DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.803#0055
HISTORY OP ATHENS.' 49
that the more strictly we can approach to the genuine
mythus unencumbered by accessions of spurious
growth, the more exact conception shall we form of
the nature and meaning of antient art, and especially
Athenian art. In order to attain this, the student
should make the antient writers his study, and not be
guided too much by the explanations of those who
prefer their own hypotheses to the trouble of inves-
tigating the truth. The following quotation from
Pausanias (i. 26) is worth attention: "Both the
city and the whole country also are sacred to Athena;
for whatever deities it is customary for the people to
worship in their respective demi, Athena is not the
less held in honour by all. And many years before
the people of the demi were united in one state, they
all worshipped the statue of Athena which was kept in
what was then called the city (Polis), but now merely
the citadel (Acropolis). The story is that it fell from
heaven ; but I shall not examine whether it was so or
not."
The oldest buildings at Athens, next to those on
the Acropolis, were the temple of Olympian Jupiter,
the Pythium, the temple of Ge (Earth), and that of
Dionysus in Limnee, all of which were on the south
side of the Acropolis and in the direction of the foun-
tain Enneaerunos. There were in this part also other
antient temples, says Thucydides (ii. 15), which he
does not specially name ; nor can we determine from
his text to what precise epoch in antiquity he would
refer these edifices. Athenian history is indeed
almost a blank till the time of Solon and Pisistratus,
nor can we go much beyond a conjecture as to its
architectural history before the Persian wars.
Colonel Leake thinks that " it was probably about
the eighth century before the Christian era that the
Athenians built the Heeatompedon, or great temple
oi Minerva, in the Acropolis, which was then ren-
voi, r. g
that the more strictly we can approach to the genuine
mythus unencumbered by accessions of spurious
growth, the more exact conception shall we form of
the nature and meaning of antient art, and especially
Athenian art. In order to attain this, the student
should make the antient writers his study, and not be
guided too much by the explanations of those who
prefer their own hypotheses to the trouble of inves-
tigating the truth. The following quotation from
Pausanias (i. 26) is worth attention: "Both the
city and the whole country also are sacred to Athena;
for whatever deities it is customary for the people to
worship in their respective demi, Athena is not the
less held in honour by all. And many years before
the people of the demi were united in one state, they
all worshipped the statue of Athena which was kept in
what was then called the city (Polis), but now merely
the citadel (Acropolis). The story is that it fell from
heaven ; but I shall not examine whether it was so or
not."
The oldest buildings at Athens, next to those on
the Acropolis, were the temple of Olympian Jupiter,
the Pythium, the temple of Ge (Earth), and that of
Dionysus in Limnee, all of which were on the south
side of the Acropolis and in the direction of the foun-
tain Enneaerunos. There were in this part also other
antient temples, says Thucydides (ii. 15), which he
does not specially name ; nor can we determine from
his text to what precise epoch in antiquity he would
refer these edifices. Athenian history is indeed
almost a blank till the time of Solon and Pisistratus,
nor can we go much beyond a conjecture as to its
architectural history before the Persian wars.
Colonel Leake thinks that " it was probably about
the eighth century before the Christian era that the
Athenians built the Heeatompedon, or great temple
oi Minerva, in the Acropolis, which was then ren-
voi, r. g