To guard those relics ne'er to be restored.
Curst be the hour when from their isle they roved,
And once again thy hapless bosom gored,
And snatch'd thy shrinking Gods to northern climes abhorr'd!"
THE CARYATIDES OF THE ERECTHEUM.
Before the mental vision of the traveler, who muses thus upon the crest of the Acropolis, there naturally rises the form of the goddess Athene (or, as the Romans called her, Minerva), who gave the name Athens to the city which she specially protected. Who can forget how this old classic citadel, within whose shrines this goddess was adored, remained for many centuries, even in its ruin, a beacon light of history? Its radiance pierced even the darkness of the Middle Ages, when, over-run by conquerors, pillaged by barbarians, assailed by fanatics, the world of art lay buried beneath the rubbish of brutality and ignorance. Under the blows of the iconoclasts, the pulse of artistic life had almost ceased to beat. But, though the fire of genius seemed extinct, there was still vitality in its dying embers. The light which came from the Acropolis gave its illumination to the Renaissance. Without an Athens there had been no Florence; without a Phidias no Michael Angelo.
