The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 | Page 7

was of the Doric order, and its right wing
was supported by six fluted columns, each five feet in diameter,
twenty-nine in height, and seven in their intercolumniation. Of the
Propylæa itself Mr. Cook gives no individual drawing, the only sketch
he had opportunity of making, being in its relation to the Acropolis
generally; "it will, however," he says, "serve in some degree to show
what has been done. Here perhaps the chief work has been
accomplished; all the now detached columns were built up with solid
brickwork, batteries were erected on the spot occupied by the Temple
of 'Victory without wings,' and on the square which answered to it on
the opposite side of the flight of marble steps; the whole of which were
deeply buried (not until they had severely suffered), beneath the ruins
of the fortification which crumbled away under the Venetian guns.
These walls have been removed, the batteries destroyed, and the
material of which they were composed taken away; the steps exhumed,
and the five grand entrances, by which the fortress was originally
entered, opened, although not yet rendered passable. It would be, I
imagine, impossible to conceive an approach more magnificent than
this must have been. The whole is on such a superb scale, the design, in
its union of simplicity and grandeur is so perfect, the material so
exquisite, and the view which one has from it of the Parthenon and the
Erechtheum so beautiful, that no interest less intense than that which
belongs to these temples would be sufficient to entice the stranger from
its contemplation."
[Illustration: THE PARTHENON.]
On the right wing of the Propylæa stood the temple of Victory, and on
the left was a building decorated with paintings by the pencil of

Polygnotus, of which Pausanias has left us an account. In a part of the
wall still remaining there are fragments of excellent designs in
basso-relievo, representing the combat of the Athenians with the
Amazons; besides six columns, white as snow, and of the finest
architecture. Near the Propylæa stood the celebrated colossal statue of
Minerva, executed by Phidias after the battle of Marathon, the height of
which, including the pedestal, was sixty feet.
The chief glory of the Acropolis was the Parthenon, or temple of
Minerva. It was a peripteral octostyle, of the Doric order, with
seventeen columns on the sides, each six feet two inches in diameter at
the base, and thirty-four feet in height, elevated on three steps. Its
height, from the base of the pediments, was sixty-five feet, and the
dimensions of the area two hundred and thirty-three feet, by one
hundred and two. The eastern pediment was adorned with two groups
of statues, one of which represented the birth of Minerva, the other the
contest of Minerva with Neptune for the government of Athens. On the
metopes was sculptured the battle of the Centaurs with the Lapithæ;
and the frieze contained a representation of the Panathenaic festivals.
Ictinus, Callicrates, and Carpion, were the architects of this temple;
Phidias was the artist; and its entire cost has been estimated at seven
million and a half of dollars. Of this building, eight columns of the
eastern front and several of the lateral colonnades are still standing. Of
the frontispiece, which represented the contest of Neptune and Minerva,
nothing remains but the head of a sea-horse and the figures of two
women without heads. The combat of the Centaurs and Lapithæ is in
better preservation; but of the numerous statues with which this temple
was enriched, that of Adrian alone remains. The Parthenon, however,
dilapidated as it is, still retains an air of inexpressible grandeur and
sublimity; and it forms at once the highest point in Athens, and the
centre of the Acropolis.
[Illustration: THE ERECHTHEUM.]
To stand at the eastern wall of the Acropolis, and gaze on the Parthenon,
robed in the rich colors by which time has added an almost voluptuous
beauty to its perfect proportions--to behold between its columns the

blue mountains of the Morea, and the bluer seas of Egina and Salamis,
with acanthus-covered or icy-wedded fragments of majestic friezes, and
mighty capitals at your feet--the sky of Greece, flooded by the
gorgeous hues of sunset, above your head--Mr. Cook describes as one
of the highest enjoyments the world can offer to a man of taste. He is
opposed to the projects of its restoration, and says that, "to real lovers
of the picturesque, the Parthenon as it now stands--a ruin in every sense
of the term, its walls destroyed, its columns shivered, its friezes
scattered, its capitals half-buried by their own weight, but clear of all
else--is, if not a grander, assuredly a more impressive object than when,
in the palmiest days of Athenian glory, its marble, pure as the unfallen
snow, first