What a moment was that when, toward the end of the afternoon, after toiling up from the station on the north side of Girgenti to the city itself, which occupied the site of the acropolis of Akragas, we looked down on the plateau sloping southward toward the sea, and dotted with the famous ruins long known to us by photographs. About a mile below us, in the direction of the ruins, was the Hôtel des Temples, which we had been told in Syracuse was to close for the summer the day before. But as “the Greeks got into Troy by trying,” we thought we would try to get into this hotel, and be near our goal. At the door a boy declared that the house was closed; but at our request he said he would call the padrone. In ten minutes there appeared in riding clothes, and leading a horse, the most charming landlord of Sicily, with a bewitching smile and the manners of a gentleman. He said that, although his house was closed and his cook gone, he had not the heart to send us back up into the city. We could have, he said, eight or nine beds apiece, and, as he had a hunting comrade with him for the night, he could give us some soup and meat.
More than satisfied to have established a base of operations, without a delay of five minutes we were at the Concordia Temple, the most perfectly preserved Greek temple, unless we except perhaps the Theseum. Having an hour and a half of daylight, we used it in getting a first view of nearly everything on the plateau, and then returned to what we supposed was to be a frugal meal. But the dinner was an Akragantine feast, the best of the whole journey, with the possible exception of the next one at the same table. We wondered what sort of a dinner the regular cook would have produced if this was done by a novice; and when the padrone made apologies for his dinner, we searched his smiling face for traces of sarcasm.
The next day we enjoyed in detail what we had already enjoyed in the lump, that row of temples lined up along the southern edge of the plateau which here ends in a rocky precipice. These temples when new, with the city of half a million inhabitants behind it, and the acropolis above it with still more temples, must have been a very effective sight to one coming up from the sea five miles away.
SO-CALLED CONCORDIA TEMPLE AT GIRGENTI
Although the material of the temples is a friable yellow sandstone, quarried near by, we must not in reconstructing our picture think of them as yellow temples. They doubtless had stucco and paint enough to hide this core. The stone is so porous that it is not surprising to find the columns on the south side—i.e., the side most exposed to the sirocco—badly eaten away. The whole line dates from the fifth century, and was doubtless planned and begun by Theron, who had armies of slaves from Himera.
What Greek name the Concordia Temple had is unknown. Holm suspects that it is the temple of Demeter, although the substructure under a church farther up the hill has generally been assigned to her. It owes its excellent preservation to the fact that in the Middle Ages it was turned into a church of St. Gregory of the turnips, whoever he was, when the cella walls were perforated with a series of arches on each side, to let in the light.
The next best preserved is the temple of Hera Lacinia, in the most commanding situation of all, having the precipice, which is here higher and more abrupt, on its east front, as well as on its south side. It is also considerably the highest of the line. Its present name is surely wrong. It is quite likely to have been a temple of Poseidon, a divinity held in honor at Akragas, a horse-rearing as well as a maritime city. The temple of Herakles is more interesting than either of these, although only one column stands upright; the rest lie as they were thrown down by an earthquake, in such good order that it would be easy to set them up again; and the result would be much more important than Cavalari’s so-called temple of Castor and Pollux, which, being a corner of a temple put together out of two different temples, should be properly called "Cavalari’s folly." The temple of Herakles is rightly named. It was identified as being at the sacred gate and near the agora. It is much larger than the two temples already described, and shows, like them, traces of a great conflagration which reddened the yellow stone in places. Its ground plan is very clear but peculiar, and so extremely interesting. Sicily is the place of all others to study the construction of the Greek temple.