Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 11.djvu/79

Rh to the Pentelic marble, rather than to that of Paros, probably because it was more accessible to Athens, the quarries being on Mount Pentelicus,only about eight miles from the city. It is finer in grain than the Parian, and is whiter, but it is less translucid, and it has a tendency to exfoliate under atmospheric influence, so that it loses in time its polished surface. It is marked, too, by occasional zones of greenish talc, whence it is called by the Italian sculptors cipolino statuario, from its resemblance to an onion (cipola). It is sometimes called also marmo salino, from its salt-like grains. The Parthenon, the Propylæa, the Erechtheum, and most of the other principal buildings of Athens, were constructed of Pentelic marble, and it was also the material of some of the most celebrated of the ancient statues, such as the "Venus" of the Capitol, the "Pallas" of the Albani villa, the "Indian Bacchus," and many portrait busts.

The Pentelic quarries, says Dodwell, are cut in perpendicular precipices in the side of the mountain. The marks of the tools are everywhere visible, and the tracks of the sledges on which the immense masses were drawn down the declivity to the plain are still to be seen. Several frusta of columns and other blocks lie at the base of the excavation, just as they were left by the ancient quarrymen. One of the larger excavations is worked now.

The Hymettan marble, from Mount Hymettus on the southeast side of Athens, was employed in Xenophon's time in the construction of temples, altars, shrines, and statues, throughout Greece, but especially in Athens. The Romans used it to a much greater extent than the Pentelic, partly because the quarries were nearer the sea, and partly because its peculiar tint became the fashion. It was of a much less brilliant white than the Pentelic, in some places becoming almost gray. It was used chiefly for buildings. According to Pliny, Lucius Scaurus was the first in Rome to decorate his house with Hymettan columns, 104 The statue of Meleager, in Paris, is made of this marble.

In the time of Julius Cæsar quarries of white marble were opened at Luna, on the coast of Etruria, and thenceforth Rome drew her supply of building-marbles from this place, almost to the exclusion of the Greek marbles. The Pantheon, and many other public buildings, were constructed of it. It was soon found to be adapted also for statuary, and finally came to be preferred to the Parian. The "Antinous" of the Capitol, now in the Paris Museum, is of this marble, and, according to some, the "Apollo Belvedere" also; but the Roman sculptors think the latter is a Greek marble. The marble of Luna, called by the ancients marmor Lunense, and which is the same as the modern Carrara, is whiter than either the Parian or Pentelic, and some of its veins are not inferior in beauty of grain and in softness to the former.

In 1847 a quarry of white marble was opened at Maremma, about