Sayfadaki görseller
PDF
ePub
[graphic][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors]

YOUTH'S INSTRUCTER

AND

GUARDIAN.

JUNE, 1855.

THE PARTHENON.

(With an Engraving.)

WHо reads the seventeenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, and observes how St. Paul "stood in the midst of Mars' hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious: for as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found," &c., will do well to pause for a moment and consider why St. Luke, writing this history, made special mention of Mars' hill, and of the devotions. Mars' hill, or the Areopagus, was a hill where sat the Athenian Judges. From that elevation the Apostle, could look down upon the market-place-the agora—as it spread beneath, crowded with a mixed multitude of Athenians, with their loquacious Epicureans and lofty Stoics, and of Romans and Jews, not come to the agora to buy, for it was not a common market-place, but to "spend their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing." He could also see, just across the agora,—indeed he could not help seeing, if his face were turned at all towards the east or south-east, the higher hill of the Acropolis, that overtopped the whole city, and was covered with the most splendid works of architecture and sculpture that could be found on a single spot in any part of the There was, glittering at noontide, the known world. colossal statue of Minerva Promachus, the goddess Minerva VOL. XIX. Second Series.

M

fully armed, in bright brass, molten from the spoils of war, with uplifted spear and broad shield, as the proper guardian of the city. Wisdom, War, and Victory were symbolized in chiselled forms, as was Jupiter, reputed father of gods and men; and never before had marble yielded so perfectly to the sculptor's power. "I have beheld"-said the great -"I have beheld your devotions." But the oßáoμara were not acts, but objects, of devotion; or, as our inimitable English translators have put it in the margin of their Bible," the gods that ye worship."

Preacher-"

Now if any one wishes to gaze upon the very objects on which the Apostle did so intently gaze when he was in Athens, when he was taken up to the Areopagus, when the idolatry of the city stirred his spirit, and when, weary of the place, and separated from the company of his dearest Christian brethren, he complained that he was left alone, he may do so. It is only to take the first opportunity for going to the British Museum. When there, let him ask for the Elgin room. Let him pass by the more imposing masses that remind one of Egypt and Assyria. Leaving the more stately galleries, he goes into the Elgin room. There he will see battered and broken marbles in rilievo, placed round the room; and on something like tables, on the floor, there lie mutilated marble trunks. But he must not be disappointed. If he will stay for a few moments, and examine so much as remains perfect, or even nearly perfect, it will commend itself by the perfection of its forms. Here, a rough surface tells that it has been eaten by the inclement seasons of two thousand years and more. There, the smooth and almost shining surface reveals a perfection that rapacious time has not yet destroyed. These marbles were brought from the Parthenon, and on them the Evangelist of Athens threw his frequent glance. That glance fell from an eye moist with pity for the worshippers of those images, yet not insensible-if his Apostolic fervour could brook delay for admiring any earthly object-not insensible to their unequalled beauty.

But before the visiter leaves the Elgin marbles, he should be informed that that Theseus, whose battered head is yet

erect over his majestic shoulders, was a masterpiece of the sculptor Phidias. Phidias disdained to make statues like his predecessors, even such as you will now find in Continental mass-houses; that is to say, heads, and hands, and feet carved, and the rest of the figures rudely misshapen and covered with real clothes. Phidias carved his work from top to toe, and finished the anatomy of a back that was to be hidden by the wall, as exquisitely as that of the limb that was to be uplifted with action in the air. He draped his marble statues with pure gold. And after him artists learned to rise above the negligence of their predecessors, and laboured on their statuary in every part. But now to the Parthenon.

The Acropolis is a rock that rises abruptly in the heart of Athens, forming a natural fortress, its sides being scarped without the aid of art, except at the western end. Its greatest length is said to be about twelve hundred feet, and its greatest breadth about five hundred and fifty. In the time of the Apostle, the approach, at the west, was through magnificent marble-work, called the Propylæa, or advanced gates, that served at once for defence and ornament; and this outwork being passed, the ascent to the Acropolis was by spacious stairs. Here, guarded, so to speak, by the great statue of the Minerva Promachus, was the Parthenon, so called from raplévos, a virgin, because it was dedicated to Minerva, a virgin-goddess. This was the finest temple in Athens; and, for symmetry and elegance, was probably not second to any in the world. It was erected in the time of Pericles, nearly four hundred and fifty years before Christ. Callicrates and Ictinus were the architects. Phidias, with many assistants who followed his directions in rougher working, executed the sculptures, and watched the progress of the building, and the conservation of its plan in all the details. The grandeur of the Parthenon, however, was not owing to its size; for its extreme length was only about two hundred and twenty-eight feet, and its breadth one hundred and one feet, measuring at the upper step of the stylobate; and the height was sixty-six feet to the top of the pediment. The peristyle consisted of forty-six columns; being seventeen at

« ÖncekiDevam »