To speak of the Acropolis of Athens with due Hellenic restraint is difficult for any one who has lived long under its habitual sway. At the first visit three sets of impressions break down the most obdurate impassiveness. The associations acquired by a study of history engender a vicarious but active sympathy with the Greeks themselves. There is an immediate impact of beauty from marble gateway and temples and sculpture which the procession of years has only incorporated more intimately with the beauty of sea and land and circumambient air. And, finally, there is the involuntary sense of coming back to one’s own—to an intellectual birthright. Even the Turkish conquerors did not fail to recognize that all western civilizations consider the Acropolis an integral part of their joint heritage. Dr. Howe quotes from an intercepted letter of Kiutahi Pashaw, the opponent of the Greek patriot, Karaiskakis, in 1826: “The citadel of Athens, as is known to you, was built of old on a high and inaccessible rock; not to be injured by a mine nor accessible to assault.... From it went out of yore many famous philosophers; it has many works of art very old, which make the learned men of Europe wonder; and for this reason all the Europeans and the other nations of unbelievers regard the citadel as their own house.” [Illustration: RENAN ON THE ACROPOLIS From a French painting ] The attitude of the ancient Greeks toward the Acropolis is only casually expressed in their extant literature. No Greek Victor Hugo has given to men distant in place and time as vivid a picture of the Parthenon as we possess of Notre Dame. In trying to imagine what the Greeks saw, as they came up to their citadel, we must first differentiate between the main historical epochs. Of the Acropolis in the earliest age we can form a partial conception. The impressive remains of polygonal masonry still extant, in the massive citadel walls; the traces of the old “Kings’ City” around the Erechtheum, and even within the groundplan of the old Athena temple; the remains of the ancient stairway, northeast of the Erechtheum, leading to the postern gate—all fit in with and fill out a reconstruction based on our conception of other ancient strongholds, like Mycenæ or Tiryns. When we think of the citadel in the age of Pisistratus and the time previous to the Persian Wars we are fairly sure of the main characteristics. We can picture the old Athena temple, simple yet dignified, in the middle of the plateau, adorned with coloured sculptures (some of which may be seen in the Museum to-day), sacred shrines, precincts and altars with a wealth of dedicatory offerings, and also the older Propylæa let in between the massive “Pelasgic” walls and approached by a way that wound down through a complex of outworks to meet the old Agora.