The Bossier banner., 1892-01-28

SSat GHc COlullHS Ay ing III
the air, and falling cracked and splin-
tered. But after all that time and
storm and iconoclasm have effected the
AcropOlis is the monarch of all ruins, and
before it bow the learning, the genius,
the poetry, the art, the history OF the
ages. | saw it as it was thousands of
years ago. l had read SO much about it
that l needed no magician's wand to
restore it. At one wave of my hand on
that clear morning in 1889, it rose be-
fore me in the glory it had when Peri-
cles ordered it, and Ictinus planned it,
and Phidias chiseled it, and Protognes
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@a, which Epaminondas wanted
to transfer to Thebes, but permission,
am glad to say, could not be granted
for the removal of this architectural
miracle In the days when ten cents
would do more than one dollar now.
the building cost two million three hun
dred thousand dollars. See its five or
namented gates, the keys entrusted to
an officer for only one day lest the
temptation to go in and misappropriate
the treasures be too great for him, its
ceiling mingling of blue and scarlet
and green, and the walls abloom with
pictures utmost in thought and color
ing. Yonder is a temple to 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 heucs this tenn
pie to Victory Without Wings"
temple of marble, snow-white and gilt
tering. Yonder behold the pedestal of
Agrippa, twenty-seven feet high and
twelve feet square.
But the overshadowing wonder of all
the hill is the Parthenon. In days
when money was ten times more valu-
able than now, it cost four million and
six hundred thousand dollars. 1t is q
Doric grandeur, having forty-six col
umns each column thirty-four feet high
and six feet two inches in diameter.
Wondrous intercolumniations! Painted
porticos, architraves tinged with ochre,
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
| Dionysius, Prometheus, Hermes, De-
meter, Zeus, Hera, Poseidon; in one
frieze twelve divinities; centaurs in
| battle; weaponry from Marathon;
chariot of night chariot of the morn
ing; 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 Salamis only few miles
away. Here is the colossal statue of
Minerva in full armor, eyes of gray
colored stone; figure of a 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,
glittering in the sun. Here are stat
ues of equestrians, statue of lion
ess, and there are the graces, and
yoLder 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; stat
ues made out of shields conquered in
battle; statue of Anacreon, drunk and
singing; statue of Olympodorus, a
Greek, memorable for the fact that he
was cheerful when others were cast
down, a trait worthy of sculpture. But,
walk on and around the Acropolis, and
yonder you see statue of Hygeia, and
the statue of Theseus fighting the Mi
notaur and the statue of Hercules slay.
ing serpents. No wonder that Petro.
MUS said it was easier to find a god
than man in Athens. Oh, the Acrop
oils! The most of its temples and statues
made from the marble quarries of
Mount Pentelicum, little way from
the city. l 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 explo.
sion and battle, but you can get from it
some idea of the delicate luster of the
Acropolis when it was covered with a
mountain of this marble cut into all the
exquisite shapes that genius could con.
trive, and striped with silver and aflam G
with gold. The Acropolis in the morn.
ing light of those ancients must have
shown as though it were an aerolite
cast off from the monday sun. The
temples must have looked like petrified
foam. The whole Acropolis must have
seen like the white breakers of the
great ocean of time.
But we can not stop longer here, for
there is a hill near by of more interest.
though it has not one chip of marble to
suggest statue or temple. We
hasten down the Acropolis to ascend
the Areopagus, or Mars Hill, as it is
called. 1t took only about three min
utes to walk the distance, and the two
hill tops are SO near that what said in
religious discourse on Mars Hill was
heard distinctly by some English gen.
tlemen on the Acropolis. This Mars
Hill is rough pile of rock fifty feet