Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 11.djvu/78

68 imperial palaces, basilicas, baths, and the temples of the gods. Vast quantities of marble were even burned for lime; and, as if in retribution, Rome was robbed to beautify other cities. Her sculptured marbles were transported to Aix-la-Chapelle to decorate the buildings of Charlemagne, and the ancient capital of the world, Petrarch laments, was forced to adorn from her own bowels the slothful luxury of Naples.

Of the white marbles of antiquity the most important were the Parian and the Pentelic, both the product of Greek quarries. The Parian was obtained from Mount Marpessa, in the island of Paros, one of the Cyclades, whence it was sometimes called Marpessian. It was also called lychnites, because, says Pliny, the quarries were worked by lamplight. Dodwell disputes this, averring that the quarries are cut down the mountain-side and open to the light; and he suggests that the marble was so called from its glittering fracture, or its translucence. This leads one to doubt whether Dodwell ever visited them, for Bory Saint-Vincent, of the French commission to the Morea, expressly describes them as subterranean, and says the entrance of the principal one was so filled up at the time of his visit that he was obliged to creep to enter it. There are three quarries on the mountain, and the largest has several lateral cuttings. The marks of the ancient wedges are everywhere visible, and it is evident from the manner in which the blocks were taken out that the utmost care was exercised to avoid waste. In consequence of the numerous fissures through the beds, comparatively small blocks could be obtained, generally not more than five feet in length.

Parian marble is of a yellowish white, very near the tint of white wax. Theocritus compares it to the color of teeth. It was, therefore, considered better adapted for the representation of human flesh than any other material. Its grain is much coarser than that of the Pentelic marble, but it takes a most exquisite polish, and, as it gradually hardens by exposure to atmospheric air, it resists decomposition for ages. To this quality is attributable the fine state of preservation of many of the most celebrated of the antique statues, such as the "Venus de' Medici," the "Diana Venatrix," the "Juno Capitolina," the "Ariadne," and the colossal "Minerva"—otherwise called the "Pallas of Velletri"—all of which are of Parian marble.

The neighboring island of Naxos produced a white marble scarcely inferior to that of Paros, but exhibiting a little more advanced state of crystallization. The marble, too, of Tenos, an island north of Paros, and of Thasos, the most northerly of the Ægean group, was considered nearly equal to that of Paros. Chios, Lesbos, Samos, and several other islands of the archipelago, also produced white marbles, generally of a more snowy white than the Parian. They are called usually by the Italians marmo Greco.

In the palmy days of Greek art the Athenians gave the preference