Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/297

 an adjunct, or a chapel of the Pandroseium, intended for some particular purpose, as Leake has observed.

We may now proceed to examine the different objects in the building and connected with it. First, as to the temple of Athena Polias. In front of the portico was the altar of Zens Hypatus (a), which Pausanias describes as situated before the entrance (vph TTis iaHav). In the portico itself (^(rcAtfovo-i, Paus.) were altars of Poseidon-Erechtheus, of Butes, and of Hephaestus (b, c, d.). In the cella (iy r^ Ki^), probably near the western wall, was the Palladium (e), or statue of the goddess. In front of the latter was the golden lamp (h), made by Callimachus, which was kept burning both day and night; it was filled with oil only once a year, and had a wick of Carpasian flax (the mineral Asbestus), whence the lamp was called d 6a€wros xyos, (Strab. ix. p. 396.) It is mentioned as one of the offences of the tyrant Aristion, that he allowed the fire of this lamp to go out daring the siege of Athens by Sulla. (Dion Cass. Frag. 124, p. 51, Reimar.: Plut. Num. 9.) Pausanias says, that a brazen palm tree rising above the lamp to the roof carried off the smoke. In other parts of the cella were a wooden Hermes, said to hare been presented by Cecrops, a folding chair made by Daedalus, and spoils taken from the Persians. The walls of the temple were covered with pictures of the Butadae.

The statue of Athena Polias, which was the most sacred statue of the goddess, was made of olive wood. It is said to have fallen down from heaven, and to have been a common offering of the demi many years before they were united in the city of Athens. It was emphatically the ancient statue; and, as Wordsworth has remarked, it had, in the time of Aeschylus, acquired the character of a proper name, not requiring to be distinguished by the definite article. Hence Athena says to Orestes (Aesch. Eum. 80.): t(w woAoibv AyxaBtv Ku6i» fipens. It has been observed above [p. 265] that the Panathenaic peplos was dedicated to Athena Polias, and not to die Athena of the Parthenon. This appears from the following passage of Aristophanes {Av. 826), quoted by Wordsworth:—

ET. rls 8dl 9fhs IIsAiovxof lirrai; r^ ^ewovfitp rhw vlirAor; IIEL ri V o&K *A<h|ya(ar iAfttP UoXtdia;

Upon which passage the scholiast remarks: rp A09rf IloKidAt 00017 wcvAos tyitfero woforolKiXos tw ire^ffKir iv t§ woforf r&p lUwvBififvdmif. The statue of Athena seems to hare been covered with the peplus. A very ancient statue of Athena, which was discovered a few years back in the Aglaurium, is supposed by K. O. Müller to have been a copy of the old Athena Polias. A description of this statue, with three views of it, is given by Mr. Scharf in the Museum of Classical Antiquities (vol i. p. 190, seq.). "It is a sitting figure, 4 feet 6 inches in height. It has a very archaic character; the posture is formal and angular; the knees are close together, but the left foot a little advanced; the head and arms are wanting."

With respect to the objects in the Pandroseium, the first thing is to determine, if possible, the position of the olive tree and the salt well. That both of these were in the Pandroseium cannot admit of doubt. Two authors already quoted (Apollod. iii. 14. § 1; Philochor. ap. Dionys. de Deinarch. 3) expressly state that the olive tree stood in the temple of Pandrosus; and that such was the case with the

salt well, also, appears from Pausanias (i. 26. § 5), who, after stating that the building is twofold, adds: "in the inner part is a well of salt water, which is remarkable for sending forth a sound like that of waves when the wind is from the south. There is, also, the figure of a trident upon the rock: these are said to be evidences of the contention of Poseidon (with Athena) for Attica." This salt well is usually called Bd€ur(rci *Zp€x0ritf, or simply BdKaa&a (Apollod. iii. 14. § 1; Herod, viii. 55); and other writers mention the visible marks of Poseidon's trident. ('O/M* T^v ijcp&troXuf Kol rh rtfA r^r r/Mo/nir lx« t< orifittoy, Hegesias, ''ap. Strab,'' ix. p. 396.) Leake supposed that both the well and the olive tree were in the Cecropium, or the southern portico, on the ground that the two were probably near each other, and that the southern portico, by its peculiar plan and construction, seems to have been intended expressly for the olive, since a wall, fifteen feet high, protected the trunk from injury, while the air was freely admitted to its foliage, between the six statues which supported the roof. But this hypothesis is disproved by the recent investigations of Tetaz, who states that the foundation of the floor of the portico is formed of a continuous mass of stones, which could not have received any vegetation. The olive tree could not, therefore, have been in the southern portico. M. Tetaz places it, with much probability, in the centre of the cella of the Pandroseium. He imagines that the lateral walls of the temple of Polias were continued under the form of columns in the Pandroeeium, and that the inner space between these columns formed the cella of the temple, and was open to the sky. Here grew the olive-tree (o) under the altar of Zeus Herceius (p), according to the statement of Philochorus (ap. Dionys, l. c.). The description by Virgil (Aen. ii. 512) of the altar, at which Priam was slain, is applicable to the spot before us:

Aedibus in mediis, nudoque sub aetheris axe Ingens ara fuit, juxtaque veterrima laurus

Incumbent arae atque umbra complexa Penates."

The probable position of the salt well has been determined by Tetaz, who has discovered, under the northern portico, what appear to be the marks of Poseidon's trident. Upon the removal, in 1846, of the remains of a Turkish powder magazine, which encumbered the northern portico, Tetaz observed three holes sunk in the rock; and it is not unlikely that this was the very spot shown to devout persons, and to Pausanias among the number, as the memorial of Poseidon's contest with Athena. A drawing of them is given by Mr. Penrose, which we subjoin, with his description.

"They occur upon the surface of the rock of the Acropolis, about seven feet below the level of the pavement. These singular traces consist of three holes, partly natural and partly cut in the rock; that lettered a in the plan is close to the eastern anta of the portico; it is very irregular, and seems to form part of a natural fissure; b and c, near the surface, seem also to have been natural, but are hollowed into a somewhat cylindrical shape, between 2 and 3 feet deep and 8 and 9 in diameter; d is a, receptacle, as may be presumed, for water, cut 1·0 deep in the rock, and connected with the holes b and c by means of a narrow channel, also about 1·0 deep. The channel is produced for a short distance in the direction of a, but was perhaps discontinued on its being discovered that, owing to natural cre-