O great in our dull world of clay, And great in heaven's undying gleam, Pallas, thy bidding we obey: And bless thee, for mine ears have heard The joy and wonder of a word Beyond my dream, beyond my dream. {275} The play is over, and the sun is setting, so we, with the rest of the Athenians, must wend our way homewards. As we look up at the temples on the Acropolis, bathed in the golden evening light, we feel no surprise at the joy beyond their dreams of the lonely, exiled Greek women, who had heard the joy and wonder of the word that bade them return to a land of such surpassing loveliness. [1] Euripides: _Hippolytus_, translated by Gilbert Murray. [2] From the translation of _Iphigenia in Tauris_ by Gilbert Murray. {276} CHAPTER XV THE TEMPLES OF ATHENS I. GREEK TEMPLES A Greek temple was not a place where people met to worship, and it was never intended to hold a very large number of people. The religious ceremonies were carried on in the great spaces outside the temples, and sacrifices were offered on the altars which were always in the open air. The temple was the dwelling-place of the god and the treasury where the gifts brought by the worshippers were kept. Greek temples varied in size, but they were all built on the same general plan. The whole building was looked upon as the home of the god, and so the chamber in which the statue was placed was the central point, and all the other parts of the building were so constructed that they harmonized with the main purpose of the temple. Just as a Greek play had only one story in it and no other episodes were allowed to distract the attention of the audience from the working out of the plot, so a Greek temple expressed one thought and nothing in the architecture was allowed to disturb it. {277} The earliest form of temple was the shrine, an oblong building with a portico, which had at first only two pillars in front, but which were later extended into a row of pillars across the whole front of the building. Then a portico was built at both ends of the temple, and lastly, in some temples a row of columns was built all round the building, with a double row in the portico at each end. Above the portico was a triangular gable called the pediment, which was usually filled with sculpture.