LETTER XLVII.
ACROPOLIS.
Athens, March, 1818.
Athens puts one in mind of Rome, from the number of fragments of architecture and sculpture everywhere scattered about. In the walls, in the court-yards, in the churches, we are continually meeting with something too trifling, or too much mutilated, to be of value in itself, but powerfully impressing the imagination with the idea of what has been.
The great treasure of Grecian architecture is in the Acropolis, where there are three buildings, of which the remains are considerable; the Propylæa, or entrance, the temple of Minerva, and another edifice, which has been supposed to contain three temples, viz. those of Erectheus, of Minerva Polias, and of the nymph Pandrosus. The two first-mentioned buildings are of the Doric order, and it is here you see all the perfection of Greek masonry; horizontal joints so close, that after the lapse of 2,000 years, you cannot introduce the finest edge, nor even follow them everywhere by the eye; and vertical ones, of which you only see occasional indications; and this on a plain surface of white marble, a substance in which above all others, the slightest mark is visible.
In order to understand the following description of the Propylæa, I recommend you to open the second volume of Stuart’s Athens, and lay the plan of the edifice before you.
After passing two paltry modern gateways, over the inner of which is an ancient architrave and frieze, you perceive some old substructions on the right, but to what edifice they belonged it is difficult to say; they are very far below the level of the temple of Victory without wings, marked D in Stuart’s plan. Of this temple there are now no vestiges whatever, except a few scattered fragments built up in the modern walls, which probably belonged to it. We have evidence that such a temple did exist thereabouts, but not of its exact position, for Stuart mentions it as entirely destroyed in his time, to make room for the grand battery; yet he has marked for it a space more than 30 feet long, and 20 wide, although Wheeler, in whose time it still existed, describes it as a small edifice of about 15 feet by 9, dimensions which hardly admit the supposition of columns between the antæ.
Stuart calls this building the temple of Aglauros, but he is undoubtedly wrong. Revett has corrected him in the fourth volume, and you will therefore permit me to call it the temple of Victory without wings, and to consider the room B, as that which was adorned with the paintings of Polygnotus. The use of the terms right and left applied to the object viewed, and not to the spectator, which is the origin of Stuart’s mistake, seems to be derived from heraldry.
Beyond these foundations, and after having passed under the great battery, you turn to the right, leaving on the left a tall pier supposed to have supported an equestrian statue. It is formed of courses, alternately thicker and thinner, and bears an inscription in honour of Marcus Agrippa; and though Pausanias seems to have considered it as ancient (at least he speaks of equestrian statues of doubtful purport in this part,) our modern connoisseurs pronounce it to be of Roman times. Similar masonry occurs in the remains supposed to be of the Gymnasium of Ptolemy, but is not found in any of the earlier buildings of the republic. The opposite and corresponding pier is entirely destroyed, or built up, but we may acknowledge that such a one probably existed. Of the flight of steps represented as extending from one to the other, not only there are no traces, but it is I believe demonstrable, that there never were such. The entrance into the Propylæa was formed by an inclined plane, intersecting the advancing courses in front of the building, which are not properly steps, but successive plinths, forming a basement to the edifice. The lowermost of these plinths is of black marble, in front of the two side buildings, but not so under the central part. Under this plinth of black marble, there is in the north wing, a course of white[[27]] marble, shewing the intention of exposing the upright face; for the corresponding course in the central building, which was not intended to be seen, is of rough limestone. These steps are four in number, instead of three, as given by Revett, and under these, we see three courses, which in the centre buildings are all, as I have before said, of limestone; two of the upper ones are broken about the entrance, but not cut through like the marble plinths; the lowest is entire. Each plinth advances a little, and reduces the opening to 11 feet 10.9 inches. All this we leave on the left, as not only the entrance, but all the intercolumniations have been walled up by the Turks, in order to form another battery; and ascend along the line marked by Stuart, observing the want of correspondence between the two wings, and also that from the deficiency of space on the rock, the south wing could never have been the exact counterpart of that on the north. Revett, who made this plan, has marked a column, an anta, and a square pillar between them, as if they ranged in one line, and one is apt to suppose that they might have supported a common architrave, but this does not seem to have been the case; what we have remaining to mark the place of the column and pillar, are the sinkings prepared for them in the progress of the work, which I shall hereafter explain; and the anta and pillar appear to have ranged in one line, but the column did not range with them. There are marks of a gate between the column and pillar, and perhaps of a marble slab filling up the space between the anta and pillar, but I must confess myself unable to comprehend the arrangement.
We will pass from this into the inside of the building, leaving for a time its external appearance, towards the Acropolis. The upper part is now occupied by a battery, and there are no remains of the front columns rising above it, as there were in Stuart’s time, except one capital at the angle. Below is a vault, abounding in dust and dirt, where by digging and scraping, we may see the inclined plane already mentioned, as giving admission into the Acropolis, part of the old pavement, and the base of one of the Ionic columns. The inclined plane sinks below the rest of the pavement, towards the entrance, and rises above it towards the internal circuit of the Acropolis; it is transversely ribbed, to give secure footing to the horses in ascending it.
Revett found a piece of the upper part of the shaft of an Ionic column, 2 feet 10 inches in diameter, and conceiving them to occupy a height of 33 feet 7 inches, he concluded from what he conceived to be the proportions of this order among the Greeks, that they must have stood on pedestals; but the base above-mentioned proves that they did not; and as the height seems correctly deduced from the surrounding parts, and we may add between one fourth and one fifth to obtain the diameter of the lower part, it follows that these columns must have been about nine and a half diameters in height.