The Word abideth. The Jew hated it--but it lived on, while the veil was torn away from the shrine which the Shekinah had forsaken, and while Jerusalem itself was destroyed. The Greek derided it--but it has seen his philosophy effete and his Acropolis in ruins. The Romans threw it into the flames--but it rose from its ashes, and swooped down upon the falling eagle. The reasoner cast it into the furnace, which his own negligence had heated "seven times hotter than its wont"--but it came out without the smell of fire. The formalist fastened serpents around it to poison it--but it shook them off and felt no harm. The infidel cast it overboard in a tempest of sophistry and sarcasm--but it rode gallantly upon the crest of the proud waters. And it is living still--yet heard in the loudest swelling of the storm--it has been speaking all the while--it is speaking now!--_Punshon._
When I take people round to see my animals, one of the first questions they ask (unless the animal is cute and appealing) is, "what use is it?" by which they mean, "what use is it to them?" To this one can reply "What use is the Acropolis?" Does a creature have to be of direct material use to mankind in order to exist? By and large, by asking the question "what use is it?" you are asking the animal to justify its existence without having justified your own.
"Athens built the Acropolis. Corinth was a commercial city, interested in purely materialistic things. Today we admire Athens, visit it, preserve the old temples, yet we hardly ever set foot in Corinth." -- Dr. Harold Urey, Nobel Laureate in chemistry
With the loss of political liberty the age of creative genius in Athenian architecture came to a close. The era of decadence, of honorary statues and fulsome inscriptions, began. The embellishments which the city received during the Hellenistic and Roman periods were no longer the artistic expression of the religious and political life of a great commonwealth; they were the tribute paid to the intellectual renown of Athens by foreign potentates or dilettanti, who desired to add their names to the list of its illustrious citizens and patrons. Among the first of these benefactions was the great gymnasium of Ptolemy, built in the neighbourhood of the Agora about 250 B.C. Successive princes of the dynasty of Pergamum interested themselves in the adornment of the city: Attalus I. set up a number of bronze statues on the Acropolis; Eumenes II. built the long portico west of the Dionysiac theatre, which was excavated and identified in 1877; Attalus II. erected the magnificent Stoa near the Agora, the remains of which were completely laid bare in 1898-1902 and have been identified by an inscription. The Stoa consisted of a series of 21 chambers, probably shops, faced by a double colonnade, the outer columns being of the Doric order, the inner unfluted, with lotus-leaf capitals; it possessed an upper storey fronted with Ionic columns. Entry: I
CARALES (Gr. [Greek: K['a]ralis], mod. _Cagliari_, q.v.), the most important ancient city of Sardinia, situated on the south coast of the island. Its foundation is generally attributed to the Carthaginians, and Punic tombs exist in considerable numbers near the present cemetery on the east and still more on the rocky plateau to the north-west of the town. It first appears in Roman history in the Second Punic War, and probably obtained full Roman civic rights from Julius Caesar. In imperial times it was the most important town in the island, mainly owing to its fine sheltered harbour, where a detachment of the _classis Misenas_ was stationed. In the 4th and 5th centuries it was probably the seat of the _praeses Sardiniae_. It is mentioned as an important harbour in the Gothic and Gildonic wars. It was also the chief point of the road system of Sardinia. Roads ran hence to Olbia by the east coast, and through the centre of the island, to Othoca (Oristano) direct, and thence to Olbia (probably the most frequented route), through the mining district to Sulci and along the south and west coasts to Othoca. The hill occupied by the Pisan fortifications and the medieval town within them must have been the acropolis of the Carthaginian settlement; it is impossible to suppose that a citadel presenting such natural advantages was not occupied. The Romans, too, probably made use of it, though the lower quarters were mainly occupied in imperial times. A. Taramelli (_Notizie degli Scavi_, 1905, 41 seq.) rightly points out that the nucleus of the Roman _municipium_ is probably represented by the present quarter of the Marina, in which the streets intersect at right angles and Roman remains are frequently found in the subsoil. An inscription found some way to the north towards the amphitheatre speaks of paving in the squares and streets, and of drains constructed under Domitian in A.D. 83 (F. Vivanet in _Notizie degli Scavi_, 1897, 279). The amphitheatre occupies a natural depression in the rock just below the acropolis, and open towards the sea with a fine view. Its axes are 95½ and 79 yds., and it is in the main cut in the rock, though some parts of it are built with concrete. Below it, to the south, are considerable remains of ancient reservoirs for rain-water, upon which the city entirely depended. This nucleus extended both to the east and to the west; in the former direction it ran some way inland, on the east of the castle hill. Here were the _ambulationes_ or public promenades constructed by the pro-consul Q. Caecilius Metellus before A.D. 6 (_Corp. Inscrip. Lat._ x., Berlin, 1883, No. 7581). Here also, not far from the shore, the remains of Roman baths, with a fine coloured mosaic pavement, representing deities riding on marine monsters, were found in 1907. To the east was the necropolis of Bonaria, where both Punic and Roman tombs exist, and where, on the site of the present cemetery, Christian catacombs have been discovered (F. Vivanet in _Notizie degli Scavi_, 1892, 183 seq.; G. Pinza in _Nuovo Bullettino di Archeologia Cristiana_, 1901, 61 seq.). But the western quarter seems to have been far more important; it extended along the lagoon of S. Gilla (which lies to the north-west of the town, and which until the middle ages was an open bay) and on the lower slopes of the hill which rises above it. The chief discoveries which have been made are noted by Taramelli (loc. cit.) and include some important buildings, of which a large Roman house (or group of houses) is the only one now visible (G. Spano in _Notizie degli Scavi_, 1876, 148, 173; 1877, 285; 1880, 105, 405). Beyond this quarter begins an extensive Roman necropolis extending along the edge of the hill north-east of the high road leading to the north-west; the most important tomb is the so-called Grotta delle Vipere, the rock-hewn tomb of Cassius Philippus and Atilia Pomptilla, the sides of which are covered with inscriptions (_Corpus Inscr. Lat._ x., Berlin, 1883, Nos. 7563-7578). Other tombs are also to be found on the high ground near the Punic tombs already mentioned. The latter are hewn perpendicularly in the rock, while the Roman tombs are chambers excavated horizontally. In the lagoon itself were found a large number of terra cottas, made of local clay, some being masks of both divinities and men (among them grotesques) others representing hands and feet, others various animals, and of _amphorae_ of various sizes and other vases. Some of the _amphorae_ contained animals' bones, possibly the remains of sacrifices. These objects are of the Punic period; they were all found in groups, and had apparently been arranged on a platform of piles in what was then a bay, in readiness for shipment (F. Vivanet in _Notizie degli Scavi_, 1893, 255). It is probable that the acropolis of Carales was occupied even in prehistoric times; but more abundant traces of prehistoric settlements (pottery and fragments of obsidian, also kitchen middens, containing bones of animals and shells of molluscs used for human food) have been found on the Capo S. Elia to the south-east of the modern town (see A. Taramelli in _Notizie degli Scavi_, 1904, 19 seq.). An inscription records the existence of a temple of Venus Erycina on this promontory in Roman times. The museum contains an interesting collection of objects from many of the sites mentioned, and also from other parts of the island; it is in fact the most important in Sardinia, and is especially strong in prehistoric bronzes (see SARDINIA). Entry: CARALES
The Acropolis had been dismantled as a fortress after the expulsion of Hippias; its defenders against the Persians found it necessary to erect a wooden barricade at its entrance. The fortifications were again demolished by the Persians, after whose departure the existing north wall was erected in the time of Themistocles; many columns, metopes and other fragments from the buildings destroyed by the Persians were built into it, possibly owing to haste, as in the case of the city walls, but more probably with the design of commemorating the great historic catastrophe, as the wall was visible from the Agora. The fine walls of the south and east sides were built by Cimon after the victory of the Eurymedon, 468 B.C.; they extend considerably beyond the old Pelasgic circuit, the intervening space being filled up with earth and the débris of the ruined buildings so as to increase the level space of the summit. On the northern side Cimon completed the wall of Themistocles at both ends and added to its height; the ground behind was levelled up on this side also, the platform of the Acropolis thus receiving its present shape and dimensions. The staircase leading down to the sanctuary of Aglaurus was enclosed in masonry. At the south-western corner, on the right of the approach to the old entrance, a bastion of early masonry was encased in a rectangular projection which formed a base for the temple of Nike. The great engineering works of Cimon provided a suitable area for the magnificent structures of the age of Pericles. Entry: I
CLEOMENES I. was the son of Anaxandridas, whom he succeeded about 520 B.C. His chief exploit was his crushing victory near Tiryns over the Argives, some 6000 of whom he burned to death in a sacred grove to which they had fled for refuge (Herodotus vi. 76-82). This secured for Sparta the undisputed hegemony of the Peloponnese. Cleomenes' interposition in the politics of central Greece was less successful. In 510 he marched to Athens with a Spartan force to aid in expelling the Peisistratidae, and subsequently returned to support the oligarchical party, led by Isagoras, against Cleisthenes (q.v.). He expelled seven hundred families and transferred the government from the council to three hundred of the oligarchs, but being blockaded in the Acropolis he was forced to capitulate. On his return home he collected a large force with the intention of making Isagoras despot of Athens, but the opposition of the Corinthian allies and of his colleague Demaratus caused the expedition to break up after reaching Eleusis (Herod. v. 64-76; Aristotle, _Ath. Pol._ 19, 20). In 491 he went to Aegina to punish the island for its submission to Darius, but the intrigues of his colleague once again rendered his mission abortive. In revenge Cleomenes accused Demaratus of illegitimacy and secured his deposition in favour of Leotychides (Herod. vi. 50-73). But when it was discovered that he had bribed the Delphian priestess to substantiate his charge he was himself obliged to flee; he went first to Thessaly and then to Arcadia, where he attempted to foment an anti-Spartan rising. About 488 B.C. he was recalled, but shortly afterwards, in a fit of madness, he committed suicide (Herod. vi. 74, 75). Cleomenes seems to have received scant justice at the hands of Herodotus or his informants, and Pausanias (iii. 3, 4) does little more than condense Herodotus's narrative. In spite of some failures, largely due to Demaratus's jealousy, Cleomenes strengthened Sparta in the position, won during his father's reign, of champion and leader of the Hellenic race; it was to him, for example, that the Ionian cities of Asia Minor first applied for aid in their revolt against Persia (Herod. v. 49-51). Entry: CLEOMENES
BEULÉ, CHARLES ERNEST (1826-1874), French archaeologist and politician, was born at Saumur on the 29th of June 1826. He was educated at the École Normale, and after having held the professorship of rhetoric at Moulins for a year, was sent to Athens in 1851 as one of the professors in the École Française there. He had the good fortune to discover the propylaea of the Acropolis, and his work, _L'Acropole d'Athènes_ (2nd ed., 1863), was published by order of the minister of public instruction. On his return to France, promotion and distinctions followed rapidly upon his first successes. He was made doctor of letters, chevalier of the Legion of Honour, professor of archaeology at the Bibliothèque Impériale, member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres and perpetual secretary of the Académie des Beaux-Arts. He took great interest in political affairs, with which the last few years of his life were entirely occupied. Elected a member of the National Assembly in 1871, he zealously supported the Orleanist party. In May-November 1873 he was minister of the interior in the Broglie ministry. He died by his own hand on the 4th of April 1874. His other important works are: _Études sur le Péloponnèse_ (2nd ed., 1875); _Les Monnaies d'Athènes_ (1858); _L'Architecture au siècle de Pisistrate_ (1860); _Fouilles à Carthage_ (1861). Beulé was also the author of high-class popular works on artistic and historical subjects: _Histoire de l'art grec avant Périclès_ (2nd ed., 1870); _Le Procès des Césars_ (1867-1870, in four parts; _Auguste, sa famille et ses amis; Tibère et l'héritage d'Auguste; Le Sang de Germanicus; Titus et sa dynastie_). Entry: BEULÉ
Within the acropolis stood the temple of Apollo, erected, according to tradition, by Daedalus himself, the remains of which, restored in Roman times, were discovered in 1817, on the eastern and lower summit. On the higher western summit stood another temple, excavated in 1792, but now covered up again. This may be that of the Olympian Zeus (Liv. xxvii. 23). Entry: CUMAE
The great majority of these vases have been found in tombs; but some important discoveries have been made on the sites of temples and sanctuaries, as on the Acropolis of Athens, or at Naucratis. In such cases the vases are seldom complete, having been broken up and cast away into rubbish-heaps, where the fragments have remained undisturbed. The tombs vary greatly in form, those of Greece being usually small rock-graves or shafts, those of Italy often fine and elaborate chambers with architectural details, and the manner in which the vases are found in these tombs varies greatly. Plain unornamented pottery is almost universal, and may be considered to have formed the "tomb-furniture" proper--the painted vases being as in daily life merely ornamental adjuncts. Entry: GREEK
Pausanias (iii. 21 f.) has left us a description of the town as it existed in the reign of Marcus Aurelius, the agora, the Acropolis, the island of Cranae (Marathonisi) where Paris celebrated his nuptials with Helen, the Migonium or precinct of Aphrodite Migonitis (occupied by the modern town of Marathonisi or Gythium), and the hill Larysium (Koumaro) rising above it. The numerous remains extant, of which the theatre and the buildings partially submerged by the sea are the most noteworthy, all belong to the Roman period. Entry: GYTHIUM
Except at Athens, little is known of the ceremonies or festivals which attended her worship. There we have the following. (1) The ceremony of the _Three Sacred Ploughs_, by which the signal for seed-time was given, apparently dating from a period when agriculture was one of the chief occupations of her worshippers. (2) The _Procharisteria_ at the end of winter, at which thanks were offered for the germination of the seed. (3) The _Scirophoria_, with a procession from the Acropolis to the village of Skiron, in the height of summer, the priests who were to entreat her to keep off the summer heat walking under the shade of parasols ([Greek: skyron]) held over them; others, however, connect the name with [Greek: skiros] ("gypsum"), perhaps used for smearing the image of the goddess. (4) The _Oschophoria_, at the vintage season, with races among boys, and a procession, with songs in praise of Dionysus and Ariadne. (5) The _Chalkeia_ (feast of smiths), at which the birth of Erechtheus and the invention of the plough were celebrated. (6) The _Plynteria_ and _Callynteria_, at which her ancient image and peplus in the Erechtheum and the temple itself were cleaned, with a procession in which bunches of figs (frequently used in lustrations) were carried. (7) The _Arrhephoria_ or _Errephoria_ (perhaps = _Ersephoria_, "dew-bearing"), at which four girls, between seven and eleven years of age, selected from noble families, carried certain unknown sacred objects to and from the temple of Aphrodite "in the gardens" (see J.E. Harrison, _Classical Review_, April 1889). (8) The _Panathenaea_, at which the new robes for the image of he goddess were carried through the city, spread like a sail on a mast. The reliefs of the frieze of the cella of the Parthenon enable us to form an idea of the procession. Athletic games, open to all who traced their nationality to Athens, were part of this festival. Mention should also be made of the Argive ceremony, at which the _xoanon_ (ancient wooden statue) of Athena was washed in the river Inachus, a symbol of her purification after the Gigantomachia. Entry: ATHENA
In the Hannibalic wars it remained faithful to Rome. It probably acquired civic rights in the Social War and remained a _municipium_ until Augustus established a colony here. Under the empire it is spoken of as a quiet country town, in contrast to the gay and fashionable Baiae, which, however, with the _lacus Avernus_ and _lacus Lucrinus_, formed a part of its territory. Cicero's villa on the east bank of the latter, for example, which he called the Academia, was also known as Cumanum. In the Gothic wars the acropolis of Cumae was, except Naples, the only fortified town in Campania, and it retained its military importance until it was destroyed by the Neapolitans in 1205, since, which time it has been deserted. Entry: CUMAE
Immediately west of the theatre of Dionysus is the sacred precinct of Asclepius, which was excavated by the Archaeological Society in 1876-1878. Here were discovered the foundations of the celebrated Asclepieum, together with several inscriptions and a great number of votive reliefs offered by grateful invalids and valetudinarians to the god of healing. Many of the reliefs belong to the best period of Greek art. A Doric colonnade with a double row of columns was found to have extended along the base of the Acropolis for a distance of 54 yds.; behind it in a chamber hewn in the rock is the sacred well mentioned by Pausanias. The colonnade was a place of resort for the patients; a large building close beneath the rock was probably the abode of the priests. Entry: I
At Athens, in the age 650-480, we may trace two quite distinct periods of architecture and sculpture. In the earlier of the two periods, a rough limestone was used alike for the walls and the sculptural decoration of temples; in the later period it was superseded by marble, whether native or imported. Every visitor to the museum of the Athenian acropolis stands astonished at the recently recovered groups which decorated the pediments of Athenian temples before the age of Peisistratus--groups of large size, rudely cut in soft stone, of primitive workmanship, and painted with bright red, blue and green, in a fashion which makes no attempt to follow nature, but only to produce a vivid result. The two largest in scale of these groups seem to have belonged to the pediments of the early 6th-century temple of Athena. On other smaller pediments, perhaps belonging to shrines of Heracles and Dionysus, we have conflicts of Heracles with Triton or with other monstrous foes. It is notable how fond the Athenian artists of this early time are of exaggerated muscles and of monstrous forms, which combine the limbs of men and of animals; the measure and moderation which mark developed Greek art are as completely absent as are skill in execution or power of grouping. Fig. 20 shows a small pediment in which appears in relief the slaying of the Lernaean hydra by Heracles. The hero strikes at the many-headed water-snake, somewhat inappropriately, with his club. Iolaus, his usual companion, holds the reins of the chariot which awaits Heracles after his victory. On the extreme left a huge crab comes to the aid of the hydra. Entry: FIG
The greater monuments of the classical epoch on the Acropolis are described in separate articles (see PARTHENON, ERECHTHEUM, PROPYLAEA). Next in interest to these noble structures is the beautiful little temple of Athena Nike, wrongly designated Nike Apteros (Wingless Victory), standing on the bastion already mentioned; it was begun after 450 B.C. and was probably finished after the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War. The temple, which is entirely of Pentelic marble, is amphiprostyle tetrastyle, with fluted Ionic columns, on a stylobate of three steps; its length is 27 ft., its breadth 18½ ft., and its total height, from the apex of the pediment to the bottom of the steps, 23 ft. The frieze, running round the entire building, represents on its eastern side a number of deities, on its northern and southern sides Greeks fighting with Persians, and on its western side Greeks fighting with Greeks. Before the east front was the altar of Athena Nike. The irregularly shaped precinct around the temple was enclosed by a balustrade about 3 ft. 2 in. in height, decorated on the outside with beautiful reliefs representing a number of winged Victories engaged in the worship of Athena. The elaborate treatment of the drapery enveloping these female figures suggests an approach to the mannerism of later times; this and other indications point to the probability that the balustrade was added in the latter years of the Peloponnesian War. The temple was still standing in 1676; some eight years later it was demolished by the Turks, and its stones built into a bastion; on the removal of the bastion in 1835 the temple was successfully reconstructed by Ross with the employment of little new material. At either corner of the Propylaea entrance were equestrian statues dedicated by the Athenian knights; the bases with inscriptions have lately been recovered. From the inner exit of the Propylaea a passage led towards the east along the north side of the Parthenon; almost directly facing the entrance was the colossal bronze statue of Athena (afterwards called Athena Promachos) by Pheidias, probably set up by Cimon in commemoration of the Persian defeat. The statue, which was 30 ft. high, represented the goddess as fully armed; the gleam of her helmet and spear could be seen by the mariners approaching from Cape Sunium (Pausanias i. 28). On both sides of the passage were numerous statues, among them that of Athena Hygeïa, set up by Pericles to commemorate the recovery of a favourite slave who was injured during the building of the Parthenon, a colossal bronze image of the wooden horse of Troy, and Myron's group of Marsyas with Athena throwing away her flute. Another statue by Myron, the famous Perseus, stood near the precinct of Artemis Brauronia. In this sacred enclosure, which lay between the south-eastern corner of the Propylaea and the wall of Cimon, no traces of a temple have been found. Adjoining it to the east are the remains of a large rectangular building, which was apparently fronted by a colonnade; this has been identified with the [Greek: Chalkothaekae], a storehouse of bronze implements and arms, which was formerly supposed to lie against the north wall near the Propylaea. Beyond the Parthenon, a little to the north-east, was the great altar of Athena, and near it the statue and altar of Zeus Polieus. With regard to the buildings on the east end of the Acropolis, where the present museums stand, no certainty exists; among the many statues here were those of Xanthippus, the father of Pericles, and of Anacreon. Immediately west of the Erechtheum is the Pandroseum or temenos of Pandrosos, the daughter of Cecrops, the excavation of which has revealed no traces of the temple ([Greek: naos]) seen here by Pausanias (i. 27). The site of this precinct, in which the sacred olive tree of Athena grew, has been almost certainly fixed by an inscription found in the bastion of Odysseus. At its north-western extremity is a platform of levelled rock which may have supported the altar of Zeus Hypsistus. Farther west, along the north wall of the Acropolis, is the space probably occupied by the abode and playground of the Errephori. Between this precinct and the Propylaea were a number of statues, among them the celebrated heifer of Myron, and perhaps his Erechtheus; the Lemnian Athena of Pheidias, and his effigy of his friend Pericles. Entry: I