Picturesque Sketches of Greece and Turkey

by Aubrey de Vere, T S Wentworth (Foreword by)

Overview

This book, from the series Primary Sources: Historical Books of the World (Asia and Far East Collection), represents an important historical artifact on Asian history and culture. Its contents come from the legions of academic literature and research on the subject produced over the last several hundred years. Covered within is a discussion drawn from many areas of study and research on the subject. From analyses of the varied geography that encompasses the Asian continent to significant time periods spanning centuries, the book was made in an effort to preserve the work of previous generations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781241081355
Publisher:	Primary Sources, Historical Collections
Publication date:	02/01/2011
Series:	Primary Sources, Historical Collections
Pages:	338
Product dimensions:	7.44(w) x 9.69(h) x 0.70(d)

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER III. THE ACROPOLIS OF ATHENS. Relation of the Acropolis to AthensDimensions of the Acropolis The Walls of ThemistoclesThe PropyleaThe Temple of Victory without Wings"The ParthenonThe Panathenaic Procession Fragmentary Sculpture. You will easily believe that my first visit at Athens, was to the Acropolis. As Athens was the intellectual centre, and remains to this day the great exponent of Greece, so was the Acropolis, crowned with its votive temples and commemorative sculptures, the high imaginative embodiment of Athens itself. It was Athens idealised ; exhibited as it lived in the imagination of an Athenian, and as it has survived in the heart of the world. Whatever existed in the city below stood revealed in a more glorious unity, and free from all encumbering pettiness of detail, in the city above. There Art was represented by the noblest works of Phidias. Therewar was represented by the defensive Propylea, the Minerva Promachos, and the golden shields with which (the offerings of successive conquerors returning from many a well-fought field) the eastern end of the Parthenon was adorned. There commerce was represented in the sacred Treasury, included within the walls of the Parthenon. There the most sacred traditions and religious affections were represented ; for there, amid other memorials, was the olive-tree which rose out of the earth at the command of Minerva, when she contended in rivalship with Neptune; the mystic plant, parent of every tree that supplied the home of each Athenian with its frugal repast, or lighted the lamp beside his hearth. It was thus that everything great and noble at Athens found a representative in the aerial city that crowned theAcropolis: but on that sacred height there was no demagogue feeding the people with wind; no j...