Page:A general history for colleges and high schools (Myers, 1890).djvu/214

180 and founder of Constantinople) was the Nebuchadnezzar who bore off the sacred vessels and many statues as trophies to his new capital then rising on the Hellespont.

The Athenian Acropolis and the Parthenon.—In the history of art there is no other spot in the world possessed of such interest as the flat-topped rock, already described (see p. 118), which constituted the Athenian Acropolis. We have seen that in early times the eminence was used as a stronghold. But by the fifth century B.C. the city had slipped down upon the plain, and the summit of the rock was consecrated to the temples and the worship of the deities, and came to be called "the city of the gods." During the period of Athenian supremacy, especially in the Periclean Age, Hellenic genius and piety adorned this spot with temples and statues that all the world has pronounced to be faultless specimens of beauty and taste.

The most celebrated of the buildings upon the Acropolis was the Parthenon, the "Residence of the virgin-goddess Athena." This is considered the finest specimen of Greek architecture. It was designed by the architect Ictinus, but the sculptures that adorned it were the work of the celebrated Phidias. It was built