A Trip Abroad: An Account of a Journey to the Earthly Canaan and the Land of the Ancient Pharaohs; To Which Are Appended a Brief Consideration of the Geography and History of Palestine, and a Chapter on Churches of Christ in Great BritainJanes, Don Carlos
Religion
A Trip Abroad: An Account of a Journey to the Earthly Canaan and the Land of the Ancient Pharaohs; To Which Are Appended a Brief Consideration of the Geography and History of Palestine, and a Chapter on Churches of Christ in Great Britain
Janes, Don Carlos
Churches of Christ -- Great Britain; Palestine -- Description and travel; Voyages and travels
Leaving the hotel and going through Constitution Square, up Philhellene
Street, past the Russian and English churches, I came to the Zappeion, a
modern building put up for Olympic exhibitions. The Arch of Hadrian, a
peculiar old structure, twenty-three feet wide and about fifty-six feet
high, stands near the Zappeion, and formerly marked the boundary between
ancient Athens and the more modern part of the city. Passing through
this arch, I soon came to what remains of the temple of the Olympian
Jupiter, which was commenced long before the birth of Christ and
finished by Hadrian about A.D. 140. Originally this temple, after that
of Ephesus said to be the largest in the world, had three rows of eight
columns each, on the eastern and western fronts, and a double row of one
hundred columns on the northern and southern sides, and contained a
statue of Jupiter, overlaid with gold and ivory. Its glory has long
since departed, and only fifteen of the columns are now standing. A
little farther on is the Stadium, with an arena over five hundred and
eighty feet long, and one hundred and nine feet wide. It was originally
constructed by the orator Lycurgus, about three hundred and fifty years
before Christ, but was being rebuilt when I was there. The seats are on
both sides and around the circular end of the arena, being made on the
slope of the hill and covered with clean, white, Pentelic marble, making
a beautiful sight.
On the way to Mars' Hill and the Acropolis I passed the monument of
Lysicrates, the theater of Bacchus, and the Odeon. This first-mentioned
theater is said to have been "the cradle of dramatic art," the
masterpieces of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and others having been rendered
there. The Odeon of Herod Atticus differed from other ancient theaters
in that it was covered.
Mars' Hill is a great, oval-shaped mass of rock which probably would not
be called a hill in America. The small end, which is the highest part of
it, lies next to the Acropolis, and its summit is reached by going up a
short flight of steps cut in the limestone, and well preserved,
considering their age. The bluff on the opposite side from these steps
is perhaps thirty or forty feet high and very rugged. The rock slopes
toward the wide end, which is only a few feet above the ground. I
estimate the greatest length of it to be about two hundred yards, and
the greatest width one hundred and fifty yards, but accurate
measurements might show these figures to be considerably at fault. I
have spoken of the hill as a rock, and such it is--a great mass of hard
limestone, whose irregular surface, almost devoid of soil, still shows
where patches of it were dressed down, perhaps for ancient altars or
idols. The Areopagus was a court, which in Paul's time had jurisdiction
in cases pertaining to religion.
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