The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-10-07
WHERE GREEK MET GREEK
"OLYMPIA." WAS DR. DOERPFELD'S
 THEME, LAST EVENING.


 Fascinating Narrative of the Work of
 Excavating the Hidden City.
 The ancient city, which, in the word Olympiad, has given the keynote to the calendar of the Greeks, Olympia" that has re-echoed to the shouts of heroes from all parts of sunny Greece, as they met and "agonized" for the simple wreath of laurel, at the na- tional, quinquennial games; Olympia, famed and sung by bard and poet and prosateur in all ages from Homer to the present, seemed more fascinating than ever last night. when Dr. Doerp- field touched upon his theme.
 "Meine Damen und Herrn' were the simple words of greeting used, and then the speaker carried the audience, at a bound, from the present back into history. The French expedition began in 1927; their work was of minor value. Ernst Curtius, the great historian and archaeologist, began in 1874 the task where it was left, and with the assist ance and sanction of Charles Frederick the Third of Germany carried forward the work. It was left for Dr. Doerp field to make Olympia really live again.
 Olympia is an archaeological and archi- tectural treasure. The treasure was not bought without 8 price" however, for the sum of $200,000 was expended on the restoration.
 The river Cladius, branch from the greater Alfius, had buried the city with sand, from twelve to fifteen feet deep But the tops of certain struggling col umns led the skilled eyes of the first explorers to the true site of the buried city The sand was removed, slowly by means of the very river that had brought it, the Cladius, and an appar- ent Village, of houses simple in struct- ure, was first revealed.
 The canvas scenes and the terse tell ing explanations of the lecturer almost made the ruins to grow from heaps of rubbish, into symmetrical structures, before the eye.
 The first view revealed the outlines of temple, apparently; on the left, the remains of a second temple, mere wall; the latter proving to be the tenn | pie Of Hera, the Heraion of the queen | of heaven. A deeper excavation reveal ] ed the old city coming to view; the | treasure houses on the northeast, and a third temple, the Metroum, to the mother Of the gods. One layer deep- CT, and there stood a great column, or shaft, with smaller, broken pillars around it; large buildings, erected by | the Romans, and fragments of va- | rious other houses, seemingly hopeless | debris. Then the whole precinct was unearthed; the scene orlents to the time of Pausanius, who described all the | important buildings as they have since 1 been located and defined. The central i front of the arena, the hub of the quad- rant is the sacred enclosure and the temple oe Zeus within it. The sacred enclosure, so named, is bounded by four walls, forming almost square. Before the temple stand the remains of an al- tar, likewise described by Pausanius, now but a circle of ruins. The treas ure houses, mentioned above, lie north- ward from the altar, and behind them, the great aqueduct, built by the Ro- mans of later time.
 1 The hill Kronios, or Kronion mount overlooking the city on the north, has even yet buried at its base, the re- mains ofthe Creek stadion, only partly exhumed, as yet. In irregular line from the stadion to the Heraion, stand scluptured figures, denoting victories won, perhaps in the | 70 Rome, built a dwelling for him. self in the southeastern corner of the precSct, as an inscription declares. Three gateways lead into the confines of the city, at three corners, everyone vaulted over with stone arches, of weighty moment to archaeologists as types of ancient engineering in Greece. | The reconstruction of the temple of Zeus reveals two columns before the vestibule, comparable to those at My caene, Tiryns. The walls of the pass ages are of beautiful mosaic; the cen- tral part of the structure is divided into three naves, one central, two smaller on either side A portico runs around the square walls of the temple proper. On the friezes of the latter the twelve | labors of Hercules were represent ed, six on either end of the temple. An altar stood within the square, and an image of Zeus, made in gold and ivory, made by the sculptor, Phidias, according to the testimony of Pausa- nius. The altar was of black marble. The figure of Zeus on his throne seems vastly too large for the size of the room, but Phidias, the carver, had i just came from Athens, where he had made a giant sized image of Athena; and Phidias seems to have been poss- essed with the determination to carve a second, of equal size, for the great Zeus himself.
 Nor is sculpture the only work of art in the temple. At one corner flight of steps leads up to the picture gallery, the paintings, the work of the artist, Panaenos, a relative of Phidias, from Athens The frescoes are, likewise, masterpieces from his hand.
 The outer view of the temple presents the six columns of the temple porch, thirty-two feet high, wider at base, narrower at top, and beautiful archi- trave trigliffe and pediment, bearing ] the figures of Zeus and Pelops and l Oenomaus, in the preparations for the chariot race, as Pausanius has inform i cd us. and executed by Paeonius of | Mende. The excavations have restored i these very stones to the world Of art