All about the world's ancient capital city.
The Parthenon was begun about 445, some three years before the ostracism of Thucydides. It is therefore probable that his indictment of Pericles was based mainly on the great expenses demanded for this magnificent temple. The designer was Ictinus, the builder Callicrates, and to Pheidias was entrusted the decorative work. It is regarded as the…
For the works of Pericles . . . were perfectly made in so short a time and have continued so long a season. For every one of those which were finished at that time seemed to them to be very ancient touching the beauty thereof, and yet for the grace and continuance of the same…
We may now with advantage look somewhat more closely at the character of the public structures which the Athenians erected with such magnificent public spirit and such extraordinary excellence of taste, and in sight of which they passed to and fro every day. Of the buildings and adornments of the Acropolis we need not speak…
The Greeks possessed, as we have seen, to an exceptionally high degree the vivid anthropomorphic imagination necessary for the expression of their conception of the gods in their art; we have also noticed the conditions which encouraged or restricted such representation, and the influences that affected its nature. Given the desire to represent the character…
Attica was a very small country according to modern notions, and Athens the only large city therein. The land barely covered some 700 square miles, with 40 square miles more, if one includes the dependent island of Salamis. It was thus far smaller than the smallest of our American “states” (Rhode Island = 1250 square…
In spite of its nearness to the sea, the climate of Athens is continental rather than marine in its extremes of temperature. In the three hottest months of summer the thermometer stands at about 95° in the shade, though this heat is made bearable by a cool breeze from the sea at evening. For the…
Modern Athens City of whiteness and brightness. A city of sun and wind, of mountain freshness, and dazzling, sun-dried air. This is how Athens strikes the traveller from northern lands. For the city that first greets him is the modern Athens with its broad, straight, shadeless streets, its blocks of high white houses geometrically arranged,…