Vacation days in GreeceRichardson, Rufus B. (Rufus Byam)
History
Vacation days in Greece
Richardson, Rufus B. (Rufus Byam)
Greece -- Description and travel
What Greek name the Concordia Temple had is unknown. Holm suspects
that it is the temple of Demeter, although the substructure under a
church farther up the hill has generally been assigned to her. It owes
its excellent preservation to the fact that in the Middle Ages it was
turned into a church of St. Gregory of the turnips, whoever he was,
when the cella walls were perforated with a series of arches on each
side, to let in the light.
The next best preserved is the temple of Hera Lacinia, in the most
commanding situation of all, having the precipice, which is here higher
and more abrupt, on its east front, as well as on its south side. It
is also considerably the highest of the line. Its present name is
surely wrong. It is quite likely to have been a temple of Poseidon,
a divinity held in honor at Akragas, a horse-rearing as well as a
maritime city. The temple of Herakles is more interesting than either
of these, although only one column stands upright; the rest lie as they
were thrown down by an earthquake, in such good order that it would be
easy to set them up again; and the result would be much more important
than Cavalari's so-called temple of Castor and Pollux, which, being a
corner of a temple put together out of two different temples, should be
properly called "Cavalari's folly." The temple of Herakles is rightly
named. It was identified as being at the sacred gate and near the
agora. It is much larger than the two temples already described, and
shows, like them, traces of a great conflagration which reddened the
yellow stone in places. Its ground plan is very clear but peculiar, and
so extremely interesting. Sicily is the place of all others to study
the construction of the Greek temple.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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