The Caryatid portico and south wall of the Erechtheum show very delicate opalescent colours, due chiefly to reflected light from the large slabs and drums of marble lying on the ground north of the Parthenon. The dark Caryatid is a terra-cotta substitute for the original, one of the greatest treasures of the British Museum. The sub-structures in the foreground are the foundations of the archaic Temple; to the right, in the background, Pentelikon, and, in front of it, Lycabettos brilliantly illuminated by the setting sun.
in later times, with an image of Athena which was destroyed in a riot at Constantinople in 1203 A.D., and about which the Byzantine historian Nicetas gives us the following particulars: “It was of bronze, thirty feet high. The goddess was portrayed standing upright, clad in a tunic which reached to her feet, and was drawn in by a girdle at the waist. On her breast was a tight-fitting ægis with the Gorgon’s head. On her head she wore a helmet with a nodding plume of horse-hair. Her tresses were plaited and fastened at the back of her head, but some locks strayed over her brow from beneath the rim of the helmet. With her left hand she lifted the folds of her garment; her right hand was stretched out in front of her, and her face was turned in the same direction, as if she were beckoning to some one. There was a sweet look, as of love and longing, in the eyes, and the lips seemed as if about to part in honeyed speech. The ignorant and superstitious mob smashed the statue because, after the first siege and capture of Constantinople by the Crusaders, they fancied that the outstretched hand of the statue had summoned the host of the invaders from out of the West.”[5]
There was on the Acropolis a third image of the goddess by the great artist—known as the “Lemnian Athena”—in which she was represented in a mild and peaceful aspect. Pausanias speaks of it as the best worth seeing of the works of Pheidias; and with this harmonises a reference to it in one of the Dialogues of Lucian, who is the only other ancient writer that mentions it. Referring to a proposal that a perfect type of feminine beauty should be formed by combining the best features of the most famous statues, the Lemnian statue is mentioned as one that might supply the outline of the face with soft cheeks and shapely nose. Unfortunately no authentic copies of it have yet been discovered. Pausanias also mentions a statue dedicated to Athena Hygieia (“Health”) on the Acropolis, and Plutarch tells a story of its having been set up by Pericles in gratitude for a revelation made to him by the goddess in a dream regarding a medicinal herb which would cure a favourite slave of his, who had been injured by a fall while engaged in building operations. According to Pliny, the herb was known ever afterwards by the name of parthenium, but he connects the story with a statue of a slave. Another aspect in which Athena was worshipped was as Ergané the goddess of arts and industries; and no less than five inscriptions have been found on the Acropolis in honour of Athena under this title. Homer represents her as weaving her own robe, and according to Pindar the ship Argo was built under her direction. Close to the Lemnian image there stood a statue of Pericles, the chief maker of imperial Athens. It faced the Propylæa and was much admired, being regarded as a proof how “art can add to the nobility of noble men.”
The two other temples which still adorn the Acropolis are of the Ionic order. They are much smaller and less imposing than the Parthenon, but
