There are six of these caryatids, or maidens, standing upon a high parapet of marble and supporting a marble roof. Five of them are white, and one is a sort of yellowish black in color, as if she had once been black, but, having been singled out from her fellows, had been kissed for so many years by the rays of the sun that her original hue had become changed, brightened by his fires. Four of the maidens stand in a line. Two stand behind, on each side of the portico. They wear flowing draperies, their hair flows down over their shoulders, and they support their burden of marble with a sort of exquisite submissiveness, like maidens choosing to perform a grateful and an easy task that brings with it no loss of self-respect.
THE TEMPLE OF ATHENE NIKE AT ATHENS
I once saw a great English actress play the part of a slave girl. By her imaginative genius she succeeded in being more than a slave: she became a poem of slavery. Everything ugly in slavery was eliminated from her performance. Only the beauty of devoted service, the willing service of love,—and slaves have been devoted to their masters,—was shown in her face, her gestures, her attitudes. Much of what she imagined and reproduced is suggested by these matchlessly tender and touching figures; so soft that it is almost incredible that they are made of marble, so strong that no burden, surely, would be too great for their simple, yet almost divine, courage. They are watchers, these maidens, not alertly, but calmly watchful of something far beyond our seeing. They are alive, but with a restrained life such as we are not worthy to know, neither fully human nor completely divine. They have something of our wistfulness and something also of that attainment toward which we strive. They are full of that strange and eternal beauty that is in all the greatest things of Greece, from which the momentary is banished, in which the perpetual is enshrined. Contemplation of them only seems to make more deep their simplicity, more patient their strength, and more touching their endurance. Retirement from them does not lessen, but almost increases, the enchantment of their very quiet, very delicate spell. Even when their faces can no longer be distinguished and only their outlines can be seen, they do not lose one ray of their soft and tender vitality. They are among the eternal things in art, lifting up more than marble, setting free from bondage, if only for a moment, many that are slaves by their submission.
About two years ago this temple was carefully cleaned, and it is very white, and looks almost like a lovely new building not yet completed. Here and there the white surface is stained with the glorious golden hue which beautifies the Parthenon, the Propylæa, the Odeum of Herodes, the Temple of Theseus, the Arch of Hadrian, and the Olympieion. The interior of the temple is full of scattered blocks of marble. In the midst of them, and as it were faithfully protected by them, I found a tiny tree carefully and solemnly growing, with an air of self-respect. Above the doorway of the north front is some very beautiful and delicate carving. This temple was once adorned with a frieze of Eleusinian stone and with white marble sculpture. Its Ionic columns are finely carved, and look almost strangely slender, if you come to them immediately after you have been among the columns of the Parthenon. Majesty and charm are supremely expressed in these two temples, the Parthenon and the Erechtheum, the smaller of which is on a lower level than the greater. One thinks again of the happy slave who loves her lord.
The group of magnificent, gold-colored Greco-Roman columns which is called the Olympieion stands in splendid isolation on a bare terrace at the edge of the charming Zappeion garden. In this garden, full of firs and pepper-trees, acacias, palms, convolvulus, and pink oleanders, I saw many Greek soldiers, wearied out with preparations for the Balkan war against Turkey, which was declared while I was in Athens, sleeping on the wooden seats, or even stretched out at full length on the light, yellow soil. For there is no grass there. Beyond the Olympieion there is a stone trough in which I never saw one drop of water. This trough is the river-bed of the famous Ilissus!
The columns are very splendid, immense in height, singularly beautiful in color,—they are made of Pentelic marble,—and with Corinthian capitals, nobly carved. Those which are grouped closely together are raised on a platform of stone. But there are two isolated columns which look even grander and more colossal than those which are united by a heavy architrave. The temple of which they are the remnant was erected in the reign of Hadrian to the glory of Zeus, and was one of the most gigantic buildings in the world.
From the Zappeion garden you can see in the distance the snow-white marble Stadium where the modern Olympic and Pan-Hellenic games take place. It is gigantic. When full, it can hold over fifty thousand people. The seats, the staircases, the pavements are all of dazzling-white marble, and as there is of course no roof, the effect of this vastness of white, under a bright-blue sky, and bathed in golden fires, is almost blinding. All round the Stadium cypress-trees have been planted, and their dark-green heads rise above the outer walls, like long lines of spear-heads guarding a sacred inclosure. Two comfortable arm-chairs for the king and queen face two stelæ of marble and the far-off entrance. The earthen track where the sports take place is divided from the spectators by a marble barrier about five feet high, and till you descend into it, it looks small, though it is really very large. The entrance is a propylæum. It is a great pity that immediately outside this splendid building the hideous panorama should be allowed to remain, cheap, vulgar, dusty, and despicable. I could not help saying this to a Greek acquaintance. He thoroughly agreed with me, but told me that the Athenians were very fond of their panorama.