Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 01.djvu/412

LEFT ATHENS 326 ATHENS Architecture. — The architectural de- and built the Theseum on an eminence velopment of Athens may be dated from N. of the Areopagus; his brother-in-law, the rule of the Pisistratids (560-510 B. Peisianax, erecting the famous Stoa C.),who are credited with the foundation Poecile, a hall with walls covered with of the huge temple of the Olympian Zeus, paintings (whence the Stoics got their completed by Hadrian seven centuries name). Under Pericles the highest point later, the erection of the Pythium or of artistic development was reached. An temple of Pythian Apollo, and of the odeium was erected on the E. of the ATHENS, GREECE Lyceum or temple of Apollo Lyceus — all near the Ilissus; and to whom were due the inclosure of the academy, a gymna- sium and gardens to the N. of the city, and the building of the Agora with its Portico or Stoa, Bouleuterium or Senate- house, Tholus and Prytanium. With the foundation of Athenian democracy under Clisthenes, the Pnyx or place of public assembly, with its semi-circular area and Cyclopean wall, first became of impor- tance, and a commencement was made to the Dionysiac theater (theater of Diony- sus or Bacchus) on the S. side of the Acropolis. Reconstruction. — After the destruction wrought by the Persians in 480 B. C, Themistocles reconstructed the city upon practical lines, and with a larger area, inclosing the city in new walls 7% miles m circumference, erecting the N. wall of the Acropolis, and developing the mari- time resources of the Piraeus; while Cimon added to the southern fortifi- cations of the Acropolis, placed on it the temple of Wingless Victory, planted the Agora with trees, laid out the Academy. Dionysiac theater, for the recitations of rhapsodists and musicians; and with the aid of the architects Ictinus and Mnesicles and of the sculptor Phidias the Acropolis was perfected. In the interval between the close of the Peloponnesian War and the battle of Chaeronea, few additions were made. Then, however, the long walls and Piraeus, destroyed by Lysander, were restored by Conon, and under the orator, Lycurgus, the Dionysiac temple was completed, the Panathenaic stadium commenced, and the choragic monuments of Lysicrates and Thrasyllus erected. Later on Ptolemy Philadelphus gave it the Ptolem£eum near the Theseum, At- tains I, the stoa N. E. of the Agora, Eumenes II. that near the great theater, and Antiochus Epiphanes carried on the Olympium. Under the Romans, it con- tinued a flourishing city. The City in Decline. — But after a time Christian zeal, the attacks of barbarians, and robberies of collectors, made sad in- roads among the monuments. About 420 A. D. paganism was totally annihilated at Athens, and when Justinian closed