Burrow, Edward John: The Elgin Marbles: With an abridged historical and topographical account of Athens (London, 1837)

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and decay; little remains of what formerly
constituted one of the most elegant, if not
the most spacious monuments of heathen su-
perstition: but this little is venerable for its
age and history, and highly interesting for the
evidences which it still affords of Grecian skill
in architecture. Its beautiful proportions are,
indeed, now lostin the surrounding mass of mi-
serable huts, its glittering whiteness dimmed
by the corroding hand of time, and its tower-
ing columns shattered and cast down by the
merciless engines of modern warfare; but yet,
while a vestige is to be found of such excel-
lence, it will not cease to be inestimable to the
scientific traveller, and the philosophical in-
quirer into the state of society in former ages.
The original Hecatompedon, so called on ac-
count of its being a hundred feet square, was a
very ancient edifice dedicated to Minerva, and
probably not remarkable for its decorations.
It was burnt by the Persian troops when they
gained possession of the Acropolis in the year
A. C. 480, under Xerxes. On the site which
had been already rendered sacred to the tute-
lary deity, Pericles erected the magnificent