Fig 2.
Fig 3.
Fig 4.
In all ruins the mind speculates on what the building has been, and where the remains are magnificent, on the power, the riches, the zeal, and intelligence requisite to produce it; and finds no small degree of pleasure in that employment. In this temple there is ample field for such speculations, enough still remains to indicate both the disposition of the building, and that of the court in which it stood, which was probably surrounded with columns. The columns remaining belonged to the temple itself; the smaller ones were more easily taken away; the size of the large ones has been their protection. One of them, which was standing in Stuart’s time, has however been destroyed by a governor of Athens, and the materials employed in the erection of a mosque, but the experiment did not succeed; for the pashaw of Negropont hearing of it, made it a pretence to extort money from him, on the ground that he had appropriated to himself the property of the grand signor. These columns are above 6 feet in diameter, and nearly 60 feet high, that is, they are somewhat thicker than those of the portico of Covent Garden theatre, and almost twice as high. They are of the Corinthian order, and their sculptured capitals still remain. There must have been originally, at least one hundred and sixteen of them: they are of Pentelic marble, but many of the blocks are much veined with mica slate, and resemble cipollino, but with a purer ground. It appears probable that thicker blocks might be obtained of this, than of the pure white marble. The workmanship is excellent, though perhaps not equal to that of the Phidian architecture. Their physical beauty is enhanced by the various effects of their grouping, as seen in different positions, and by the stains of a yellowish, or rather of an orange hue, which time has produced in all the edifices of this marble. It is probably owing to the action of the air on a small quantity of iron, contained in the mica which the Pentelic marble is never without. As perfect buildings, perhaps the original colour was the best, but as ruins, their beauty is certainly increased by the present tints. These remains are unincumbered by any modern building, except a little sort of hut, erected on a piece of the architrave, the traditional residence of a Stylite; and they are placed on an artificial platform, on a bank rising from the Ilissus, supported by a buttressed wall, part of which still remains. The height of the bases is unequal, and the plinths of the inner columns rest on blocks of hard limestone, but there is a sinking of about two inches below them, as if to receive a marble pavement. One of the outer range of plinths also rests on a similar limestone, except in front, where there is a block of marble, and the top of this would have been exactly level with the surface of the marble pavement. The three first columns of the south range rest on marble, and the paving between them is of the same material.
The gateway known by the name of the Arch of Hadrian is near these columns. It has perhaps rather a foolish and unmeaning look, and the more so, from the comparison of its little columns with their gigantic neighbours. Yet still it is an interesting monument; the beauty of the material, the excellence of the workmanship, the almost perfect state in which it exists, and a certain lightness and even elegance in the disposition of its upper part, demand a considerable degree of admiration. Wilkins has proposed a new reading of the inscription over the gateway, by which he makes the city of Theseus to lie on the outside of this archway, and the city of Hadrian between it and the Acropolis. I could not resist the temptation of making a view of it, standing directly in front, and looking north-westward. In this position,[[30]] the writer tells us that the Acropolis is out of the field of view, while according to my notions it occupies half the picture.
I will spare you any details of the Gymnasium of Ptolemy, or of the Stoa, since I have no additions to make to your knowledge of either.
The narrow ridge of the Areopagus would hardly afford room for a court of justice, but the rocks are cut in all parts, apparently for the reception of buildings, and this is also in a considerable degree the case with the hill called Lycabettus; indeed all the three hills, Lycabettus, Pnyx, and Musæum, are covered with traces of human labour. Among them are subterranean cones, probably receptacles for corn, and from one of these cones we observed a passage into a cylindrical pit, not bigger than a well. Fragments of terra cotta also abound in some places, and now and then a small piece of marble, but this material was probably little, if at all used, in private buildings.
The area on the Pnyx, supposed to be the place of assembly, is in part sustained by a wall of vast stones, forming a line convex outwards; the largest of them is about 10 feet by 8 on the face, but I do not know its thickness. The space above is nearly a large sector of a circle, not much less than a semicircle, with the beema (βημα) in the centre of the circle. This remains as a raised platform with steps up to it, but the area slopes in all directions from the beema, a circumstance very inconvenient for public speaking. Just above this is another area, somewhat similar, but on a smaller scale, and the rocks above it are cut in a manner which might make one imagine a sort of pulpit in this part also. From this upper area the sea may be seen, which from the lower would be quite invisible. In both instances the speaker must have turned his back upon it. Can these circumstances have anything to do with the change in the situation of the beema attributed to the thirty tyrants? By the side of the lower beema, which is much more distinct than the other, there are a number of little, square recesses, which are supposed to have been intended to receive tablets of notices, or of decrees.