Home life in Hellas, Greece and the Greeks - eBooks4Greeks.gr

ATHENS 313mains of the new Athens reared by the Emperor.The region south of the Acropolis, an importantquarter of the city in the time of Thucydides, isnow deserted. The venerable rock is no longerthe centre of Athens, which in these days hasspread northwards.Following Hadrian Street westward we come toa busier quarter, the nucleus of old Athens/ wheretraces of the Turk are mingled with the relics ofantiquity. The shops and cafes are meaner thanthose of new Athens, but the district has morecharacter and interest. Here history was made.Stadium Street and Concord Square have no storyto tell.Old-fashioned people cling to the quarter.The bubbling nargileh reminds us that we are inthe East. A narrow street devoted to shoemakers,and another given up to the din of coppersmithswith their " rude mechanicals that work for bread,upon Athenian stalls," are vestiges of the oldbazaar. Here is the dismantled mosque, to thebuilding of which went one of the great columnsof the Olympeion—in pieces. Beside it stands aCorinthian facade, a fragment of the Stoa ofHadrian, and successively the Palace of theFrankish and Turkish Governors, demolishedunder King Otho. Westward is the Doric gatewayof Athena Archegetes and the Clepsydra ofAndronicos Cyrrhestes—the Tower of the Winds,which gives its name to ^olus Street, stretchingnorthward in a long perspective. It is hard torealise that this monument was once a tekkeh of