THE THEATRE OF BACCHUS HAS TIERS OF STONE SEATS.
"Why," said one of the tourists, "we have sailed half way around the world to see these ruins, and yet some of us have so neglected history and mythology that, we are ashamed to say, our knowledge of the history of Greece and the stories of its heroes is extremely limited. I am indeed grateful and trust that you will be patient with our ignorance."
THE FRONT OF THE STAGE CARVED WITH GROTESQUE FIGURES.
After walking through the small museum on the Acropolis where a number of interesting relics are on exhibition, we lingered awhile on a little platform at the northeast corner of the Acropolis from which an excellent view of the city may be obtained. As seen from this view-point the predominating color of the city is yellow. The buildings erected of stone, and plastered or frescoed, are white, or yellow, or light pink, or combinations of yellow and white, and the roofs appear to be covered with yellow tiles. Below us to the right we saw the ruined columns of the Temple of Jupiter, and the white palace and the royal gardens of the king. Across the valley beyond the city we could see the prominent steep rock named Lycabettus with the chapel of St. George on the summit, and ten miles away we could make out dimly Mt. Pentelicus, from which all the white marble for the temples was quarried, and Mt. Hymettus, in a region noted for the excellent quality of its honey.
Descending from the heights of the Acropolis we entered the ruins of the Odeon of Herodus Atticus which lay at the base of the Acropolis. This theatre had a stone floor, a stone stage, and tiers of stone seats capable of seating an audience of six thousand, and was covered with a cedar roof. Now the roof is completely gone and the seats are in partial ruin. Beyond this smaller theatre are the ruins of a larger one called the Theatre of Bacchus. Here the masterpieces of Eschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes, in the golden days of Grecian glory, gave delight to great audiences. This theatre, accommodating thirty thousand spectators, contained a semi-circle of marble seats built up against the cliff of the Acropolis, and was open to the sky. The large stage was built of marble and the front of it was carved with grotesque figures. The lower tiers of seats nearest the stage were marble chairs reserved for priests and other dignitaries. The names of the men who occupied the chairs were carved in the marble, and some of these names are yet visible. While resting for a short time in these official chairs, we tried to imagine that we were viewing on the marble stage the performance of an old Greek tragedy by actors in the graceful flowing robes of those ancient times. A few minutes later we were grouped at the side of the columns which are all that remain of the glory of the Temple of Jupiter.
WE DROVE AROUND THE ROYAL GARDENS.
The professor, responding to our request for information, said: "The Olympieum was the Temple erected in honor of Zeus, the supreme deity of the Greeks. As the Roman name for the supreme deity was Jupiter or Jove, the temple was called the Temple of Zeus by the Greeks, and the Temple of Jupiter by the Romans. The Athenians began the construction of the edifice two centuries before the birth of Christ, but the work was interrupted by wars and lack of funds and remained unfinished for three hundred years. Then the Roman Emperor Hadrian, having conquered Greece, completed the work and claimed for himself all the honor and glory for the erection of the temple. The Temple of Zeus, next to that erected to Diana by the Ephesians, was the largest of the temples of antiquity. It was built in the Corinthian style of architecture and had a triple row of eight columns each at the ends, and a double row of twenty columns each at the sides. Now you see only these fifteen huge columns remaining. In the interior of the temple was a colossal statue of Jupiter overlaid with ivory and gold. Beside the statue of the god stood a companion figure of equal size representing the Emperor Hadrian. The grounds around the temple were filled by Hadrian with hundreds of statues, many of which represented himself."