MERCURY.
AN ANCIENT CHAIR.
THE ODEON.
A portion of the front of the old stage is still intact. If the old Greeks had needed footlights, they would have placed them on this marble parapet. It sends the blood in a swift current to the heart to think that all its kneeling or supporting statues have listened to the plays of Aristophanes or Sophocles, and have beheld innumerable audiences occupying the marble seats which still confront them. Alas! What have they not beheld here since those glorious days! In this, the earliest home of tragedy, how many tragedies have been enacted! Directly opposite this parapet is one of the ancient marble seats. It was occupied by an Athenian magistrate more than two thousand years ago. His name is still inscribed upon it,—perfectly legible, and defiant of the touch of Time. Standing in this amphitheatre, one realizes as never before, how, in an epoch of great intellectual activity, genius does not confine itself to one particular line. Whether it be the age of Pericles, the Renaissance, the era of Elizabeth, or the magnificent century of the Moors, a wave of mental energy rolls over an entire nation. Thus here, at Athens, it was not only sculpture that attained such excellence, but painting; not only painting but architecture; not only architecture but oratory; not only oratory but philosophy; and in addition to all these, this wonderful city gave mankind the drama, so perfect at the start that even the modern world, with all its literary culture and experience, regards the old Greek dramatists as its masters. Filled with such thoughts, one seems to see, while lingering here, the form of Sophocles, the greatest of Greek tragic poets. For more than two thousand three hundred years his plays have been admired as almost perfect models of dramatic composition. There is hardly a university in the world that has not one of his magnificent tragedies in its curriculum of study. His play of "Œdipus the King," which is so well interpreted by the French actor, Mounet Sully, is still a masterpiece of strength and majesty; and all his other plays, together with those of Æschylus, Euripides, and Aristophanes, have in their lofty sentiments never been surpassed, unless, indeed, by those of Shakespeare. Inspired by the memory of these Hellenic heroes, I approached (still almost in the shadow of the Acropolis) a rocky ledge, known as the "Platform of Demosthenes." Rough and unshapely though it be, in view of all that has transpired on its summit it is of greater value to the world than if the entire hill were paved with gold and studded with the rarest gems. From this rock the orators of Athens spoke to the assembled people. Before it then was the Athenian market-place,—the forum of the city. The site is perfectly identified, and one can look upon the very spot from which Demosthenes delivered his orations, still unsurpassed in ancient or in modern times even by those of Cicero and Burke.