The Caucasian. (Clinton, N.C.) 188?-1913, 1891-11-26


hundred feet@aigh On Ii has lpeen
crowded more elaborate aros.iseetu~s
AMI sculpture than in any other place
under the whole heavens Ori-snaIlv
fortress, afterwara a cnngre-utlaft of
temples and statues aud pillars. t1sr,r
ruins an eTchantment fruan which no
observer ever breaks. No wonder that
Arsstides thought II tha center Of all
things-Greece. the center OF the world
Attica, the center OF Greece: Athens.
the center Of Attica, and the Acropoiis
the center of Athens. EARTHQUAKES
have shaken il; Verres plunder,,d il.
Lord Elgin, the English ambassador
at Constantinople, got permission Of tho
sultan To remove from the AcropolEs
fallen pieces Of the building, but he
took from the building Ia England the
finest statues, removing them at an ex.
pense of eight hundred thousand dol
lars. \ stcrm overthrew many Of the
statues of the Acropolis Morosini, the
general, attempted 10 remove from Il
pediment the sculptured car and horses
of Victory, but the clumsy machinery
dropped it, and all was lost.
The Turks turned the building into
powder magazine where the Venetian
guns dropped a fire 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 iconoclasm have effected, the
Acropolisis the monarch of all ruins, and
before it bow the learning, the genius,
the poetry, the art, the history Of tue
ages. saw 1t as it was thousands of
years ago. had read so much about
it and dreamed so much about IL, that
l needed no magician's wand To re-
store it.
At one wave of my hand on that
clear morning in 1889 il rose before
me in the glory it had when pericles
ordered it and Ictinus planned it and
Phidias chiseled it and Prot0gines
painted it and Pausanias described il.
Its gates, which were carefully guarded
by the ancients, open to let you in, and
you ascend by sixty marble steps the
propyl1a, which Epaminodas wanted
to transfer to Thebes, but permission,
/ am glad to say, could not bc granted
for the removal OF this architectural
miracle.
In the days when ten cents would do
more than dollar now, the building
cost two million three hundred thou.
sand dollars See its five ornameutcd
gates, the keys intrusted to an officer
for only one day lest the temptation to
go in and misappropriato the treasures
be too great for him; its ceiling n
mingling of blue and scarlet and green,
and the walls abloom with pictures ut
most in thought and coloring. Yonder
is a temple to q 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 tenn
pie to "Victory Without Wings'-a
temple of marble, snow white and gilt
tering. Yonder, behold the pedestal
of Agrippa, twenty feet high and
twelve square. But the overshadowing
wonder of all the hill is the Parthenou
In days when money was ten times
more valuable than now it cost
four million six hundred thousand
dollars 1t is Doric grandeur,
having forty-six columns, each col
umn thirtyfour feet high and six icet
two inches in diameter. Wondrous in
tercolumniations! 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 on the way to
sacrifice, statues of the deities Diony-
sius, Prometheus, Hermes, 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 fates, the furies; statue
of Jupiter holding in his right hand the
thunderbolt; silver footed chair in
which Xerxes watched the battle Of
Salanis only a few miles away.
MINERVA IL FULL ARMOR.
Here is the colossal statue Of Minerva
in full arlnor, eyes Of gray colored
stone, figure of Sphinx, on her head,
griffins 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, gIitterins
in the sun. Here are statues Of eques-
trians, statue of iioness, and there are
the Graces and yonder a horse in
| bronze
There is a statue said in the time Of
Augustus to have of its 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 Iocusts; statue Of An
acreon, drunk and singing; statue OF
Olympodorus, Greek, memorable for
| bEiS Ioitt lIlu1b i4G " d I1lGEI4tAA RF4AGAi
| others were cast down, a trait worthy
Of sculpture. But walk on and around
the Acropolis, and yonder you see q
statue of Hygeia, and the statue 81
Theseus fighting the Iinotaur, and the
statue of Hercules sla-ing serpents.
No wonder that PetFonius said It wa
easier to find a god than a man in
Athens. Oh, the Acropolis. The most
of its temples and statues made from
the marble quarries of Mount Penteli
cum, a little way from the city.
have here on my table block oi
the PaFtllenon made out of this marble
and on it is the sculpture of Phidias.
brought it from the Aeropolis. Thi;
specimen has on it the dust of ages
and the marks of explosion and battle
but you can get from it some idea ot
the delicate luster of the Acropolil
when it was covered With mountai
7 of this marble cut into all the exquisit
shapes that genius could oontrive an
| cfripo6 yuSfh eiix-or apd onorza xr-t4