Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1891-11-28

Lave Slldhell IL feITcS pluiueiSuzlu.
Lord Elgin, the English ambassador
at Constantinople, got permission OF the
sultan to remove from the Acropolis
fallen pieces of the building, but lie
took from tile building to England tile
finest statues, removing them at an ex.
pense of eight hundred thousand dol
lnrs A storm overthrow many Of tho
statues OF the Acropolis. Morosini, the
general, attempted to remove from q
.pedilnent tile scuIpturcd carand horses
of Victory, but the clumsy machinery
dropped it, and ;llI was lost.
The Turks turned the building into
powder magazine where the Venetian
guns dropped a,tre that by explosion
sent the columns flying in the air and
falling cracked and splintered. But
after all that time and storm and war
and iconoclasln have effected, the
Acropolisis the monarch of all ruins, and
bcforeit bow the learning, the genius,
the poetry, tliesart, the historyof the
ages. / saWT'ft as was thousands OF
years ago. lad read so-much about
it and dreamed so much about it, that
l needed no mayician's wand to re-
store it.
At one wave of my hand on that
clear morning in 1889 it rose before
me in. the glory it had when Pericles
ordered it and Ictinus planned it and
Phidias clliscled it and Protogines
painted it and Pausanias described it..
Its gates, Which were carefully guarded
by the ancients; open to let you in, and
you ascend by sixty marble steps the
propyl;ea, which Epalninodas wanted
to transfer to Thebes, but permission,
I am glad to say, could not be granted
for tile removal Of this architectural
miracle.
In the days when ten cents would do
more than Al dollar now, the building
cost two million three hundred thou
sand dollars See it's five ornamented
gates, the keys intrusted to an officer
for only one day lest the temptation to
go in and inappropriate the treasures
be too great for him; its ceiling a
mingling of blue and scarlet and green.
and the walls abloom with pictures ut
most in thought and coloring. Yonder
is temple to a goddess called Victory
Without Wings"
So many of the triumphs of the world
had been followed by defeat that the
Greeks wished in marble to Indicate
that victory for Athens had come never
again to fly away. and hence this ten-
Pile to Victory Without Wings
temple of marble, snow white and gilt
tering. Yonder, behold the pedestal
of Agrippa. twenty-seven feet high and
twelve square. But tile overshadow:ng
wonder of all the hill is the Parthenon.
In days when money was ten times
more valuable than now it cost
four million six hundred thousand
dollars. 1t is Il Doric grandeur,
having forty-six columns, each col
umn tllirty-four feet high and six feet
two inches in diameter. Wondrous in
DENOMINATIONS Painted porticoes,
architraves tinged with ocher, shields
OF gold hung up, lines of most delicate
curve, figures of horses and men and
women and gods, oxen OH the way to
sacrifice, statues of the deities Diony-
sius, Prometheus, Hernes, Delneter,
Zeus, Hera, Poseidon; in one frieze
twelve divinities; centaurs in battle;
weaponry from Marathon; chariot Of
night; chariot OF the morning; horses
of the sun, the fatcs, the furies; statue
of Jupiter holding in his right hand the
tllunderbolt; silver footed chair in
which Xerxes watched the battle of
SaEamis only q few miles away.
MINERVA IN FULL ARMoR.
Here is the colossal statue OF Minerva
in full arinor, eyes of gray colored
stone, figure of a Sphinx, on her head,
grifllns by her side (Which are lions
with eagles beak), spear in one hand,
statue of liberty in the other, a shield
carved with battle scenes, and even the
slippers sculptured and tied on with
thongs of gold. Far out at sea the
sailors saw this statue of Minerva rising
high above all the temples, glitterin3
in the sun. Here are statues of eques-
TRANS. statue of alioncss. and there are
the Graces and yonder horse in
bronze.
There is a statue said in the time OF,
Augustus to have of it's own accord
turned around from east to west and
spit blood; statues made out OF shields
conquered in battle; statue of Apollo,
the expeller of locusts; statue of An
ncreon, drunk and singing; statue OF
Olympodorus, q Greek, memorable for
the fact that lie was cheerful when
others were cast down, trait worthy
of sculpture But walk on and around
the Acropolis, and yonder you see a
statue of Hygeia, and the statue OF
Theseus fighting the Alinotaur, and the
statue of Hercules Staying serpents.
No wonder that Petronius said it was
easier to find god than u man in
Athens. Oh, the Acropolis. The most
of its temples and statues made from
the marble quarries of Mount Penteli-
cum, little way from the city,
/ have here on my table a block of
the Parthenon made out of this marble,
and on it is the sculpture of Phidias. !
brought it from the Acropolis. This
specimen has on it the dust of ages,
and the marks of explosion and battle,
but you can get from it some idea OF
the delicate luster Of the Acropolis
when it was covered with mountain
of this marble cut into all the exquisite
shapes that genius could contrive and
striped with silver and afame with