A walk around the Acropolis reveals the fact that it is a natural mass of rock, built up in places by substantial masonry. On three sides it is practically perpendicular. Two thousand years ago its summit rose toward heaven, like a magnificent altar consecrated to the gods. There, elevated in the sight of all, and overlooking the adoring city on the one side and the blue Ægean on the other, stood those incomparable specimens of architectural beauty, grace and majesty, which have made Athens immortal. Even now, although its temples are in ruins, the few remaining columns of the Parthenon stand out in delicate relief against the sky, like strings of an abandoned harp, which even the most skilful hand can never wake again to melody.
THE PROPYLÆA.
In making the ascent of this historic eminence by the only avenue of approach, the traveler soon finds himself before the ruined entrance to the Acropolis,—the Propylæa. This was originally a majestic gateway of Pentelic marble, crowning a marble staircase seventy feet in breadth, which led up from the city to the brow of the Acropolis. Its cost was two and a half millions of dollars. It was considered, in its prime, equal, if not superior, to the Parthenon. Nor is this strange, for this portal was a veritable gallery of art. Along its steps were arranged those chiseled forms that almost lived and breathed in their transcendent beauty,—the masterpieces of Praxiteles and Phidias, the mutilated fragments of which we now cherish as our most perfect models of the beautiful.
THE SUMMIT OF THE ACROPOLIS.
Yet there was nothing effeminate in this magnificence. Solidity and splendor here went hand in hand. When the Propylæa was finished, under Pericles, more than four centuries were still to pass before the birth of Christ; yet so much strength was here combined with beauty, that, if no human hands had striven to deface it, its splendid shafts would, no doubt, still be perfect. The columns that remain appear to stand like sentinels, guarding their illustrious past. It thrills one to reflect that these identical pillars have cast their shadows on the forms of Phidias, Pericles, Demosthenes, and indeed every Greek whose name has been preserved in history.