The old world and its ways

by William Jennings Bryan

THE PARTHENON.

The ancient Greeks sought to perfect the human form, and it is not to be wondered at that the marble models of strength, grace and beauty have been unearthed where the Olympian games inspired a rivalry in physical development. The games were established nearly eight hundred years before the beginning of the Christian era, and during the nation's independent existence they were held in such high esteem that the laurel wreath of victory was the greatest reward within the reach of the youth of the country. Each city had its stadium, some of them of immense size. The one at Athens seated fifty thousand spectators, and the enthusiasm aroused by the contests was scarcely less than that which at Rome greeted the gladiators. By the generosity of a rich Greek the stadium at Athens has recently been restored at a cost of more than a million dollars. The race course is six hundred and seventy feet long and a little more than a hundred feet in width, and the seats are of Pentelic marble. Notwithstanding its great capacity it can not contain the crowds that assemble to witness the athletic games, renewed there in 1896 by the International Athletic Association. Our country has the distinction of having led in the contest of 1896 and again in the contest held at Athens last April. Our representatives won eleven prizes each time, and I found that these victories had very favorably impressed the people of Athens.

The stadium is not the only splendid monument to the public spirit of the modern Greeks. The academy of science and the library are magnificent buildings, each costing more than the restoration of the stadium. They illustrate the best in Grecian architecture, reproducing the Corinthian, the Doric, and the Ionic. They are of Pentelic marble and would be worthy of a place in any city of the world. The library contains several hundred thousand volumes and has all the modern equipment. Athens has a population of but little more than a hundred thousand, and it is doubtful whether there is another city of its size that can boast of as large an expenditure of private capital in public buildings. The mountain which has supplied Athens with marble for twenty-five hundred years is only a few miles from the city and its quarries are still unexhausted.

THE ACROPOLIS AT ATHENS.

Modern Athens is very attractive; its streets are paved and clean; its business houses are large and well built; its government buildings are substantial, and its private residences give evidence of taste. We were there in the season of flowers and we saw them blooming in profusion everywhere. Numerous statues adorn the streets and parks, the most noted being the statue of Byron, erected in memory of his unselfish devotion to Greek independence.

The soldiers and policemen have adopted the costume of the ancient Greeks, but otherwise the people dress like the people of northern Europe.

As one approaches Athens for the first time, his eye is sure to search for the "temple-crowned" Acropolis—the hill which art and religion combined to make immortal. It rises from the plain much as Chapultepec rises from the plain of Mexico. It is about five hundred feet high and, at the top, two hundred yards in length. It must have been surpassingly beautiful when the Parthenon was completed—that great treasury which has not only supplied the art galleries of the world with marvels of beauty in stone, but has given law to the architects from that day to this. Pericles, who deserves the credit for the construction of the Parthenon, can be pardoned for exulting in his work.

To-day, the Acropolis is a picture of desolation, but the few columns that remain bear witness to its departed glory. Lord Elgin carried away at one time two hundred and fifty feet of the sculptured frieze, and scarcely any of its columns, capitals, cornice and pediment would have remained but for the size and weight of the masses of marble. The pillage that for nearly twenty centuries has been robbing Greece of her priceless works of art can be understood when it is stated that one Roman conqueror celebrated his victory by exhibiting in his triumphant procession two hundred and fifty wagon loads of Greek pictures and statues, and that these wagons were followed by three thousand men each bearing some trophy taken from the cities of Greece.