ATHENS 63 by Ictinus and Callicrates. It stands on a basis approached by three steps, each 1 ft. 9 in. high, 2 ft. and about 4in. wide. Its breadth, on the upper step, is 1 01-34 ft. ; its length, 228 ft. ; the height to the top of the pediment from the upper step of the stylobate, 59 ft., and with the stylobate, 64 ft. The tem- ple is Doric, oetostyle, or with eight columns at each end, and peripteral, or colonnaded all round, there being 15 columns on each side, not counting those at the corners 40 in all. The length of the secos, or body of the temple, is 193 ft., and its breadth 71 ft., omitting frac- tions. The space between the peristyle and the wall is 9 ft. wide at the sides and 11 ft. at the fronts. The body is divided by a trans- verse wall into two unequal portions : the east- ern was the naos proper, an apartment for the statue of the goddess, 98 ft. in length ; the western, the opisthodomos, which was com- monly used as the treasury of the city, 43 ft. long. Within the peristyle, at each end, were eight columns, 33 ft. high, on a stylobate of two steps. Within the naos was a range of ten Doric columns on each side, and three at the west end, forming three sides of a quad- rangle ; above them, an architrave supported an upper range of columns, which Wheeler, at the time of whose visit they were still stand- ing, calls a kind of gallery ; 14 ft. distant from the western columns is the pavement of Piraic stone, on which the great chryselephantine statue of Athena was placed. Besides the in- ternal decorations, the outside of the temple was ornamented with three classes of sculpture : 1. The sculptures of the pediments, being inde- pendent statues resting upon the deep cornice. The subject of those on the eastern pediment was the birth of Athena ; of those on the west- ern, the contest between Poseidon and Athe- na for the possession of Attica. 2. The groups in the metopes, 92 in number, representing combats of Hercules and Theseus, the Centaurs and Amazons, and perhaps some figures of the Persian war. These groups were executed in high relief. 3. The frieze round the upper border of the cella of the Parthenon contained a representation in low relief of the Panathe- nnic procession. All these classes of sculpture were in the highest style of the art, executed by Phidias himself, or under his immediate di- rection. Most of them were in place when Wheeler visited Athens, in 1670 ; and drawings of the figures in the pediments were made in 1674 by Carrey, a French architect in the suite of the marquis de Nointel, minister of France at the Porte. The interior of the temple was thrown down in 1G87, by the explosion of a bomb in the Turkish powder magazine. The front columns of the peristyle escaped, but eight on the north side and six on the south were overthrown. Morosiui, in endeavoring to remove some of the figures on the pediments, broke them, and otherwise did great mischief. At the beginning of the present century, Lord Elgin dismantled a considerable part of the 57 VOL. H. 5 ' Parthenon of the remaining sculptures, which form the most precious treasures of the Brit- ish museum at the present moment. A ques- ' tioii has been much discussed as to whether any portion of the exterior of the temple was decorated with painting. It is hardly possi- ble to doubt the fact, after a personal exami- nation. Many of the mouldings have traces of beautifully drawn patterns. Under the cor- nices there are delicate tints of blue and red, and of blue in the triglyphs. Architraves and broader surfaces were tinged with ochre. All these figures were executed so delicately and exquisitely, that it is impossible to accept the theory sometimes advanced of their being the work of subsequent barbarous ages. There are other traces of colors on the inner surface of the portion of the walls still standing, which evidently belong to a period after the stone- cutters Eulogius and Apollos converted the Parthenon into' a church. Among the inscrip- tions there is one, found in 1836, containing Buins of the Parthenon. a record of money paid for polychromatic decorations. The Parthenon was built in the best period of architecture, and under the in- spiration of the highest genius in art. Its as- pect is simple, but scientific investigation has not yet exhausted its beauties and refinements. Unexpected delicacies of construction have not ceased to be discovered in it. In 1837 Penne- thorne, an English traveller, noticed the incli- nation of the columns. Hotter, 8chaubert,and others have examined the subject, and pub- lished their observations upon the inclination of the columns and the curved lines of the sty- lobate and architraves. Mr. Penrose, an Eng- lish scholar and architect, visited Athens in 1845, and was afterward sent by the society of dilettanti to complete the investigations he had already commenced. The results were pub- lished in a splendid folio, in 1851. They may be briefly summed up thus: The lines which in ordinary architecture are straight, in the
