Ruins of Ancient Cities (Vol. 1 of 2): With General and Particular Accounts of Their Rise, Fall, and Present ConditionBucke, Charles
History
Ruins of Ancient Cities (Vol. 1 of 2): With General and Particular Accounts of Their Rise, Fall, and Present Condition
Bucke, Charles
Cities and towns, Ancient
defray the expense of all these things, provided it should be declared
in the public inscriptions, that he only had been at the charge of them.
At these words, the people, either admiring his magnanimity, or fired
with emulation, and determined not to let him engross that glory, cried,
with one voice, that he might take out of the public treasury all the
sums that were necessary for his purpose.
Historians expatiate greatly on the magnificent edifices and other
works; but it is not easy to say whether the complaints and murmurs
raised against him were ill-founded or not. According to Cicero, such
edifices and other works only are worthy of admiration as are of use to
the public, as aqueducts, city walls, citadels, arsenals, sea-ports; and
to these must be added the work, made by Pericles, to join Athens to the
port of Piræus.
Mons. de La Martine speaks of the only two figures that now adorn the
Parthenon thus:--"At the Parthenon there remain only the two figures of
Mars and Venus, half crushed by two enormous fragments of cornice,
which have glided over their heads; but these two figures are to me
worth more than all I have seen in sculpture in my life. They live as no
other canvas or marble has ever lived. One feels that the chisel of
Phidias trembled, burned in his hand, when these sublime figures started
into being under his fingers."
The following observations in regard to colour are by Mr.
Williams:--"The Parthenon, in its present corroded state, impresses the
mind with the idea of its thousands of years. The purity of marble has
disappeared; but still the eye is charmed with the varied livery of
time. The western front is rich in golden hues, and seems as if it had
absorbed the evening beams[85]; little white appears, except the
tympanum and part of the entablature. But the brightest orange colour,
and grey and sulphury hues, combine in sweetest harmony. The noble
shafts of the huge columns are uniformly toned with yellow, of a
brownish cast, admitting here and there a little grey. Casting the eye
to the inner cell, we see dark hues of olive mixed with various tints,
adorning the existing frieze and pillars; and these, opposed to
brilliant white, afford a point and power of expression, which never
fails to please."
Sir J. C. Hobhouse says, Lord Elgin's injuries were these; the taking
off the metopes, the statue over the theatre of Bacchus, and the statues
of the west pediment of the Parthenon; and the carrying away one of the
Caryatides, and the finest of the columns of the Erectheum. "No other,"
continues Sir John, "comes, I believe, within the limits of censure--no
other marbles were detached."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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