There are:
"...stone flowers and stone maidens at the Erechtheum..." (p. 172)
In Christian's human life-time, the Parthenon was:
"...broken, chemically gnawed remnants under shelter..." (ibid.)
He had seen "...exquisite...pictures and models..." and now enters its "...sheer size and mass..." where there is a "...colossal Athene of Pheidias." (ibid.)
Christian and Laurinda stand:
"...on the Wall of Kimon, above the Asclepium and Theater of Dionysus." (p. 173)
When Christian suggests that they visit some living Hellenic history, Laurinda in turn suggests the age of Pericles. However, he thinks that the Peloponnesian War would be uncongenial and suggests instead Aristotle's time when Greece was peaceful despite Alexander's wars and conquests.
But first they return to eighteenth century England for a cup of tea.
2 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
The Parthenon actually survived more or less till the later 1500's, I think. At the time Venice ruled Athens and parts of Greece. And used the Parthenon to store gunpowder. And during an Ottoman siege of Athens a Turkish shell struck that gunpowder and set off the explosion which so badly damaged the Parthenon.
Sean
Correction. I was wrong in what I wrote above. The Parthenon survived basically intact till the War of the Holy League against the Ottoman Empire. The hitherto seemingly invincible Ottoman Empire was crushingly defeated over and over after the Siege of Vienna in 1683. Her vengeful enemies, the Habsburg Empire, Poland, Russia, Venice, etc., leagued together to drive back the Ottomans as far as possible.
It was the TURKS who were being besieged in Athens by the Venetians in 1687, not the other way about. And it was a Venetian shell which caused the ammunition stored by the Turks in the Parthenon to blow up.
Sean
Post a Comment