DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5074#0401
383
ing bays to the Hieron mountains behind Epidaurus
and Methana. In the opposite corner of the island
rises a cone-shaped mountain, on which a Temple to
Jupiter once stood — built by iEacus, the king of
iEgina, and long afterwards dedicated to Elias the
Prophet, in order to take up the thread, as it were,
and thus translate into Christianity, the legend of the
king's prayers for rain having been answered by Jove
in a plentiful and immediate shower.
The Temple of Minerva was built, probably, six
hundred years before Christ,—it is of a soft stone, which
has become a venerable grey colour : the sculptures have
all been carried off to Munich, but twenty-two beauti-
ful Doric fluted columns remain standing in situ, the
fluting carried up to the abacus, and ending in a row
of beads surrounding the column. It is said that the
vermilion coloured stucco which covered the pave-
ment, and the azure ground against which the sculp-
tures of the typanum rested,, could till lately be distin-
guished, but the whole of the architrave has now
fallen, and we could not discover a trace of colour any-
where. But it is still a very grand and very beautiful
ruin, with a simple, noble grace peculiarly its own.
The sailors insisted on our goiDg on board again by one
o'clock, declaring that the wind would be unfavourable
by three—but it was even then dead against us, and wre
did not reach the Pirseus till past six o'clock, after five
hours of a roasting which fully realised one's ideas of
purgatory, the whole party being really ill from the fearful
heat on the head and the glare of the water. We found
the next day that the King's cutter had been kindly
placed at our disposal for JEgina, but unfortunately we
had gone before the intelligence had reached us.
ing bays to the Hieron mountains behind Epidaurus
and Methana. In the opposite corner of the island
rises a cone-shaped mountain, on which a Temple to
Jupiter once stood — built by iEacus, the king of
iEgina, and long afterwards dedicated to Elias the
Prophet, in order to take up the thread, as it were,
and thus translate into Christianity, the legend of the
king's prayers for rain having been answered by Jove
in a plentiful and immediate shower.
The Temple of Minerva was built, probably, six
hundred years before Christ,—it is of a soft stone, which
has become a venerable grey colour : the sculptures have
all been carried off to Munich, but twenty-two beauti-
ful Doric fluted columns remain standing in situ, the
fluting carried up to the abacus, and ending in a row
of beads surrounding the column. It is said that the
vermilion coloured stucco which covered the pave-
ment, and the azure ground against which the sculp-
tures of the typanum rested,, could till lately be distin-
guished, but the whole of the architrave has now
fallen, and we could not discover a trace of colour any-
where. But it is still a very grand and very beautiful
ruin, with a simple, noble grace peculiarly its own.
The sailors insisted on our goiDg on board again by one
o'clock, declaring that the wind would be unfavourable
by three—but it was even then dead against us, and wre
did not reach the Pirseus till past six o'clock, after five
hours of a roasting which fully realised one's ideas of
purgatory, the whole party being really ill from the fearful
heat on the head and the glare of the water. We found
the next day that the King's cutter had been kindly
placed at our disposal for JEgina, but unfortunately we
had gone before the intelligence had reached us.