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GEOGRAPHICAL VIEW OF GREECE. 11distance of about eight miles from Megara. "When the inhabitants of that place submitted to Athens, they reservedfor themselves nothing but their sanctuaries ;land hencethe mysterious festivals of Ceres continued to be celebratedin their temple. From this place, the sacred road, of almostunvarying breadth, led to the city which Pallas protected.Athens layin a plain,which on the south-west extendedfor about four miles towards the sea and the harbours, buton the other side was enclosed by mountains. The plainitself was interrupted by several rocky hills. The largestand highestof these supported the Citadel or Acropolis,which took its name from its founder Cecrops; round this,the citywas spread out, especially in the direction of thesea. The summit of the hill contained a level space, abouteight hundred feet long, and half as broad; which seemed,as it were, prepared by nature to support those masterpieces of architecture, which announced at a great distancethe splendour of Athens. The only road which led to it,conducted to the 2 Propylsea, with its two wings,the templeof Victory, and another temple, ornamented with the pictures of Polygnotus. That superb edifice, the most splendid monument which was erected under the administrationof Pericles, the work of Mnesicles, was decorated by theadmirable sculptures of Phidias. 3 They formed the proudentrance to the level summit of the hill, on which were thetemples of the guardian deities of Athens, On the left wasthe temple of Pallas, the protectress of cities, with the columnwhich fell from heaven, and the sacred olive tree; and that4of Neptune. But on the the right, Parthenon, the pride ofAthens, rose above every thing else, possessing the colossalstatue of Minerva by Phidias, next to the Olympian Jupiter,1Pausan, i. p. 92.aCompare the sketches and drawings in Stuart's Antiquities of Athens.8 A part of these master-pieces has perished. By robbing the Acropolis,Lord Elgin has gained a name, which no other will wish to share with him.The sea nas swallowed up his plunder. The devastation made by this modernHerostratus, is described not by Chateaubriand only, Itincr. i. p. 202, butalso, and with just indignation, by his own countryman, Clarke, Travels, ii.p. 483, an eye-witness.*The two, formingonewhole, were only divided by a partition. Corisulton the details of the building: Minervai Poliadis Sacrra et aedes in arce Athenarum;illustrata ab C. Odofreclo Miiller. Gottingce, 1820. And the plan ofthe city by the same author, who, in his essay, followed a still csttant Atticinscription and in his plan of Athens differs widely from Barthelemy.;