temple is very clearly marked. The clustered group of lofty columns is the remains of the south-east corner of the Temple itself. North-west of them is the Arch of Hadrian. The walls of the Acropolis make a splendid contrast to the rugged bosses of the rocks which support them. The Parthenon above is seen almost down to the stylobate, and masses finely from this point of view. The mountains are those of Daphni.
that coins were first struck with the head of Athena on one side, and on the other the likeness of an owl—an emblem which is still worn in their caps by the schoolboys of Greece, and in which there may be a reference to the supposed power of the owl to see in the dark, a power associated, in an intellectual sense, with glaukopis Athena. It was to the goddess that Peisistratus seems to have attributed his success in regaining power on his return to Athens after his temporary exile. In order to give the Athenians the impression that their guardian deity favoured his return, he is said to have got a tall and stately woman to assume the guise of Athena and sit by his side in the chariot which drew him up to the Acropolis, his partisans at the same time crying out that Athena bade the city welcome her protégé to the seat of authority. The supposed goddess was said to have been only a flower-seller, Phya by name, who afterwards married one of Peisistratus’ sons.
Before the Persians quitted Athens they reduced to ruins or to ashes the temples and most of the other buildings of any value, and many years were required for the work of restoration. Fully a generation passed before any of the three temples on the Acropolis which excite so much admiration—the Parthenon, the Erechtheum, and the Niké—were ready for dedication. This delay was partly owing to the more pressing need for attending to the renewal of the city walls and other fortifications, partly to the alteration which was made on Cimon’s plan for the erection of the Parthenon. His name is associated not only with the massive wall on the southern side of the Acropolis but also with an enormous substructure intended to level up the sloping rock of the Acropolis and fill up the vacant space within the wall. This substructure was evidently intended to be the basis for a longer and narrower temple than the existing Parthenon, as it projects about fifteen feet at the east end, and bears traces of having had an addition of a few feet made to its breadth.
It was not till 447 B.C., when Pericles was at the height of his power, that the building of the temple was actually commenced; and it took about ten years to finish. Pericles had previously made an appeal to other Greek cities to unite with Athens in some such commemoration of their victory over the Persians, but the response was disappointing. Fortunately, however, other means were available, owing to many of the states allied with Athens in the Delian League commuting into money-payments the obligations they were under to contribute ships to the defensive navy of which Athens was the head. It was this Delian fund mainly which enabled Pericles to carry out his great project for glorifying the Acropolis as the throne of Athena and the rallying-point of Hellenic patriotism. Of all the architectural monuments of the Periclean age the Parthenon is by far the grandest, producing a wonderful impression of strength and dignity and grace. There is a charm in the subtle harmony of its proportions quite apart from the rich decoration of frieze and pediment. The perfect unity of plan which it