podium and basement eight feet above the exterior level, and about fifteen feet above the floor of the building. In the inscription already referred to, these statues are designated by the term ai Kópaι (the young women). The eastern and northern porticoes were evidently the prothyrous porches of the two temples which formed the "double edifice," as the dimensions, magnificence, and elaborate ornaments of the two doors, before which they stand, abundantly confirm. These doors very much resemble each other, but the northern is about three feet higher than the eastern, this difference being nearly the same as that in the height of the columns of the two porticoes. The third or southern projection, although styled in the inscription a póσraσiç or portico like the others, was totally different from them. The Caryatides, indeed, were disposed like the columns of the northern portico, four in front, and one in either flank before an anta; and there were intercolumniations between the statues, equally open to the air: but the roof was flat, and when viewed from the exterior level on the south, reached to little more than half the height of the pitched roof of the temple. This prostasis was entered by a small door in the southern wall of the building (the Texos #pos vórov of the inscription), and thus it was by its general construction, not so much a portico as an adjunct or chapel of the western temple. Both in itself and as a portion of another building, it was an anomaly in Greek architecture obviously intended for some particular purpose, apparently that of inclosing some sacred object which was immovable, and to which there was access from the western temple '. That object could hardly have been any other than the sacred olive, which received a sufficiency of air and light through the intervals between the Coræ, while its trunk was protected by the podium upon which they stood. The same apartment was probably the Cecropium, so called as having been traditionally the place of interment of Cecrops 2. Of the two temples we may be assured that the eastern was that of Minerva Polias, from its eastern fronting alone, such having been the usual aspect of temples of the principal deities, as a variety of examples still prove 3. On the other hand, the situation of the northern door and portico near the edge 1 An excavation made by the artists employed by Lord Elgin, brought to light some steps descending into this prostasis from the upper level by a small door in its eastern wall, between the south-eastern Caryatis and the adjacent anta. The steps abutted on the southern wall of the temple, and terminated at the door which opened into the western apartment of the Pandroseium. It is difficult to conceive that these steps could have been coeval with the building. 2 See some further remarks on the Cecropium in Appendix XVII. 66 * Πρὸς ἕω τῶν ἱερῶν βλεπόντων. Plutarch. Numa, 14. It appears that this practice of the time of Numa was afterwards reversed by the Romans: for Vitruvius says, Signum, quod erit in cellâ collocatum, spectet ad vespertinam cœli regionem, uti qui adierint ad aram, immolantes aut sacrificia facientes, spectent ad partem cœli orientis et simulacrum, quod erit in æde.” -Vitruv. 4, 5. Dion Cassius relates a prodigy which happened at Athens in the reign of Augustus. The statue of Minerva in the Acro of the precipices above the Agraulium, agrees with the mythus, according to which Herse and Agraulus threw themselves over the rocks; while Pandrosus remained faithful to her trust, and hence received divine honours on the summit of the hill, under the same roof with the goddess'. Venus We may now endeavour to ascertain, if possible, the situation of the other monuments of the Acropolis, which have been noticed by Pausanias 2. A little within the vestibule of the Propylæa, near the landing from the great western stairs, stood the Mercury Propylæus, and three Graces by Socrates. The sanctuary of Venus Leana, which con- Temple of tained a statue of the goddess by Calamis, and a brazen Leæna. lioness by Iphicrates, is shewn to have been within the Propylæa by Plutarch, who describes the lioness as having stood ἐν ταῖς πύλαις. And we may presume that the brazen Minerva Hygieia dedicated by Pericles, was within the Propylæa, as it was intended to commemorate the cure of a favourite workman who had been injured by a fall, when employed in the construction of this building by Mnesicles. In this case, if we trust in the order of the narrative of polis, which before faced the east, was found turned towards the west. τὸ τῷ τῆς ̓Αθηνᾶς ἀγάλματι συμβαν . . . ἐν γὰρ τῇ ἀκροπόλει πρὸς ἀνατολῶν ἱδρυμένον, πρός τε τὰς δυσμάς μετεστράφη καὶ αἷμα ἀπέπτυσεν. Dion Cass. 54, 7. 1 'It was customary, whenever a heifer was sacrificed to Minerva Polias, to immolate a sheep to Pandrosus. Philochorus ap. Harpocr. in 'Erißotov. See Meursius, Attic. Lect. 3, 22. 2 Attic. 23 et seq. See above, p. 144 et seq. Pausanias, the brazen Diitrephes pierced with arrows, and the Hygieia daughter of Esculapius, were also within the Propylæa'. From a comparison of the words of Pausanias with those of the author of the Lives of the Ten Orators in the Life of Isocrates, it appears that between the Diitrephes and the two Hygieiæ, were statues of Isocrates, of his father, and of two of his female relatives 2. The next monument mentioned, namely, the small stone upon which Silenus was said to have reposed, when Bacchus visited the earth, seems to have been a little beyond the eastern portico of the Propylæa: 1. Because it was a monument relating to a remote tradition, and had probably existed long before the erection of the Propylæa; and 2, Because Pausanias introduces his mention of the next monuments, namely, the Aspergillifer of Lycius, and the Perseus of Myron, by the words καὶ ἄλλα ἐν τῇ ἀκροπόλει θεασάμενος οἶδα : as if these had not been the first objects beyond the gates. From the Propylæa he appears to have turned to the right, directing his course by a natural process upon the Parthenon, as the principal monument of 1 The inscribed basis of the statue of Diitrephes (see above, p. 145, n. 4) was not found on the site of the Propylæa, but incased in the wall of a great cistern near the western face of the Parthenon. But this is no proof that it did not stand originally in the Propylæa.-Note of 1839. 2 That of Isocrates probably no longer remained in the time of Pausanias, who would not have included it among the eikóves ἀφανεστέραι apaveσrépaι (Attic. 23, 5. See above, p. 145). That of one of the women had been removed in the time of the biographer of the Ten Orators; and the name of the other had been changed (μετεπιγεγραμμένη). Diana the citadel. In the interval he passed the temple Temple of of Diana Brauronia, the colossal brazen figure of the Brauronia. Trojan horse Durius', the statues of Epicharinus 2, Enobius, Hermolycus, and Phormio, Minerva punishing Marsyas, Theseus contending with the Minotaur, Phrixus sacrificing the ram, Hercules strangling the serpents, Minerva rising from the head of Jupiter, the bull dedicated by the Areiopagus, the temple of the God of (the Jews?), the warrior with silver nails by Cleœtas, Earth praying to Jupiter for rain, statues of Conon and his son Timotheus, the Procne and Itys of Alcamenes, Minerva producing the olive-tree while Neptune raises the waves, and finally two statues of Jupiter, one by Leochares, the other surnamed Polieus. Pausanias then proceeds to describe the Parthenon: whence it appears that one of these Jupiters was the statue alluded to by Aristophanes, in proposing to substitute Plutus for Jupiter Soter as a sentinel over the goddess's treasury'. There was a temple, which contained probably both the To the testimony of Aristophanes (Av. 1128) as to the magnitude of this statue (see above, p. 146, n. 3) we may add that of Hesychius in Kpios ȧσελyóкeрws. (See below, p. 354, n. 1.) 2 The basis of this statue has lately been discovered in situ between the Propylæa and the Parthenon (see above, p. 146, n. 4), the situation being precisely that which might have been. presumed from the narrative of Pausanias.-Note of 1839. 3 * ΧΡΕΜΥΛΟΣ. Θάῤῥει καλῶς ἔσται γὰρ, ἣν θεὸς θέλῃ Αυτόματος ἥκων. ΙΕΡΕΥΣ. πάντ' ἀγαθὰ τοίνυν λέγεις. |