THE STORY OF ATHENS.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLVI, Issue XLVI, 29 January 1914, Page 6

THE STORY OF ATHENS.

Like a bright sudden flame the glory of Athens shot up and was gone. While the sculptors still labored on the white figures to be set upon the black Eleusinian marble of the Erechtheum frieze, her days of empire were numbered. Scarce two hundred years and the descendants of the victors of Marathon and Salainis were fawninig on Demetrios of Phaleron, and on. that other Demetrios, the pirate son ot Antigonos, whose pride has left us a memorial ia the Victory of Samothrace. The nail quarks on the eastern architrave of the Parthenon once held in place an inscription, in adulation of Nero. Yet she held her own as mistress of the Arts. Julius Caesar was an undergraduate in her schools. Rome waned and Byzantium became Constantinople, and with the change the despoiling of Athens began. Th© towering figure of Athena Promachos, before which even Attila had quailed,, thinking he saw the goddess herself* before him, was transported to the new capital of the East. After 43u A.D. there is tio more word of the statue of Athena JParthenos,. and the Parthenon became the Church of 'the,. Holy Wisdom, fit successor of; the God"de%s of Wisdom. —Country Life.