DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5541#0068
40
TEMPLE OK VICTORY.
[CtiAr. in.
tctrastyle, having four columns in front, and four behind;
all of which have been discovered in the accumulation of
ruins round it, together with their bases and plinths, some
of which were still in situ; the frieze has also been found
in the same neighbourhood, with the exception of four
pieces which had already been removed to England. By
order of the government, workmen were busily employed in
restoring the building and clearing the foundations; but
whatever may have been its intrinsic merits, it must have
materially injured the symmetry of the Acropolis and the
Propylsea, inasmuch as the left or southern wing is thrown
further back than that to the north, which according to
Pausanias was the picture-gallery. From this circumstance,
I am inclined to think that the temple of Victory, although
Ionic, was more ancient than the Propylaea, the left wing
of which appears to have been purposely placed so as not
to interfere with some sacred edifice already in possession of
this spot.
Another discovery of great interest had been lately made
at the S.E. corner of the Parthenon. In removing the
materials which had accumulated round its rustic base, a
bed of marble chippings and fragments was found, seven
feet thick, beneath which was a mass of ashes and charred
wood, one foot in thickness, mixed up with numerous frag-
ments of pottery, under which again were said to have been
found the remains of a building or temple in terra cotta,
but which I did not see. The marble chippings were no
doubt derived from the preparing and cutting the stone for
the Parthenon, and the charred wood and ashes bore witness
to the existence and destruction of some earlier structure,
perhaps the Parthenon burnt by the Persians. In the
ancient walls which still surround the Acropolis towards the
town, the fragments of numerous columns were introduced,
for the purpose, as it is said, of recalling to the recollection
of the Athenians the indignities they had suffered on that
occasion.
My excursions about Athens were suddenly stopped,
three days alter my arrival, by a violent attack of fever,
TEMPLE OK VICTORY.
[CtiAr. in.
tctrastyle, having four columns in front, and four behind;
all of which have been discovered in the accumulation of
ruins round it, together with their bases and plinths, some
of which were still in situ; the frieze has also been found
in the same neighbourhood, with the exception of four
pieces which had already been removed to England. By
order of the government, workmen were busily employed in
restoring the building and clearing the foundations; but
whatever may have been its intrinsic merits, it must have
materially injured the symmetry of the Acropolis and the
Propylsea, inasmuch as the left or southern wing is thrown
further back than that to the north, which according to
Pausanias was the picture-gallery. From this circumstance,
I am inclined to think that the temple of Victory, although
Ionic, was more ancient than the Propylaea, the left wing
of which appears to have been purposely placed so as not
to interfere with some sacred edifice already in possession of
this spot.
Another discovery of great interest had been lately made
at the S.E. corner of the Parthenon. In removing the
materials which had accumulated round its rustic base, a
bed of marble chippings and fragments was found, seven
feet thick, beneath which was a mass of ashes and charred
wood, one foot in thickness, mixed up with numerous frag-
ments of pottery, under which again were said to have been
found the remains of a building or temple in terra cotta,
but which I did not see. The marble chippings were no
doubt derived from the preparing and cutting the stone for
the Parthenon, and the charred wood and ashes bore witness
to the existence and destruction of some earlier structure,
perhaps the Parthenon burnt by the Persians. In the
ancient walls which still surround the Acropolis towards the
town, the fragments of numerous columns were introduced,
for the purpose, as it is said, of recalling to the recollection
of the Athenians the indignities they had suffered on that
occasion.
My excursions about Athens were suddenly stopped,
three days alter my arrival, by a violent attack of fever,