THE RUINS OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL MONUMENTS OF GREECE: WORK DIVIDED INTO TWO PARTS, where we consider, in the first, these monuments on the side of history; and in the second, on the side of Architecture.
FIRST PART.
The measures taken in Rome, to make a successful trip to Greece, I went to Venice on April i, 17J4, to await the departure of Mister Knight Donat, who had granted me the honour of accompanying him in his Embassy at the Porte. My wishes were soon satisfied. I came to warn there on May from this Ambassador, (called Baile by the Venetians,) to return to me the same day on the Saine Charles, a vessel of 80 pieces of cannon; he embarked there in the evening with the whole suite, & we left at night.
We first went to Castel-Nuovo on the coast of Istria, a fortress where the warships which leave Venice or return there, take or deposit their artillery, because of the shallows which surround this City. Taking advantage of the time during which, we armed our ship at Cassel-Nuovo, we were to see Pola, (who is only forty thousand away), Count Spolverine of Verpnne, Prjuli noble Venetian, and me.
This City, although not very significant today, was formerly a famous Republic as different inserts & medals prove. It even seems that the Arts have come out of it, by several Monuments that we still see there, and particularly by two magnificent Temples, little dazzling from each other, & entirely similar. One is so ruined & so embarrassed in hovels that it has escaped the research of Miss Spon & Wheler, famous modern Voyageurs; the other is almost entirely: I will give the description.
Historical description of the Temple of Poia in, Istria.
V / E Temple, represented Plate I, can be put by its beauty to the rank of the most precious-relies of Antiquity. The inscription of the rule tells us that it ruts aerie an ivome, <x a Auguue; tiquité. The inscription on its frieze informs us that it was dedicated to Rome, & to Augustus; it also teaches us by the titles of Divine & Father of the Fatherland ', which are given there to this Prince, that this Building was given to him at the end of his reign. This. was in fact at that time that he received these titles from the Senate. They even went so far as to call him God. Alii Jmperatorespojl mortem inter Does relativeint; Augusius autcm v'vuus led b.
It is EASY to judge, by the magnificence of this Temple, that it was in recognition of what was important that the City of Pola raised it to this Emperor: the inscription does not mark of what nature was this benefit; the situation of the Monument makes him speculate. It was the custom of the Ancients to build the Temples of their Divinities in different places, depending on the favours they thought they would receive. They put those of Jupiter, Juno, Minerva, whom they regarded as their guardian Gods, in the most eminent place beyond the City, so that they were discovered from all sides. Apollo & T3acchus, who presided over the fine arts, had theirs near the Theatres, that of Mars was located in a field outside the City, and that of Venus near the gates. There is therefore every reason to believe that the inhabitants of Pola, by erecting a Temple to Augustus in their public square, a place dedicated to Mercury, to Isis, & to Serapis, who presided over trade & industry, wanted to make him the same honour as these Divinities, because he had granted them some great privileges in their trade. Be that as it may, this Temple strikes with admiration for its beautiful disposition, for the happy proportions of its main buildings & its parts, & for its ornaments. He is of Corinthian order and of the kind of those which Vitruvius calls prostyle that he has columns only in his saçade. We have made his aspe majeslueux by raising it on several steps, and the variety of marbles of which it is consire, still produces an effect pleasing to the eyes now; that of the columns is very beautiful. It is red, spotted with white. These columns are smoothed, but their capitals are decorated with oak & olive leaves. This peculiarity of two kinds of leaves in the same tent is very remarkable; perhaps the Architecture did not employ them without design. We know that the Ro-hands awarded Augustus the olive crown for giving peace to the Universe, and that of oak for preserving the citizens of the Republic. The entablature of the order is rich, and the profiles are very elegant. Nothing is of better taste & more beautiful execution 'than the ornament which reigns on the frieze of the lateral faces of this Temple. The pediment's medallion is oval; there Sculpture is so ruined, that it was impossible for me to discover the subject which was represented there. I'm not talking about different features of this building, which may be of interest to Architects; they will be found in the second edition of this work.
The Architecture of the other Monuments of this City is too mediocre, for me to give here the DesfeinSj.Serlio having already done so; but they have peculiarities which I do not believe should be overlooked. The triumphal arch high at Caius Sergius is adorned with coupled colonies, as seen in the frontispiece of the Temple of the Sun in Palmyra: unique examples. In Antiquity; & the Arena, whose bleachers were made of wood, & were placed during the holiday season between two stone enclosures which contained them, resembled in part the first Amphitheatres which were only of wood, & those which were built in the suite all in stone. Pompey the first had one built in Rome of the latter kind; & Tacitus reports that he was blamed by the Senate.
After satisfying our curiosity at Pola, we returned to Castel-Nuovo, from where we set sail on May ij. We advanced in two days to Pelagose, Auguste, & Porno, sinful reefs in the middle of the Adriatic Golphe, & which make navigation difficult. Two continuous currents further increase the danger of this Golphe, one goes from its mouth by splitting the coasts of Albania, Dalmatia & Istria to Venice; the other, on the contrary, returns from Venice to the mouth, along the coast of Italy. Beyond the three
reefs of which I have just spoken, we joined towards Cattaro a frigate intended to accompany the vessel from Ambassador to Tenedos.
LA "Greece, so celebrated by the Poets, & whose coasts we followed, was the scene of events so remarkable that the smallest isse, the smallest cap that we discover there, reminds the spirit of interesting historical features. We saw far the coasts of Albania, Durazo & Polina, formerly famous under the names of Dyrrachium & Apollonia. This is where Pompée & Césàr disembarked; Pumped up to defend in Greece the freedom of his expiring homeland; Cesar to destroy it, & overthrow by a horrible attack this Republic, smoker who had been so Aurisiante during several centuries. Àîke's Pot in a, having left the Adriatic Golphe, we left on our left the Acroceraunian mountains, today called the Chimera Mountains, & inhabited by descendants of the Macedonians. These bold felterates, claiming the inaccessible place they occupy, make them freed from the domination of the Great Lord, and live, as they can, from origanages, selling Christians to Turks, & Turks to Christians. Having woolen these mountains behind us, we were not long in arriving at Corfu ", where we had a fortnight's rest in festivals and in feslins. As soon as we left this island, a favourable wind carried us near that of Sainte-Maure, formerly Lefkada, & the old A & ium & Nicopolis Promontories, finally in this place where Marc-Antoine yielding to fortune & love, fled Au-gusle, to follow Cleopatra. much desired landing between Sainte-Maure & Cephalonia, in order to see, at least with our glasses, this small rock of Itaque illuminated by Homer: but our wish could not be fulfilled. Having therefore doubled Kefalonia & touched to Zante1 ", we leave the blades, June 23 at night, on our right the Ideas Strouvades. These issues, formerly called Strophades, which the Poets pretended to be inhabited by Harpies, they are today by Greek Monks. To our left we discovered at daybreak, at the entrance to the port of Pyle, that of Sphaeteria, famous for the victory that the Athenians won there over the Spartans. The cape of Sapience appeared shortly after to our eyes, Mothone ancient city was located there: we saw there a Temple raised to Minerva Anemotis, or what efi: the same, to Minerva who presides over the winds. Pausanias reports that it was Diomedes who consecrated him to this Divinity, so that it would put an end to the violent winds which wreaked great havoc in this place. For us, there was no reason to complain, & • if we had had some wishes to make, it would have been so that they continued to favour us. Because having passed in three hours from this cape to the old Promontory of Ténare, & recognized in the same day Cythere, isse arid & deserted, hardly worthy of the stay that made the Goddess of beauty there, we entered the Archipelago. The same wind having continued all night, the next day we saw the Cyclades & the ruins of the Temple of Minerva Suniade, which we discover from far away on the tip of Cape Column. Full of joy we expected to be in two days in Tenedos, & very soon in Constantinople. But as nothing could have been more uncertain than the projects that we make at sea, and that the Sailors are almost as often mistaken in their prediâons as the makers of almanacs; in spite of our hopes, & the walks of our Pilots, the wind turned from South-Ouelt to the North, & forced us to retire to a Port which would lie on the coast of Attica, opposite the Isse Longue, at six miles northwest of Cape Colonne.
We anchored in front of a plain surrounded by hills, which may be eight or nine miles in turn; it has a mountain in the south a little higher than these hills, and which extends from this place to the entrance to the golphe d'Engia, very close to Cape Colonne. We did not doubt that this mountain was that of Laurium, which Pausanias saw after Cape Sunium, going from Rome to Athens by sea; but with this difference, that entering the golphe Saroni-que, he saw this mountain in the North, & that we see it on the contrary in the South. This discovery did not satisfy us; we wanted to know the name that the ancients gave to the place where we were; we looked for it in vain in Pausanias; we did not draw more light from Plutarch who speaks of the mountain of Laurium & the silver mines, in the Lives of Themistocles & Nicias: but finally Xenophon, in his Treatise on Income, told us what these other Writers let us ignore. In the northern part of the mountain of Lau-rium, says this Author, were open the silver mines near the fortress of Thoricion: the other mines were located in the southern part of this same mountain, at sixty stages from there , near Anaphlislus. The relationship of the ancient name of this fortress with that of Thoricos, which the modern Greeks still give to the Port where we anchored, seems to prove enough that this place of Attica whose name we were looking for was called Thoricion.
Walking through the plain in front of which we were, we discovered some frag-
See the description of this Island in the Travel of Gtcce de Spon & de Wheler. Here, however, are some peculiarities of the Fortifications of its capital, which is called Auitl Cotsou, of which they have been unable to speak. This city, situated on a tongue of land, which juts out into the sea, was not deserved from the coast which is attached to the Isse in the river, when CCS travelers saw it, only by a baslion called the New Fortress. This spell was dominated, as well as vilje by two mountains, one named Abraham, the other Saint Salvator: failure of which the Tutcs, who made the seat of it in 1716, knew so well prositet, that having established batteries on these two pjonts, they baitont the city & Ja new spell, they even came up to plantet ladders to this spell, but they found too short. The Venetians to whom help came, drew a foolishness when appropriate under the orders of Marshal Schulerrt. village, that they ruined all the works of the Turks, & sorcered them to raise the siege. The Republic, in recognition of the important importance that this sameux General had given him on this occasion, had him raise a Statue in the citadel of this city. She also ordered to yawn & sort out the two mountains that dominated it: what has been done, & currently makes Cotsou one of the most beautiful places in Europe.
See the description of this Isse in Spon & Wheler
column men ', which gave us Temperance, from. find some interesting piece of Architecture. The extreme curiosity that I had of learning from what this power could be like these born colonists made me form. The plan to have a part of the wood felled in which I could still see some very thick marbles, & to excavate to the bottom a few parts of the columns which I still live standing. M. l'Arnbassadeur approved. very much my idea, and he even had the goodness to have me accompany by a "fairly good number of his soldiers-Slavons-who took all the necessary instruments-to fulfill" my project.
IT '& ESÇRIP.TÏÔÈd'An Ancient Temple very-rvinê ¦ :, found At the foot of, 14, Ma NT.-AGN-S DE L; Ap, RlpM.
"Whatever this temple; or rather the. Few ruins which emestestént, represented: Plate Ili do not announce a beautiful building, 'however I dare to say' that I had more pleasure in seeing it, than many-of others more magnificent. I was particularly suggested in my trip to: discover: to cover, as much as I could, the progress of Architecture in Greece; & it seems that this first monument which hasàrd me, also the oldest of all of its kind that I saw after.
: lh was sinie; to the north of the mountain of Laurîum in the plain of which in aldéja spoke, 'So close to the place where Xehophon says; that was the fortress of Thoricion:; its length; which I could not know precisely, extended from North to South; & its width "roof of 36 feet 8 inchesl I searched - up to the foot of some of these columns, which were not. entirely - felled; they were not at the base point but were simply so-called uria: border of marble, which was> no more; wider than their lower diameter. I was very much surprised, having made to reside on one side & the other of this', flower bed in different places & with enough extent on the side of the interior of the Temple, to find absolutely nothing which. could indicate to me that he never had any paving stone.
It was not without difficulty that I succeeded in taking in the woods, with some precision, the height of the columns; I only succeeded by measuring his marquee very ruined, and successively all the seats, which were little disturbed in their fall. I saw in the debris of this Temple no inscription which could enlighten me on the time of that construction. But as it was also impossible for me to find no fragment of architrave, frieze & cornice, that the proportion of its columns was very short, & that a second very whole capital (which I discovered after more than a day of research ) bears the imprint of the first idea that men had by inventing the Doric order and I judged, as I have already said, that this Temple was of very remote antiquity. I even imagined that all the parts of his entablature may well have been made of wood, as was done in the early days of the Architecture.
f. WHAT could still support this feeling, it is that having blown up an afsise of these colonies, with levers, - to see how they were united, I found a singularity that made me very happy. 'est. that they were linked with keys of a red wood, quite hard ,, which was biëji eerisesv.é: -; The' holes which were in each seat in which they engaged, -were three inches wide, & four inches deep. The marble of this Temple was very imperfect.
"X'iB'tE'L'.OS-GÙE. Which we discover in the same view, behind our little girl.,. Is too famous not to speak about it. Strabo, Pliny & Pomponius-Mela name it Hélène or Cra-naée. Paùsanias, in his Attiques, calls her ausli Hélène, but he places elsewhere the isle which carries the last nickname., Vis-à-yis.Gythéé, he says in his Laconic 'isle de Crahàée where Homère says that Paris having kidnapped Hélène,' enjoys its conquest for the first time. Anyway, "Throw: isle.ést àbsolurrierit deserted, as it was already in Strabo's time. Tournefort. 'In his. Traveling from the Levant, having reason to raise Pliny who places it at the same (sinance of Cape CsilèhnE &' de l'isle 'de Zeâ;' it 'is five miles from the cape, & -to twelve from Zea.
We left Attica fourteen days after arriving there, & having set off (ix days at anchor near the southernmost cape of Ségre de Négrepont, in the place where the ancient city of Caristos was, we set out, & two days later we anchored between the saddle of Tenedos and the shore of Troy.
The Bailes of Venice do not have the privilege, like the Ambassadors of France & of England, to go as far as the port of Constantinople with their vessels. The Turks having removed from the Venetians the most beautiful issues of the Archipelago, & still fearing some sirpriie on their part, send from the Galleys to take their Ambassador & all his suite to the port of Tenedos: we found there indeed two who were waiting for us. No sooner were we embarked there, that the wind having become contrary, it seemed to favour the project that we had formed some people & me to go to see the ruins of Troys; but the Ambassador did not allow us to do so, having said that he was running brigands on this coast. We did not even have the satisfaction of visiting the City of Tenedos, in front of which we stayed for two weeks at anchor. There reigned there a violent shovel, from which we were preserved only by an elpece of miracle, "the Levantis of our galleys going to this city daily, &. Then coming to mingle with us.
- The wind having become favourable to us, we moved away without regret from these famous places G, & having directed our route towards the North, we entered the famous Strait of Hellespont or Dardanelles canal *, which separates the Donkey Europe. We sail between two castles which defend the entrance, and which are three miles from its mouth & eight of them between them. They salute us, as well as two others, that we found twelve miles beyond, & we did not see without fear the cannonballs fired from these slow down our galleys, & palser from Europe to Asia, & from Asia to Europe, by forming ricochets on the surface of the water11: these second castles being only two miles from each other, & much narrowing the channel in this place, so much increase the current which comes from the Black Sea, which our galleys, which had overcome by force of oars the headwind until then, were forced to stop there. The wind having subsided, we continued our route, & having relaxed in some places of this channel, & at the isles which are in the middle of the Sea of ??Marmora, so that at the port of the ancient Heraclea, we finally arrived at Constantinople on September 13, 1754, after having suffered much for fifty-two days on the Turkish galleys.
Constantinople looks like the Capital of the World; & there is no city on earth that one can compare to it for its plate, nor which is more advantageously lit, to undermine a large part of this hemisphere. If the alpa of this city is very beautiful, the interior, on the contrary, is very unpleasant. I had reason to convince myself of this by going to see Antiquities, the Royal Mosques, some Kiosks, the Aqueducts, & c. I also saw during my stay at Constantinople the magnificent feast of little Bairam, & M. le Baile did me the honour of being one of the people he chose to accompany him to his Audience with the Great Lord.
The day of this ceremony, having been led to the Divan by the Visir, he returned the Juslice there before us. He made us after dinner in this room, from which having entered the second courtyard of the Serrail, we were dressed in cafetans, & we entered the number of twelve, supported, or rather held under the arms each by two Capigi-Bachi , even in the Great Lord's courtroom. The Sultan was placed on a magnificent throne; he had the Visir standing on his right, his hands crossed over his stomach with great respect; to his left the Ambassador seated on a small stool, & we who had the honour of being in his suite, we were standing behind him. By this arrangement the Ambassador did not see the Grand Lord from the front, but only in profile. The deepest silence reigned in this room. When the Drogman interpreted the Baile's Speech, he was pale & trembling. If these Interpreters are daring enough not to be intimidated when they speak to the Great Lord, they claim to appear by respeâ; several of them having lost their lives for a misplaced word. The Great Lord having heard the compliment of
'See the beautiful description of this Canal S: from what we see most remarkable, in Tournesort, Voyage du Levant.
The Turks claim that several cannons from the castles of the Çardanelles were probed by the order of Muhammad II in his campdevanrBaby! One: they are so big that their mouth that we are insurmounted is more than two feet open. Here is what we observed there: all these cannons are chambered; they are of two sgal parts, one on the side of the mouth, the yard on the side of the culassc:
the circumference of the barrel at the place of their junction, has two lantern pins which are body with each piece of the barrel & ex-cedes its general size, the thickness of their suseaux, that makes me suspect that a parts of the barrel could be screwed & the other in nut, & that by engaging these lanrernes in the teeth of a jack, or of a wheel, & seizing to turn each of the parts ïrt opposite direction, one made maintenance the screw in the nut, until the parts are well united.
Pambasseur, contented himself with saying a few words to the Visir, who made all the answer for him. 'I'm not talking about all the diamonds, all the rubies, all the pearls of the throne, & carpets spun with gold & silk <which cover the pavement of this room & that of its halls; & I only said a word about Constantinople, where three months of stay, and the opportunity I had to see the most beautiful ceremonies there, gave me the means to make a very large number of remarks. But if it costs travelers who have been strongly struck by all the places they have seen, and all the ceremonies in which they have been, to remove the description, it does not cost the less. the & eur of life-v when they are moved, & that they harm the main object of a work. I therefore hasten to speak on the day of my departure from this city. It was marked by one of these events which in Turkey overthrows in an instant the highest fortunes, and often raise the men of the vilest jobs to the first dignities of the Empire. The Grand-Seigneur was detained at Serrâil because of his shoulder ache; the people began to murmur, as they usually do, when they do not see them on Fridays at the Mosque. However, everything was done in the Serrail that one could to impose on the health of this Prince; the Kiosks were open as if it had been there; one even pushes concealment to the point of causing a man who resembled him to ride on horseback on a terrace of this Palace which looks at the port. But finally, the people still walling, the Sultan took the resolution, however ill he was, to go on Friday, December 13 to the Mosque. No sooner had he arrived there than he took a weakness; they enveloped him in a pelis, and transported him to the Serrail, where he expired at two o'clock in the afternoon. This news spread - as early in Constantinople & in its suburbs & was confirmed by a general discharge "; from the Serrail artillery, followed soon after by another more considerable one which announced the advent of 'Osman III to the throne. At the same time, when I embarked at the port of Tophànà-V'ily, a crowd of Turks ran in great turmoil; he passed under our side: many small boats laden with Greeks, Jews & Armenians', who withdrew to the countryside, fearful of some revolution: the disorder The terror was painted on their faces.
Such was the state of Constantinople, when we weighed anchor and set sail for Smirne. I spent little time in the latter city; & having visited different islands of the Archipelago, not very interested in my object, I went to that of Miconi, from where I made frequent trips to Delos.
This isle, the centre of the Cyclades, which gave birth to Apollo, and where the Greeks thought they were staying, is today entirely deserted and uncultivated. Its dual soreness comes in part from its past magnificence: marbles cover it from all sides. But the famous Temple that Eriâonius, son of Triopas, was there to raise to Apollo is particularly distinguished by the considerable space occupied by its debris. He became, after that of Delphi, the most august of all those who were believed to be this God. We read on sbn frontispiece 'a long series of worms, which show various properties of plants, and how to use them to cure all kinds of diseases. The individuals and the peoples of Greece persuaded that there were frequent semi-scrapers there, where they sent the most famous sacrifices there at will. Even the Hyperborean, who among the Greeks passed for the most northerly peoples, had the first fruits of their fruits presented by the Athenians. Athens was given the name sacred to the vessel which carried the ostrands of this Republic; we expect the execution of all death sentences, '. from the day of his departure until that of his return. We know that the support of Socrates was postponed for a month for this reason. Finally, the Republic of Athens consecrated the care of this important ceremony only to its more illustrious magistrates.
This Sirevere Temple of the Greeks survived long after its foundation, and even long after the ruin of Tille, as we learn from Pausanias. He reports that in his time it would have been deserted, without the garrison that the Athenians maintained there to guard it. But as the most famous edisices end in the end the laws of time, or the outrage of barbarism, the famous Temple of Apollo, the first, according to Vitruvian, where we imitated the lyre of this God, in the ornament which later took the name. Triglyph; finally this edifice, one of the masterpieces of Greece, now presents only a heap of column debris so consusual that it was impossible for me to make a view of it. There are indeed a few capitals, but we do not see any fragments of architrave, frieze & cornices. We still notice that while still the pedestal of the Statue of God which, in Plutarch's report, was given by the Naxiotes ", The inscription that we read there proves it. According to the same Author, a palm tree consecrated to this God by Nicîas, in tom - knocking over this Statue knocked it over, so that which an English Captain lost by breaking up towards the end of the century by wanting to take away a few parts, was undoubtedly a Statue which had been substituted for that of the Naxiotes. my research in Delos, I left this isse & returned ensin with great joy in TAttique, having arrived in the first days of February in Porto-rasti, from where I left on the field for Athens.
On arriving in this town, I went first to see M. Leoson our Council, for whom I had such powerful recommendations, that he never wanted me to take up any other dwelling than his house. It filled me with politeiïe during all the time of my stay in this city. And having communicated to him the object of my trip to Athens, we decided together that the first step I would take was to pay a visit to the Disdar or Commander of the citadel. He was then the most considerable officer in the city, the governor having been put on it shortly before, by a revolution which I will relate. M. Leoson therefore took me to the Disdar presented me to him and asked for my permission to draw all the monuments of the city and of the city. This Officer made us a very favourable reception: after having made us offer café, sorbet & perfumes in the manner of the Turks, he tells us that he esteemed our Nation too much, to refuse us anything; that I am free to do in Athens all the research that I would like, & to carry ladders & all that I would need, wherever it is needed. He even had regards for me which mark how much he considered the Frenchmen: As the Turks & the Greeks are very jealous of their women, he told me that when I wanted to climb on the top of the Temple of Minerva, I had to warn him, so that he would remove all the women who were walking around inside the small courtyards of the citadel, where I could see them. I complied with what he recommended: a different conduct would have made me lose the freedom he had given me. The Consul also informed me of a custom established in Athens, which he advised me to read, which again shows how great the jealousy of the Athenians is. When Turkish or Greek women patient in a street of Athens, one must by politeness leave them free the side of the street which they chose & turn their back to them. Having therefore learned from the conduct which I had to go through in this city, & M. Leoson having given his Janissary to follow me everywhere; ' I began my research with the Monuments contained in the Citadel which seemed to me to deserve particular attention. But the historical description of these Monuments seems to have to be preceded by some ressexions on the origin of Athens, & on the story of this famous Citadel.
III. FROM THE ORIGIN OF ATHENS:
Description of its Citadel, or of the place where this City first occupied.
S, II we believe the Athenians on their origin, they preceded all the other peoples: they called themselves sons of the Earth, as old as the soil they inhabited, born at the same instant as the Sun.
Plato reports that Solon traveling in Egypt, found another Athens, where the Priests kept in a Temple of the authentic monuments which know to go back up the foundation of Greek-Athens at nine thousand years before the universal flood, & at a thousand years before their Athens Egyptian.
If what Solon brought back from the foundation of the city of Athens, & what the Athenians published of their origin, must be placed among the most exaggerated fables that the peoples have imagined, it cannot be said, however, that the Attica gc Greece in general had no inhabitants before the arrival of the heroes who came there from Egypt & Libya. The Athenians cannot therefore bread for originating in Egypt; but some fables which they invented to impose on posterity, we recognize however that they owe to the Egyptians their first Loix, their Arts "To the worship of their Divinities.
QUÊQUES L'HlBsoRlENS make Ogygès the first King of Athens, but they wrote so few "choices of this Prince, Se of the events happened during two hundred years, between his reign &, of Cécrops, that the greatest number of the Greek Authors rejects as fabulous all that preceded this last King. We will therefore look at Cécrops, who came from Egypt in Attica to San of the world-2454, as the founder of Athens. He persuaded these Peoples to meet, to form a city Se to build it on this long rock Se raised located in the plain of Athens, which I represent in plan in its current state, Plate III *. He named this city Cécropia after his name. During his reign he suddenly appeared in the city "an olive tree," and a source of water. The people struck by this novelty ran quickly to communicate it to the King, who sent to consult the Oracle of 'Apollo at Delphi to have the explanation' of this prodigy: the Oracle replied that solivier meant Minerva i 'Neptune water, Se that parrlà. The Cecropedians were free to name their homeland by the name of one or on the other of these Divinities; to which they would render the main honours. " The habitats-having therefore been weakened, the homrries.i declared for; Neptune. : "but the women, * who were in great numbers, having invoked Ja prptecTsomde ftlinery.e -, their preVa'Iut surFrage, - '&: lès: inhabitants of Gécropie changed the norride their city in' that of Athens , because Athiene's in "their language- is the name of Minerva. The: Poets who have wrapped in fables the simple events of history or the effects of nature, said that Neptune. & Minerva "had quarreled over who would govern Athens; -that Neptune striking the earth with his" trident brought out one: ', horse', & 'that Pallàs or Minerva having stung the ground from there throws ï he suddenly came out unrar meaud'olivier
Chef hat 9 o cui prima fiementem
Fudit equutn magna tëlîus peccussÈTtrideiiti,
.Neptune .......
Adsis, <ô Tegxe, savens; oleœqtie, Minervaj.
Iàyen £ rix.Virgih Georg.
A, T, HXJsi; ENS. call the rock on which Cécrops treats his city, Tritonium, because it was sacred, Minerva, the first Divinity they knew revered, and whom they sometimes name Tritoniay Tritogenia. We called this fortress Indifferently Glaucopion, Parrhenon, • Cécropia 9 Eolis, which means City; & when Athens became punctant they named this same fortress Acropolis: it was the place of this city, the oldest and the most respected; there were several beautiful Temples there, and a prodigious number of statues pre-seized by sex. lence of DelTein Se by the richness / Te of the material from which they were formed. Finally, the castle of Athenesa: summer Celebrated-by-the-Greek & Roman Historians, & it is still worthy of admiration for the precious remains of antiquity it contains. However, we must recognize that the ruins that we still see in Athens are not more ancient than the era of the former. of the Persians in Greece. We know that Xercès having ravaged the lands of the Phocaeans Tempted 'vainly to do ", to plunder the Temple of Delphi, entered into Attica, which he sent back to Athens from top to bottom i' Detniisit all the Temples by the flames, without except that of Minerva, which was already the most ancient monument of this city, and the most revered of the Athenians, but if we had to regret not seeing the ruins of this Temple, which would have provided us with great lights -our origin of Archeite in Greece, we are from it-
Explanation of this Plan:
1. -Temple * deMinerve.
2. tfroriàos or Veftïbulè of the Temple "of Minerva.
3. Interior of the Temple.
4. Mosque.
5. Temple of Ereftheus, which was double,
6. Vcstibillt! By which Tin entered the upper Temple.
7. Vestibule through which one entered the lower Temple.
8. Species-of Vestibule supported by Cariatides & leaning against t .. Ie_ corps, du Temple.
9. The Propylaea. *
10. In the middle of> this building whose plasond was made up of large pieces of marble.
11. Two Veftibules which accompanied the façade decemo- "nument: celuidelâ'droîté estniiné '&' serveaujourd'hui.de prison,
12.-Room that I suspect to be that of the Paintings of which Pausanîas speaks, which was adjoining to the Propylaea,
13. Piedeftal'gui & utenoit one of the two Statues which were in front of the Propylaea.
14. the Theater
15. Tlîéatta dexx orchestra
16. The Scene.
17. The bleachers.
18. Cave where was a tripod on water was represented by Apollo
20. Monument raised by Thras / llus in memory of a vïftoïre which he won in Athletic games, today the portal of a Church called by the Greeks Panagia Spiliotissa.
21. Interior of the Panagia SpiliotùTa Church.
22. Main gate of the Citadel.
23. Descent to go to the Theater
24. Citadel Guardhouse.
25. Different gun batteries.
26. Different masses of houses of the Turks.
27. Old citadel cistern.
28. Place where I suspect that the cave is where the Athenians pretend that Apollo enjoys Erefthee.
29. Southern wall destroyed others by the Persians & rebuilt by Cîmon. Septenttîonal wall in which we see opposite the Temple of Ereftheus of the Doric sragments of the same prosil as that of the Temple of Apollo in Delos, which leads us to suspect that they could be of the first Temple of Minerva ruined by the Persians, damage by the beauty & the magnificence of the one that Pericles raised to this Divinity, by letin & by Callicrates, famous Greek Architects.
IV. View of the Temple of Minerva.
Hécatompédon, is sinie in the middle of the rock of the Citadel which dominates by its height all the plain of Athens. We see this superb building from a great distance, by whatever road we reach this city by land, and we perceive it from the entrance to the golphe d'Engia. If its greatness and the whiteness of the marble with which it is confused imprint, as soon as it is discovered, a feeling of admiration, cracked, the proportions, and the beauty of the bas-reliefs with which it is adorned, do not satisfy less, when you look at it closely; & we can see that Actine Se. Callicrates did all they could to distinguish themselves in the Architecture, by erecting a Temple to Minerva who had invented this beautiful Art. This Temple forms a parallelogram by the plan, like almost all those of the Greeks & the Romans. Its length, which is from east to west, is two hundred and twenty-one feet; its width of ninety-four feet ten inches, without counting the steps which surround it. It is of Doric order; he was Oclostyle Periphery, that is to say, he was surrounded by a line of cp-. isolated lones of the cella or body of the Temple, which formed a portico all around, if there were eight on the face. The lateral faces of the body of the Temple were two smooth walls, with no pilasters at the ends.
The large Doric columns which surround the Temple externally are five feet eight inches in diameter, & thirty-two feet in height. There were forty-six in the perimeter of this building. They have no basis; but the steps which line the base of these columns, and which are very high, seem to serve them. They support a Doric entablature which is almost a third of the height of the columns, & whose ftise is adorned in the metopes of bas-reliefs which represent the combat of the Athenians against the Centaurs. We can also see on the linked walls of the body of the Temple fragments of a beautiful frieze which swirls all around; the figures above appear to represent scripts and procedures of the ancient Athenians. The sculpture of this frieze has less relief than that of the Centaurs who are outside the Temple; which proves less a difference in time in these works, than the skill of the Architects who have given a lot of prominence to the bas-reliefs which are outside, because they reveal to be seen from a great distance; it even seems that this principle has been followed in the sculpture which adorns the pediments. They were. each loaded with a group of beautiful marble figures, of which those which appear from below as large as nature .; .they are in full relief, & wonderfully worked. Pausanias informs us that in the pediment of the front facade was represented the birth of Minerva. Spon, who saw this bas-relief before its ruin, gave us a more extensive description; he instructs us that the Statue of naked Jupiter, as the Greeks ordinarily represent it, was under the angle of the pediment, which he had on his right Minerva dressed rather in the habit of Dessess of Sciences than of War, seated on a chariot , including a figure, whom he takes for a Victory, led the horses. They are comparable, he says, to those of Phidias & Praxitelle; it seems ford one sees in their air a certain fire & a certain pride which inspires them this Divinity. Behind the chariot of the Goddess we saw a seated woman holding a child on her lap, and on the same side the Statue of Emperor Adrien & that of Empress Sabine; finally to the left of Jupiter were five or six standing figures qpe pet Author takes for the circle of the Gods in which Jupiter wants to introduce Minerva. It would be wrong to conclude from the representation of Adrian in the pediment of the facade of this building, that this Emperor had it rebuilt; the genre of its Architecture indicates that it was built in the time of Pericles; & we notice that the Figures with which the fronts were adorned, & which are of a marble whiter than the rest of the monument, had been removed there after the fact & did not form a body with the surface of the eardrum. The pediment, of the back facade of this Temple represented the fight of Minerva against Neptune, that's what we can learn from it. With regard to the interior, it had not been neglected, one crossed a spacious vestibule before entering it, although it was very dark, being lit only by the door as the Greeks practiced in their Temples ; we had however decorated it,. selon M. Spôn, Se deux colonnades> donttfn now finds no dizziness: They form two galleries, one above and the other below. It is in this sanctuary that was enclosed this beautiful Sta-tue of Minerva made by Phidias, of which Pausanias gave us the description: "She was, says *> this Author ;, of gold & r of ivory: from the middle from his helmet rose a sphinx; the two sides of the case that were held by two grisfons: it was straight; his tunic descended to the end of his feet; on his stomach there was a Medusa head in ivory, & near the Goddess a Victory four cubits high. Minerva held a spade in his hand; Ion shield was at "Tespieds; press sa-pique; below, we saw a snake, symbol of 'Eriâh'Oniûs,' & surie piedeÇ tal which therejbutenait a bas-relief which represented Pandora. 
The Athenians made pompous sacrifices to this Divinity in feasts which were celebrated in his honour, according to some Authors, every three years, according to others after five years (progress r in these feasts the old men holding in hand olive branches, advance to the sanctuary of the Temple, they lift the veil which covered the Summer, where 1 were represented, - its report of the people, "were heroic. 'we sacrificed lé bcéùF' Minerva, It This feisbit "of preocessions around the Temple; & when the sacrifice was completed, we heard the trumpet &" voix du Cursor ", which announced the beginning of the games, whose women were; êxclusesV Finally we know that Minerva was the Divinity that the Athenians most respeâé, FoKvièi'-was dedicated to him; was d e this plant, that the Athenians were immortal
The Magnificent Temple of Minerva has been preserved for a long time in all its beauty, even though Athens has changed from Masters. ' The Christians who took this city made this monument
profane a Temple to the true God, & the Turks who seized it afterwards changed this building; en'rirosqu'éé; MM.- Spbn '& "1 $? Heier, during their stay in Attica, had the happiness of-the voif-toufrentier ériiiSys"' '; but in • 1677, the' Provider Morosmi having besieged Athens, at the " head of 88 && - sôldatS 'Vénitiens, A bomb fell on this Temple, set fire to the ammunition of powders' that 'the Turks tovbient' contained there; which ruined it by destroying most of it: This General ', in the aim of enriching the country with the remains of this superb monument,' contributed
still 'to saruinèl He wanted to have the Statue of Minerva removed from the pediment, Ibn chariot & his ch'e-. Worth; but to his great regret & to ours, he defigused this masterpiece, without profiting from it. Part of the group ternba & 'terrè &' & smashed. "The Turks" built from the Mosque crowned with a low dome that Ton "sees in the middle from the ruins" of this Temple ". We would end its description with examination; of what could have made him give the name of Hécàtompédon by the Ancients, 'if this dissertation does not become inevitably long: it is for this reason that we have referred it to the end of this first Part.
V. HISTORICAL DESCRIPTION OF THE TEMPLATE OF ERECTHESIS
If the Athenians honoured Minerva as the protector of their city, they did not less revere Ceres to whom they offered solemn sacrifices in the celebration of his mysteries at Eleusis; Ereâhëe, tin of their Kings, selon Diodose of Sicily, taught them the cult of this Divinity which presided over plowing, & it is perhaps in recognition of this benefit that they erected a Temple- to "this Prince" in the citadel of their city, a short distance from that of Minerva that I have just described. LVcônuruSion of this monument; '' the invasion of Peres in Greece under the leadership of Xerces, as has been said of all the Monuments of Athens; but it must be placed before Adrien's time. I judge "by some 'peculiarities of the Ionic orders which decorate it; & it is the only way to discover more or less in what time' this monument was destroyed, since there is no Biscsiption there, & that Pausanias, nor 'the other Historians, do not teach us when, & by whom it was raised; a singularity which made me recognize it, it was that it was double , as Pausà-riias-'lé says :, but I took this expression in another sense than Messrs. Spon Si Wheler, who heard that there were two Temples, one next to the other : instead of I think that of the two Temples of which the ancient Author speaks, one was above the other: which is remarkably conspicuous by the great difference in the pavement of the two veslibules which lead, one by the side in the lower Temple, the other by the face in the upper Temple. We see the first of these veslibules on the left in the design that I made: the other is not visible in the In this view, the Ionic columns, between which we see three crossings, decorate the side of the Temple which looks at the sunset. The great smooth pedestal which supports them, a large part of which is buried, answered, selon me, to the Lower Temple: it is in this that there was this marvelous well of salt water, which the south wind made noisy, in the report of Pausanias, & which was covered with a stone, on which was imprinted the figure of a trident, mark of the old pretension of Neptune on the Atti-que: the Athenians like to MM. Spon & Wheler, that this well still subsists of their time; but they could not verify it, and I was not happier than them, because of the heaps of marble which cover the pavement of the Temple; with regard to the small edifice whose entablature is supported by caryatids, & which we notice in this view leaning against the Temple of Ereâhée, it is quite extraordinary that Pausanias does not teach us its use , & let it remain silent on the six caryatids which adorn it, of which it still remains five fairly well preserved, & of a very great beauty. Would this monument be after this Author's journey? or would it be by negligence that he would have omitted to speak about it? It is difficult to clear up these doubts; but it is not so much to assure, that in some time that the Temple of Ereâhée had been consire, it is one of the most precious resies of Antiquity by the beauty of the Ionic orders which adorn it , by the perfeâion, the richness, and the singularity of their capitals, of which we had no knowledge, & pat the entablature which crowns the caryatids, which is also very beautiful, & was also unknown to us.
VI. Historical description of the Properties.
Sl the ancient Authors have spoken little of the Temple of Ereâhée, they have praised almost all the envy the magnificence of the veslibules, whose ruins I have represented, Plate VI, through which we pass, entering the famous Citadel of 'Athens. In fact, the Athenians who had decorated their city with the most superb monuments, particularly prided themselves on the construction of the Propylaea. They even told that the Degee Minerva, to mark her approval of this building, taught Pericles, while he was sleeping, a medicine with which he cures a famous worker who fell from the top of this monument. Mnesiclès, famous Greek Architecture, gave the design of these magnificent veslibules: they were started under the Euthymene Archon, the fourth year of the LXXXV Olympiad: they were completed five years later under the Pythodore Archon, & cost two thousand and twelve talents to build.
PAUSANIAS says that these veslibules were covered with a white marble, which, either for the size of the stones, or for the ornaments, is all that he had seen elsewhere more beautiful: for what regards the Equestrian Statues (says it), I cannot say if we avoulurçpresent the son of Xenophon, or if they were put there only for decoration.
Harpocration influences us according to Heliodore of a peculiarity of this monument that Pausanias has omitted; is that it was pierced with five doors. These marks that the old Authors left us to recognize the Propylaea are striking, even in the state of ruins where this edifice is currently located. It is astonishing that the modern Voyageurs who have seen it less ruined than I, have all overlooked it. Spon thought it was a Temple, because there was a pediment on the facade; Fanell calls him, with the vulgar, the Lycurgian arsenal; Wheler seems to be the one of these three Authors who met best on this subject. After saying that it was difficult to determine whether this monument was the arsenal of Lycurgus, a Temple, or another building, he adds: Would it not be the Propylaea? but he gives no proof of his seniment: it even seems that he did not know better the whole and the disposition of this masterpiece of Architect, than Spon & Fanelli. Here is what I observed while measuring it.
The saçade that we see, composed of six Doric columns without entablature, engaged. Without a bad wall, close five between-columns: the middle one is the tallest. those at the corners are the smallest. There are five doors on the wall opposite this facade which correspond exactly to the five between-columns of the facade. All these doors are twice the height of their width: the largest is twelve feet seven inches wide, the bottom two eight feet and eight inches, and the two smaller four feet four inches; the latter two are more difficult to see than the other three, because they are buried to the top, and I admit that I had '.' I'd hardly recognize them. If this peculiarity of the five doors that I discovered the first in the ruins of this building which is at the entrance of the citadel of Athens, seems: to show that it was the Propylaea, in accordance with what we have learned from Suidas & Harpocratioh, I found proof as strong as this that Fausanias advances on the greatness of the stones which hold the ceiling. I have mixed the debris of this ceiling under the vaults which I cover; one of the principal beds of marble, broken by the two ends, is more than ten feet from Paris, of length; 'It was one of the nine species of seamable beams which supported all its cover, & "which each had more than sixteen' of these feet. Another whole flowerbed, which I measured, which covers the large door, at almost twenty-two feet. It is: 'without doubt the greatness; of these pieces of marble which Pausanias praised in speaking of this building; at Ephesus, which the Goddess, according to the opinion of the Greeks, had weighed; herself, because of her gravity, had only thirty Roman feet, which correspond to a little more than twenty-seven feet from Paris.
But. who finished convincing me that the monument in question was the Propylaea. In this I found a very beautiful pedestal which formed part of it, and which was placed in front, as well as another similar which has been destroyed; These two pedestals were distant from each other by one; little more than the width of the main facade, from which they were thirty-four feet apart, a space which is lulled by steps. While searching for the use of these two pedestals, I could not discover any other. * I must have worn the Equestrian Statues of which Pausanias speaks; for although this Author laughs "said" not precisely that these Statues merge on these pedestals, he does not say either that they were on the roof, as Meursius translates. Father Gédoin immediately followed this error; by interpreting thus the sharing of 'Paulânias': "I could not, he says, know' who we wanted to represent 'by the' St'àtuêsquestre that we placed on these vejlibules. These last words are not in the text. It must be translated, as I have done above: As far as the statues are concerned, I have no need to know if these are the sons of Xenophon, or if they were only used for decoration. This shows that Pausanias, in his text, says that these equestrian statues contributed a great deal to the ornamentation of these vestibules; but he does not say that they were above, and I believe I am authorized to think that they were on the large pedestals placed in front of the main body Se this 'monument, & put' there probably to receive them. What can further strengthen this opinion ", is that it is Terrible that the Architect, in constructing these pedestals, wanted to adjust to the shape of the horse; because the sides parallel to the face of the edifice are narrower than the others: which seems to indicate in a perceptible way that the Statues are leaning from the front when one arrived there. The keys from the Propylaea were resized every day in the hands of the Epissate: the Archon. Qvtf gouvérrsoit la-vifl (c) of Athens.
A C0NF0RMlTE ': that I have just seen between the monument of which I speak, & what its ancient Authors taught us from the Propylaea, proves enough that it was neither the arsenal of Lycûsgûë-, nor a Temple , but a 'magnificent' port brought from the Citadel of Athens, or the Propylaea built by Pericles. There is reason to believe that this monument began to lose its shape when the Turks seized Athens / They then made the main body an arsenal Se a powder magazine, & they therefore had to close with walls the five between -columns on the face, & the five porfesqui were opposite. But lightning set fire to the powders of this store in 16 ° and blew up the "ceiling of this building and the accommodation of Ysouf-Aga who was desolated. This Turk perishes from this manner with all his family, except one of his daughters, & the Greeks looked upon this event as a miracle, because Ysoûf-Agà had to accomplish the next day after the accident happened. the project he had formed to destroy one of their Eglises', called Saint Dimitrii who. was at the foot of the Museum. -I restmé the monument of the Propylaea on the partitions of the old Authors who relate to it, which I have already quoted V '. & On the measures which I took there. I gave the perspective view. In the second Part, Plate XII,