The interest consists in its being almost the only perfect survivor of a class of monuments at one time probably very common; but which we are led to believe from the style of ornamentation were generally in brick. It is also suggestive, from its close resemblance to the Buddhist topes in Afghanistan and India; the tall form of those, especially in the first-named country, and their universally domical outline, point unmistakably to some such original as this: and lastly, were I asked to point out the building in the old world which most resembled the stele which Herod erected over the Tombs of the Kings at Jerusalem, in expiation of his desecration of their sanctity,[122] this is the monument to which I should unhesitatingly refer. [Illustration: 123. West View of the Acropolis restored. (From Wordsworth’s ‘Athens.’[123])] BOOK III. CHAPTER I. GREECE. CONTENTS. Historical notice—Pelasgic art—Tomb of Atreus—Other remains—Hellenic Greece—History of the orders—Doric order—the Parthenon—Ionic order—Corinthian order—Caryatides—Forms of temples—Mode of lighting—Municipal architecture—Theatres. CHRONOLOGICAL MEMORANDA. DATES. Atridæ at Mycenæ, from B.C. 1207 to 1104 Return of the Heraclidæ to Peloponnese 1104 Olympiads commence 776 Cypselidæ at Corinth—Building of temple at 655 to 581 Corinth, from Selinus founded, and first temple commenced 626 Ascendency of Ægina—Building of temple at Ægina, 508 to 499 from Battle of Marathon 490 Battle of Salamis 480 Theron at Agrigentum. Commences great temple 480 Cimon at Athens. Temple of Theseus built 469 Pericles at Athens. Parthenon finished 438 Temple of Jupiter at Olympia finished 436 Propylæa at Athens built, from 437 to 432 Selinus destroyed by Carthaginians 410 Erechtheium at Athens finished 409 Monument of Lysicrates at Athens 335 Death of Alexander the Great 324 Till within a very recent period the histories of Greece and Rome have been considered as the ancient histories of the world; and even now, in our universities and public schools, it is scarcely acknowledged that a more ancient record has been read on the monuments of Egypt and dug out of the bowels of the earth in Assyria.