On the marble cornice of the temple bastion there once rose a Balustrade adorned with reliefs outside, and bearing a bronze railing. These admirable reliefs, remains of which are preserved in the Acropolis Museum (p. [520]), represented goddesses of victory erecting trophies and presenting offerings in presence of Athenä.
The *View from beside the Temple of Nike is justly celebrated. In the picturesque intermingling of land and sea we descry the bay of Phaleron (p. [528]), the peninsula of Munychia, the Piræus (p. [494]), Salamis, and its adjoining islet of Psyttaleia (p. [494]). A little farther to the right, beyond the bay of Eleusis, appears the dome-like rock of Acro-Corinth, backed by distant mountains. To the right of this, but in the immediate foreground, rises the Pnyx Hill with its rock-steps. The plain is overgrown with fine old olive-groves. Above it rise Mt. Ægaleos and the hills of Megara. To the S.W., to the left of the tower-like monument of Philopappos, stretches the Saronic Gulf, bounded by Ægina, with Mt. St. Elias, and by the Argolic Mts. and the island of Hydra. To the left runs the Attic coast as far as the islet of Gaïdaronisi, off Cape Colonna.
The **Propylæa, the greatest secular edifice in ancient Athens, composed entirely of Pentelic marble, were erected in 437–432 B.C. by the architect Mnesikles. This highly artistic building consists of three parts—a central gateway with wings on the N. and S.
The Central Building, ruined by an explosion in 1645, consists of a wall pierced with five openings and preceded by Doric colonnades on the E. and W. sides. Each colonnade has six columns in front, above which ran a frieze of triglyphs and metopes, crowned by a plain pediment. The W. Colonnade, to which three huge steps ascend, is 19 yds. wide and 17 yds. deep. Its front columns belong to the Doric order and consequently rise directly from the ground (stylobate), without bases; they are 29 ft. high, and each is fluted with twenty grooves separated by sharp edges. Behind the two central columns, which are 12½ ft. apart, and flanking the main passage there are on each side three slender Ionic columns, 33 ft. high, resting on their cushion-like bases, and grooved with twenty-four flutes separated by broad fillets. The ceiling was divided into sunk panels adorned with painting.
On the N. and S. sides the central building was bounded by massive walls, 17½ yds. long, ending in huge buttresses (antæ). Between these extended the Gateway proper consisting, as above remarked, of a wall with five openings. Five marble steps ascend to the threshold, composed of black Eleusinian stone, on which the side-gates rest. The broad central gateway is without steps. All the gateways were once provided with massive folding doors.
The E. Colonnade is as broad as the other, but only 23 ft. deep. Of its six Doric columns five still have their capitals, and two are connected with their architrave.
The well-preserved North Wing consists of a porch or vestibule, open towards the S., with three Doric columns between antæ, and an inner hall connected with it by a door and two windows. This was called the Pinakotheka, from its use as a receptacle for votive pictures (‘pinakes’) on marble or terracotta. The South Wing, of which two columns and the back-wall only have been preserved, was never quite completed.
Passing through the E. Colonnade of the Propylæa we enter the Inner Ward of the Acropolis and ascend a gradual slope, now covered with profoundly impressive ruins. When we picture to ourselves the mighty Parthenon, on the right, and the exquisite Erechtheion on the left, in the full glory of their sculptures and colouring, surrounded by smaller sanctuaries and a forest of statues, we may well understand the enthusiastic pride of the Athenians in their unrivalled Acropolis.
From the central gateway of the Propylæa a broad pathway ascends along the main axis of the citadel. The rock has evidently been much cut away to facilitate the ascent, as we see from a glance at the rocky terrace on the right, which has a precipitous face 6½ ft. in height. Fragments of pedestals and square hollows in the rock indicate the ancient sites of numerous votive offerings.
The terrace of rock just mentioned, to which nine low steps ascend farther on, once bore the temple of Artemis Braurōnia, but is now strewn with beams and fragments of ceiling from the Propylæa (panels with traces of blue colouring). The terrace is bounded on the W. by a fragment of a broad wall belonging to the original Pelasgic fortifications (p. [512]).—Another rock-terrace, about 2½ ft. higher, and also cut perpendicularly, to the E. of the Brauronion, is supposed to have been the place where, without any actual temple, Athena was worshipped as Ergánē, the mistress and inventor of every art. To the S. of this terrace we observe traces of walls which, together with the S. wall itself, seem to have formed a gigantic building. It was perhaps the Chalkotheka, an arsenal where not only implements of war but also bronze votive offerings, and other objects were kept. Towards the Parthenon the terrace had nine narrow steps on which votive offerings were deposited.