The Portland daily press., 1867-02-01
Modern Athens.

o A correspondent of the Chicago Tribune,
writing from Athens, describes it as pleas
. ant town of 10000 inhabitants, supporting
twenty-three papers, of which eight are
dailes. witch circulate not only in Greece
but among the Greeks in Turkey After al
: luding to the general resemblance Of the plaee'
to Edinburgh, he adds: 30
The chief attraction to travellers, is of
course, the display OF ancient art in the ruins
which tell of what Greece once was. 1t has
been great pleasure not ummixed with sad
ness to wander amid those wondrOus archi-
> tectural remains which point out the site of
classic Athens The modern city lies on an
inclined plane, with the high, sharp-peaked
hin Iycabetus to the north; Mars Hill, the
y Acropos. and some unoulating ground at the
base of Mount Hymettus, to the east; the
range of Pentelicus, famous for its marble,
and now tipped with snow, at the remote
west and the fat, low ground, covered with
olive trees and vineyards, running down to
the Pir9us, on the top. snI iaF
The Parthenon shows from afar on the top
of the Acropolis, rivetting the gaze of the be-
holder by its beauty. A close inspection
adds to ones admiration by revealing, in adj
dition to the perfection of its proportion and
materials, the exquisite statuary and carving,
whose fractured relics make one almost weep
over the vandalism that destroyed the most
precious works OF ancient art. Great care is
now taken to preserve all that survives, as al
SO to gather up and display the beautiful frag-
ments of sculpture that are found in excava-
tions. A guard followed at our heels every
where, to see that we mutilated no delicate
work, neither carried off a column of the
Parthenon under our arm, and we did neither,
though we saw where a Frenchman had wan
tonly broken off the fine profile of face to
secure memento and where Lord Elgin
years ago, had plundered the Parthenon of the
most elaborate OF its sculptured marble, send
ing back plaster casts of part instead
At the southern base of the Acropolis are
two ancient theatres, with their seats rising
steeply tier above tier in the open air, show
ing how audiences of twenty or thirty thou
sand were accommodated One, the Theatre
OF Bacchus, was chiefly eXcayated only three
or tour years since, and displays many beau
tiful specimens of art, though but few of them
are unmutIiated. The lowest row OF seats
consisted OF white marble arm chairs, cut out
in pairs, and with the name of the arstocrat-
ic proprietor cut upon each. They seem to
have been the private boxes of the theatre.
1t was with a thrill of emotion that after
reading anew the xvii. chapter of the Acts Of
tine A,osvles, assembled the stone steps cut
in the rock of Mars Hill, and stood where
Paul stood when he uttered his unanswera-
bic argument, and made his bold and sublime
protest against idoiatry, in full view of the
Parthenon, the Erechtneon, the Temple of
Victory, the Temple Ut Theseus, the Temple
OF Jupiter Olympus, and the other magnili-
cent erecdOns of Grecian superstition. No
one can understand the grandeur and power
OF that discourse till he stands where it was
delivered. The Temple of Jupiter presents
only fifteen erect columns OF what once was a
colonnade, on its four sides, OF one hundred