A CITY OF THE GREAT PAST.

Otago Witness, Issue 2902, 27 October 1909, Page 80

A CITY OF THE GREAT PAST.

Bt a Banker.

Apart frorr the maguificen 11 and oftdescribed AcropoLisf ,the modern city ot Athens contains many- supe*b reNca' of the great past, some in a more or less ruined condition, but many in * splenctfd- f andr really -wbnclerftil state of preservation. Of course, th© sumptuous temples upon tha ' summit of the hill of 'the Acropolis present the greatest attraction— the > wonderful Parthenon, the joint work of Pericles and Phddeas! the greatest sculptor the world has ever seen in all time, or perhaps ever will see, the majority of its noble and stupendous marble columns still standing, though a considerable number % were destroyed -by outrageous vandalism during the Ottoman rule in Greece ; v the handsom- | and. superb, ETecth«um,;witb fts^chaste *jhJ , elegant row. of . caryatides, or statues of ma»Supporting the portico/, th* beautiful and delicately graceful '< texnple-.of Victory.', "the Propyleon, with * other^evidences of the " cultured taste and artistic refinement and Attainments of that great age. . But. apart from all. these, noble and. stately ■works of art, in various parts of the city other of the great achievements of theee accomplished masters ir> sculpture . and statuary atoll" exist. ' The temple of Theseus, erected in^oommemoration of the great battle of Marathon, for instance, score* touched by . the ravaging h»nd of time, other tnan >'timt the "pure while of the Pentelican marble" has turned a rich amber tint, is perhaps the best preserved Grecian temple existing: or the Temple of the Winds, with its chaste and fanciful marble friezes; the cure white. ixnnoriniir marble columns of the Temple of Jupiter towering upwards to the wonderful aznta of the Athenian sky; or the theatre of Dionysius, still in eood preservation, tno ns-mas of tb* -old GreeV stall-holders inscribed on their marble aTmehaire. Then the old Athenian market place, with it» marble floor, and its superb Doric or lonio marble columns, must, two thousand ye»r« ago, have- been tv most grand' and palatial - erection," very 'different to a modern marked place with its wooden stalls and plain i iron columns. The Romans, too. have left many svidencea of thefir rule in Greece; their architecture of couree not so chaste and refined as that of the Greeks, but substantial and mapnive; tbouvh in the ancient cemetery some of the sepulchral statuary, -well preserved, notwithstanding its lonK exposure .to the element*, is extremely beautiful and graceful. But to pome, of greater inWpst than all is the> Areopagus, or Mars Hill, that rugs-ed limestone hillock, at the foot oi tbe Acropolis wher<* the -great Aj*»stle. .-to ■ the' •Gen tiler preached Christ cructified to tie' wondering Greeks, iprovinß to them that all their manmade marble fiffures of gods and p-oddesi>«> could never take away their sjns. but ■ that tbe Son of God, taking upon Himself our fle«h, had made an expiation foi us by BuftVria«: as our proxy and -., on behalf of all wT>o for all -time will accept j Him o<i their Redeemer, the Tetrilruticn demanded from , them by Eternal Justice.

— '"'ls anyone waiting on yon?" ask«f£ the sho(. arsiataht to the patient oustonvx*. — "'Aiy husband was — I left him outvde— but I'm afraid iif will have got tired and gono liom«."'