In the above discussion I have purposely passed over some points because I wished to confine myself to what was necessary. So I have not reviewed in detail the passages containing the expression άρχαίος (παλαίòς) νεώς, as they have been sufficiently discussed by others. So, too, I have omitted all mention of the μέγαρον τò πρòς έσπέραν τετραμμένον, [31] the παραστάδες, [32] the passages in Homer, [33] Aristophanes, [34] and some other writers, because these references and allusions, being more or less uncertain or indefinite, may be (and have been) explained, according to the wish of the interpreter, as evidence for or against the continued existence of the temple burnt by the Persians. Those who agree with me will interpret the passages in question accordingly.
Footnote 31:[ (return) ] HEROD, v, 77.
Footnote 32:[ (return) ] CIA, II, 733, 735, 708.
Footnote 33:[ (return) ] Od., VII. 80 f.; Il., II. 546 ff. Mitth., XII, pp. 26, 62, 207.
Footnote 34:[ (return) ] PLUT., 1191 ff. cf. Mitth., XII., pp. 69, 206.
To recapitulate briefly, I hope that I have shown: (1) that Pausanias does not mention the temple excavated in 1886, and (2) that the existence of that temple during the latter part of the fifth and the fourth centuries is not proved. I believe that the temple continued to exist in some form until the completion of the Parthenon, but this belief is founded not so much upon documentary evidence as upon the consideration that the Athenians and their goddess must have had a treasure-house during the time from the Persian invasion to the completion of the Parthenon; especially after the treasure of the confederacy of Delos was moved to Athens in 454 B.C. As soon, however, as the Parthenon was completed, the temple burnt by the Persians was removed. This was before the fire of 406 B.C. The fire, therefore, injured, as has been supposed hitherto, the Erechtheion. The opisthodomos, which was injured by fire at some time not definitely ascertained (but probably not very far from the date of the fire in the Erechtheion), was the opisthodomos of the Parthenon.
It will, I hope, be observed, that I do not claim to have proved the non-existence of the earlier temple after the completion of the Parthenon. All I claim is that its existence is not proved. Now if, as I hope I have shown, the temple is not mentioned by Pausanias, [35] and there is no reasonable likelihood of its silent disappearance between 435 B.C. and the time of Pausanias, the probabilities are in favor of its disappearance about 435 B.C., when it was supplanted by the Parthenon. No one, however, would welcome more gladly than I any further evidence either for or against its continued existence.
HAROLD N. FOWLER.
Exeter, New Hampshire, March, 1892.
Footnote 35:[ (return) ] The fact that Pausanias does not mention this temple is not a certain proof that he might not have seen it, for he fails to mention other things that certainly existed in his day. This temple, however, if it then existed, must have been in marked contrast to almost every other building in the Acropolis, and would have had special attractions for a person of Pausanias' archæological tastes.
POSTSCRIPT.--This article had already left my hands when I received the Journal of Hellenic Studies (XII. 2), containing an article by Mr. Penrose, On the Ancient Hecatompedon which occupied the site of the Parthenon on the Acropolis of Athens. Mr. Penrose contends that the old Hekatompedon was a temple of unusual length in proportion to its width, that it stood on the site of the Parthenon, and was built 100 years or more before the Persian invasion. He thinks, too, that the Doric architectural members built into the Acropolis-wall, which are referred by Dörpfeld to the archaic temple beside the Erechtheion, belonged to the building on the site of the Parthenon. He is led to these assumptions chiefly by masons' marks on some of the stones of the sub-structure of the Parthenon. He holds it "as incontrovertible that the marks have reference to the building on which they are found." The distances between these marks offer certain numerical relations which must, Mr. Penrose thinks, correspond to some of the dimensions of the building to which the marks refer. "If they had reference to the Parthenon, they would have shown a number of exact coincidences with the important sub-divisions of the temple." Of these coincidences Mr. Penrose has found but three, which he considers fortuitous. As accessory arguments he adduces the condition of the filling in to the south of the Parthenon, and the absence of old architectural material in the sub-structure of the Parthenon, etc. He seems, however, to rest his case chiefly upon the masons' marks.