could at least set up a noble stele with a beautiful capital portraying the soul's whole life, not rendered imperfect even by a premature death; while we are fond of a column broken off in the middle-a faithless and unchristian idea." On one gravestone the deceased is represented as sitting in Charon's boat; on another the inscription contains an explicit declaration of the immortality of the soul. Opposite this burial-ground of Agia Triada, so named from the Church of the Holy Trinity close by, is the Temple of Theseus, the most perfect building of ancient Athens, and one of the noblest examples of a Greek temple in existence. It is situated on a little spur of land projecting from the Areopagus, in a conspicuous position where its architecture is displayed to great advantage. This temple, if so it may be called, is said to have been built by Cimon, 470 B.C., in honour of Theseus, the conqueror of robbers and dragons, who appeared at the battle of Marathon (490 B.C.) to aid his countrymen. It is surrounded by a peristyle of a single row of thirty-six Doric columns; the carvings on the pediment and those on the metopes at the ends are most defaced or destroyed, but those forming the frieze on the wall inside the pillars are, for the most part, still in their places. The sculptures on the metopes represent the exploits of Hercules-the slaying of the Nemean lion, of the Lernæan serpent, of the Erymanthian boar, &c.; and the exploits of Theseus-fighting with the Minotaur, capturing the Marathonian bull, slaying the Crommyonian sow, &c.; and the sculptures on the frieze continue the representation of the achievements of the tutelary hero. The entire length of the building is 111 feet, and its breadth 48 feet. Although built of Pentelican marble, it has not retained the whiteness of the Parthenon, and has a mellow, yellowish look, which does not, however, in any way impair its beauty. As this temple is on the road from the Piræus to Athens, it is the first of the antiquities generally seen by visitors, and from this fact makes a strong impression upon them, so that in almost every traveller's account of Athens it is made the key-note to a long rhapsody. It is without doubt a magnificent building, by far the most perfectly preserved of any in Athens, and deserves all the eulogy that has been poured out upon it. As early as the year A.D. 667 this temple was converted into a Christian church, and dedicated to St. George; in 1835, or thereabouts, it was used as a hospital, and at the present time it is a museum, containing the finest collection of antiquities in Athens. The antiquarian will find his greatest pleasure here in gazing upon the Archaic Apollo, found in the Theatre of Dionysus, or the Relief found at Eleusis, in 1859, and supposed to date from a period a little later than that of Phidias; but to the majority the most interesting memorials in the collection are the alto-relievo tablets from old tombs-parting scenes and memorials of domestic life and affection-strange witnesses from the dead of human affections and sorrows of ages long past, yet one with our own. The story of sorrow, of natural emotion, of domestic trial and love, is touchingly told on these tablets,-a mother sitting, while one of the bystanding figures is holding and apparently carrying off a new-born babe wrapped in linen; a daughter dying, and the father and mother and other relations grouped round her in wistful tenderness; a husband taking leave of wife and friends; a little child looking back with pathetic sweetness to its weeping mother; * Dr. Dyer, "Athens." an old man sailing away on an unknown sea, in a boat oared by love." inscriptions, save the one old sorrowful word, "Farewell!" There are no The ascent of Lycabettus, 948 feet high, is by no means difficult, and the fine panoramic view is ample compensation for any little fatigue. Descending, a visit may be paid to the site of that Grove where Aristotle, the pupil of Plato, and preceptor of Alexander the Great, taught his celebrated system of logic and philosophy. His disciples were called Peripatetics, because they gave and received instruction as they walked up and down among the shady planetrees. The enclosure was sacred to Apollo Lycius, hence the name Lyceum. About a mile from the Acropolis is one of the spots in Athens which has associations almost as fascinating as those of the rocky altars, the Pnyx and the Acropolis. It is the olive groves of the Academy where Socrates, and more frequently Plato, had taught their high philosophy four centuries before the Christian era. "Immense old olive-trees, with gnarled and knotted trunks, hollow at heart, remind us of those near Jerusalem. Fig-trees send out branches which are an intricate net-work of thick, clumsy shoots, bending now this way, then that, at the sharpest possible angle, regardless of all laws of symmetry. Lovely cloud-shadows rest on Salamis, and float up the slopes of Mounts Ægaleus, Corydallus, and Parnes. The mountains of Argolis are as blue as is the bay that lies rippling between them and us. To the southeast, above the thickly clustering roofs of the modern city, rises the steep altar-like rock of the Acropolis, still crowned with the ruins of the Parthenon and the Erechtheium. Thus enthroned above the modern city, the citadel with its matchless ruins, seems constantly to assert its undying right to be regarded as Athens, to the utter oblivion of all which the nineteenth century has built below them. Across this same lovely landscape, to those temples thus perfect, and rearing their snowy splendour against the purple-grey background of Hymettus, in the pauses of their conversation were lifted the eyes of a group of earnest, clear-souled thinkers, who talked with Plato in those very olive groves on the banks of Cephissus; the men whose calm, enthusiastic search for truth has rendered so illustrious these Academic shades, that, through all ages, in all lands, the lovers of wisdom and of art have been fain to borrow from their groves the name 'Academy.' A flat hill, or knoll, hard by, is the Colonus, the hill which Sophocles has immortalised as the death-scene of Edipus, in his famous tragedy of "Edipus Colonus." One of the most interesting excursions in the environs of Athens is the drive to Eleusis. The route is almost identical with that along which the great annual procession of the Eleusinian Mysteries anciently passed. Leaving the Agia Triada—where, as we have seen, the Dipylon, the gate leading into the Sacred Way, has been discovered the ancient road is soon joined, and along it there are still traces of the wheel-tracks of centuries ago. The Sacred Way of Athens, like the Appian Way of Rome, was a long street of monuments, a few of which may still be traced. On the left of the road, as Athens is left behind, are the Botanical Gardens, and beyond is the Olive Grove, with the trees said to have been flourishing when the city was in the zenith of her glory. Soon the road ascends to the Pass of Daphne, a narrow gorge between two summits of Mount Egaleus, and a halt is made at the Daphne monastery, the site of the Temple of Apollo. Very few traces of that temple are left, Lord Elgin having carried off the columns which were standing, to bury them in an English museum. The monastery was founded in the thirteenth century by the Duke de la Roche, and on a foundation of the temple stones the church rises, with ite stone and brick-work mingled, its wonderful windows, and its beautiful cupola. It is a very handsome church, with remains of elaborate mosaics in the dome, and in the vestibule the bows of the founders in rude coffins, marked by the simple sign of the cross. As soon as the Pass is left behind, a view of great interest breaks sullenly on the sight. It is the Bay of Eleusis, a corner of the Saronic Gulf, so entirely land-locked by the island of Salamis as to have the appearance of an inland lake. On our right, and close at hand, is a wall which claims attention, for it once belonged to the temple of the two-fold Aphrodite; and there are still the niches to receive the votive offerings. The road now lies for some few miles on the shore of the bay where the great naval battle was fought, in which the Greeks, although far inferior in numbers, put to flight the immense fleet of Xerxes, the monarch of Persia, 480 B.C. The story of the fight is written on the scene around. The Athenians, from their ships, had seen with dismay how the land forces of the Persians were plundering and destroying their cities by fire and sword, and in their terror thought it useless to make head against so powerful a foe. Themistocles, their admiral, wishing to inspire them with the valour of desperation, secretly sent word to Xerxes that the Greeks were meditating an escape. Then the Persian king bore down upon them and blocked them in within the Bay of Salamis. Compelled to fight for their safety, as well as the honour of their country, the valour of the Greeks rose with the occasion, and they inflicted upon the mighty armament disastrous defeat. By-and-by the road traverses the fertile Eleusinian Plain, where Demeter herself first guided the plough and taught the art of agriculture; and Eleusis, a poor ruinous little village, but once the second city of Attica, is reached. "Eleusis, like other cities, began as a hill-fort; it still has its acropolis, part of the circuit of whose wall can be traced. It is crowned by a church and bell-tower, of no wonderful architecture, certainly, but which we trust may be allowed to abide, even though there may be the ten-thousandth part of a chance that a stone with two or three letters upon it might be found in their foundations. The hill of the Eleusinian acropolis forms a long irregular ridge, rising in the greater part of its course close above the bay, but running a little inland at the point where it becomes an acropolis. It thus leaves a considerable space for the lower city between the hill and the haven. In a walk along the hill, a shattered tower of Frankish times, standing on a nearly detached height, is a prominent object. When reached, it presents no details for study. But in the walk thither we look out on Salamis and the bay which it guards—a lake, as it might seem, between the mainland and the curved island-while, on the other side, we look down on the Thriasian plain, the plain so often. ravaged by Peloponnesian invaders before they crossed the ridge Ægaleus to deal havoc in the neighbourhood of Athens itself. And, on the ridge before we reach the tower, one of the smallest and humblest of churches will not be scorned by those who deem that no aspect of the history of the land is beneath their notice. At the foot of the hill, at the opposite end from the tower, lay, as Athens might lie were its haven close at hand, the holy city of the Great Goddesses. At the very end of the ridge, keeping away, as it would seem, from the sea, are the ruins of the temple which was once the greatest in size among the holy places of Hellas. Little now can be made out of its vast circuit. The confused and shattered ruins which are left are those of the temple of Athene Propylæa." " Its plan may be made out without any difficulty. There still stand in their original places the bases of the two rows of three columns each, which bore the roof of the external propylæa. Farther on is a second entrance, consisting of an opening thirty-five feet in width, between two parallel walls fifty-two feet in length. In the centre this opening contracts into a gate thirteen feet in width, adorned with antæ and columns with quaint capitals in front of them. The path then leads round the angle of the rock to the plateau where the "Great Temple of the Mysteries" lay. The cella, or interior of the temple, appears to have been one hundred and sixty-six feet square, and to have had in front a magnificent portico of twelve Doric columns, each six and a half feet in diameter at the bottom of the shaft, erected by Philo. The annual festival and celebration of the Eleusinian Mysteries-a worship that had existed here from the earliest period of history to the time of Alaric-were by universal consent regarded as the holiest and most venerable in Greece. The great festival began on the 15th Bocdromion, and lasted nine days. It will be unnecessary here to attempt to describe the various rites and ceremonies, or to guess at the exact meaning of the "initiation" which took place on the sixth and seventh days of the feast. Many of the best ancient as well as recent writers are of opinion that it was "a setting forth of a higher and purer moral faith, with the adumbration of a resurrection to a future and happier life.” was obliged to pass through these ceremonies once in the course of his life. #Saturday Review, September, 1877. Every Athenian and prostitutes, as well as strangers, and, in later times, Christians and Epicureans were excluded from the Eleusinia. To reveal any of the mysteries, or to apply to private purposes any of the hallowed solemnities, was considered a capital crime. There are among the ruins vestiges of the original building destroyed by the Persians; of the later structure commenced under Pericles, and of the additions made by the Romans, to whom the second gate is to be ascribed. "Among its ruins," says the writer from whom we have already quoted, "lie capitals of the same class as those in the baths of Antoninus, capitals in which the traditional trammels are forsaken, and in which a wide scope is given for representation of forms divine, human, or animal. These are memorials of what was in truth one of the most flourishing times in Eleusinian history; when, under the Pax Romana, no Tellos could fight in warfare between Athens and Eleusis, no traitors driven from Athens could find shelter in Eleusis, but when Athens and Eleusis flourished side by side, the one as the university of the world, the other as one of its chief seats of pilgrimage. The last age of the glories of Eleusis begins with the saint of heathendom, the prince in whose days the martyrs of Lyons bore their torments, and Polycarp played the man at the stake. They were avenged when Eleusis fell before the attack of a Christian and a Teutonic invader. The desolation which we see around us dates from that invasion of Alaric which marked so great an epoch in Grecian history, the great turning-point when pagan Hellas changed into the Christian land which scorned the Hellenic name. Since that day Eleusis has never raised her head. A time came when she had passed away as utterly as Tiryus or Mycenæ.” At the present time Eleusis is emerging from the miserable little village it was a few years ago, into something more resembling a town, and it is not improbable that some day it may gain back some of its importance, as Athens has done and is doing. There are many other excursions to be made from Athens, all of them of interest: Cephissia, on a spur of Pentelicon, where Herodes Atticus had his residence, and Aulus Gellius wrote his "Noctes Attica" Penteli with its monastery, the wealthiest in Attica, its ancient marble quarries, and its magnificent view; Phyle with its ruined fortress; and Marathon, "The battle-field where Persia's victim horde First bow'd beneath the brunt of Hellas' sword." Athens is essentially a city to be seen to be understood. Over and over again it has been likened to Edinburgh; and over and over again it has been said that there is no resemblance whatever. Here are extracts from two Scottish writers :— : Says Mr. Ferguson, in his "Sacred and Continental Scenes":-"I had always taken it for granted that the Scottish metropolis was called modern Athens' because, like ancient Athens, she was a world-renowned seat of philosophy and learning; but whenever I saw the Acropolis and the pillars of the Parthenon, I exclaimed, with not a little national pride and enthusiasm, The Calton Hill!' Then, on looking behind me, the Gulf of Egina, running out to the Egean, gleamed like the Firth of Forth expanding into the German Sea; the Piraeus was like Leith; and further acquaintance with the sights in the vicinity taught me to call Lycabettus, Arthur's Seat; Hymettus, Salisbury Crags; Pentelicus, the Pentlands; besides other points of resemblance, more or less remarkable.” Says Dr. Norman Macleod, in "Eastward”:-"And did Athens look like Edinburgh? we |