Half a mile or more to the south-east, on the banks of the Ilissus, stood a magnificent structure dedicated to Olympian Zeusone of the four largest temples of Greece, ranking with that of Demeter at Eleusis and that of Diana at Ephesus. Its foundations remain, and sixteen of the huge Corinthian columns belonging to its majestic triple colonnade. One of these is fallen. Breaking up into the numerous disks of which it was composedsix and a half feet in diameter by two or more in thicknessand stretching out to a length of over sixty feet, it gives an impressive conception of the size of these columns, said to be the largest standing in Europe. The level area of the temple is now used as a training-ground for soldiers. Close by, and almost in the bed of the stream, which is dry the larger part of the year, issues from beneath a ledge of rock the copious fountain of sweet waters known to the ancients as Calirrhoe. It furnished the only good drinking-water of the city, and was used in all the sacrifices to the gods. A little way above, on the opposite bank of the Ilissus, is the site of the Panathenaic stadium, whose shape is perfectly preserved in the smooth grass-grown hollow with semicircular extremity which here lies at right angles to the stream, between parallel ridges partly artificial.
Northward from the Acropolis, on a slight elevation, is the best-preserved and one of the most ancient structures of Athensthe temple of Theseus, built under the administration of Cimon by the generation preceding Pericles and the Parthenon. It is of the Doric order, and shaped like the Parthenon, but considerably inferior to it in size as well as in execution. It has been roofed with wood in modern times, and was long used as a church, but is now a place of deposit for the numerous statues and sculptured stones of various kindsmostly sepulchral monumentswhich have been recently discovered in and about the city. They are for the most part unimportant as works of art, though many are interesting from their antiquity or historic associations. Among these is the stone which once crowned the burial-mound on the plain of Marathon. It bears a single figure, said to represent the messenger who brought the tidings of victory to his countrymen.
Near the Theseium was the double gate (Dipylum) in the ancient wall of the city whence issued the Sacred Way leading to Eleusis, and bordered, like the Appian Way at Rome, with tombs, many of them cenotaphs of persons who died in the public service and were deemed worthy of a monument in the public burying-ground. Within a few years an excavation has been made through an artificial mound of ashes, pottery and other refuse emptied out of the city, and a section of a few rods of this celebrated road has been laid bare. The sepulchral monuments are ranged on one side rather thickly, and crowd somewhat closely upon the narrow pavement. They are, for the most part, simple, thick slabs of white marble, with a triangular or pediment-shaped top, beneath which is sculptured in low relief the closing scene of the person commemorated, followed by a short inscription. The work is done in an artistic style worthy of the publicity its location gave it. On one of these slabs you recognize the familiar full-length figure of Demosthenes, standing with two companions and clasping in a parting grasp the hand of a woman, who is reclining upon her deathbed. The inscription is, Collyrion, wife of Agathon. On another stone of larger size is a more imposing piece of sculpture. A horseman fully armed is thrusting his spear into the body of his fallen foea hoplite. The inscription relates that the unhappy foot-soldier fell at Corinth by reason of those five words of his!a record intelligible enough, doubtless, to his contemporaries, but sufficiently obscure and provocative of curiosity to later generations.
There are other noted structures at Athens, such as the Choragic Monument of Lysicratesthe highest type of the Corinthian order of architecture, as the Erechtheum is of the Ionic and the Parthenon of the Doricbut want of space forbids any further description of them. Let the American traveler visit Athens with the expectation of finding a city occupying the most charming of sites, and containing by far the most interesting and important monuments of antiquity, in their original position, to be found in the whole world.
J.L.T. PHILLIPS.COMMONPLACE
My little girl is commonplace, you say?
Well, well, I grant it, as you use the phrase
Concede the whole; although there was a day
When I too questioned words, and from a maze
Of hairsplit meanings, cut with close-drawn line,
Sought to draw out a language superfine,
Above the common, scarify with words and scintillate with pen;
But that time's overnow I am content to stand with other men.
It's the best place, fair youth. I see your smile
The scornful smile of that ambitious age
That thinks it all things knows, and all the while
It nothing knows. And yet those smiles presage
Some future fame, because your aim is high;
As when one tries to shoot into the sky,
If his rash arrow at the moon he aims, a bolder flight we see,
Though vain, than if with level poise it safely reached the nearest tree.
A common proverb that! Does it disjoint
Your graceful terms? One more you'll understand:
Cut down a pencil to too fine a point,
Lo, it breaks off, all useless, in your hand!
The child is fitted for her present sphere:
Let her live out her life, without the fear
That comes when souls, daring the heights of dread infinity, are tost,
Now up, now down, by the great winds, their little home for ever lost.
My little girl seems to you commonplace
Because she loves the daisies, common flowers;
Because she finds in common pictures grace,
And nothing knows of classic music's powers:
She reads her romance, but the mystic's creed
Is something far beyond her simple need.
She goes to church, but the mixed doubts and theories that thinkers find
In all religious truth can never enter her undoubting mind.
A daisy's earth's own blossombetter far
Than city gardener's costly hybrid prize:
When you're found worthy of a higher star,
'Twill then be time earth's daisies to despise;
But not till then. And if the child can sing
Sweet songs like "Robin Gray," why should I fling
A cloud over her music's joy, and set for her the heavy task
Of learning what Bach knew, or finding sense under mad Chopin's mask?
Then as to pictures: if her taste prefers
That common picture of the "Huguenots,"
Where the girl's hearta tender heart like hers
Strives to defeat earth's greatest powers' great plots
With her poor little kerchief, shall I change
The print for Turner's riddles wild and strange?
Or take her storiessimple tales which her few leisure hours beguile
And give her Browning's _Sordello_, a Herbert Spencer, a Carlyle?
Her creed, too, in your eyes is commonplace,
Because she does not doubt the Bible's truth
Because she does not doubt the saving grace
Of fervent prayer, but from her rosy youth,
So full of life, to gray old age's time,
Prays on with faith half ignorant, half sublime.
Yes, commonplace! But if I spoil this common faith, when all is done
Can deist, pantheist or atheist invent a better one?
Climb to the highest mountain's highest verge,
Step off: you've lost the petty height you had;
Up to the highest point poor reason urge,
Step off: the sense is gone, the mind is mad.
"Thus far, and yet no farther, shalt thou go,"
Was said of old, and I have found it so:
This planet's ours, 'tis all we have; here we belong, and those are wise
Who make the best of it, nor vainly try above its plane to rise.
Nay, nay: I know already your reply;
I have been through the whole long years ago;
I have soared up as far as soul can fly,
I have dug down as far as mind can go;
But always found, at certain depth or height,
The bar that separates the infinite
From finite powers, against whose strength immutable we beat in vain,
Or circle round only to find ourselves at starting-point again.
If you must for yourself find out this truth,
I bid you go, proud heart, with blessings free:
'Tis the old fruitless quest of ardent youth,
And soon or late you will come back to me.
You'll learn there's naught so common as the breath
Of life, unless it be the calm of death:
You'll learn that with the Lord Omnipotent there's nothing commonplace,
And with such souls as that poor child's, humbled, abashed, you'll hide your face.