CHAPTER VI

THE ACROPOLIS IN THE HELLENISTIC AND ROMAN
PERIODS. THE DESCRIPTIVE TOUR OF PAUSANIAS
ON THE ACROPOLIS

" Then there came forth, appearing like a statue,
Pallas ; a spear she shook with crested helm."

Eur. Here. Fur. 1002.

The period extending from the time of the rule of Alexander
the Great down to the fall of the Roman Empire, stormy and
destructive of the monuments of ancient days as it was, saw
less havoc wrought to the temple and shrines upon the
Acropolis than one would be led to fear. A certain reverence
for the patron divinity of Athens and her shrines on the sacred
rock seems to have checked the violent hand of even such a
ruthless conqueror as Sulla, and the city of Athens, after having
escaped serious injury at the hands of the successors of
Alexander, became an object of favor to the kings of Perga-
mon, to the Ptolemies of Egypt, and to some of the Roman
Emperors. To be sure, the monuments on the Acropolis did
not escape wholly uninjured. Pausanias (i. xxv, 7) tells us
that Lachares carried off golden shields from the Acropolis, and
stript the image of the goddess of all its golden ornaments.
And Demetrius Poliorcetes, so Plutarch informs us, celebrated
his disgraceful orgies in the apartments of the maiden goddess.
Of the Roman emperors Nero alone despoiled Athens, though
even he seems to have spared the most sacred shrines, since
Pausanias subsequently found them still occupying their ancient
places. With the death of Marcus Aurelius the building period
m the history of Athens is practically closed, unless we include