Lykabettos' eyes wander mournfully in the direction of Sparta, whence the desolation had come. Then a little later, pointing up to a rare section of frieze--the rest missing--!
"Zat did not fall down, but stay zere, always ze same--ze honly piece zat Lord Elgin could not take away," and so on and on, through that long sweet afternoon.
I shall not attempt the story of the Acropolis here. The tale of that old citadel which later became literally the pinnacle of Greek architecture already fills volumes. I do not think Lykabettos was altogether just to Pericles, however, or to Lord Elgin, for that matter. True, Pericles did complete the Parthenon and otherwise beautify the Acropolis, and in a general way he was for architecture rather than war.
But I do not find that he ever exhausted the public treasury on those temples, and I do find where his war policy was disregarded when disregard meant defeat. Still, if there had been more money and fewer temples on the Acropolis, the result of any policy might have been different, and there is something pathetically gratifying in the thought that in the end Athens laid down military supremacy as the price of her marble crown.
As for Lord Elgin, it may be, as is said, that he did carry off a carload or so of the beautiful things when he had obtained from the Government (it was Turkish then) permission to remove a few pieces. But it may be added that the things he removed were wholly uncared for at that time and were being mutilated and appropriated by vandals who, but for Elgin, might have robbed the world of them altogether. As it is, they are safe in the British Museum, though I think they should be restored to Greece in this her day of reincarnation.
We stood before the Temple of Victory and gazed out on the Bay of Salamis, where victory was won. We entered the Erechtheum, built on the sacred spot where Athena victoriously battled with Poseidon for the possession of Athens, and we stood in reverential awe before the marble women that have upheld her portico so long. We crossed the relic-strewn space and visited the Acropolis museum, but it was chilly and lifeless, and I did not care for the classified, fragmentary things. Then we entered the little enclosure known as Belvedere and gazed down on the Athens of to-day.