A Victor of Salamis
Page 10
CHAPTER VIII
ON THE ACROPOLIS
The Acropolis of Athens rises as does no other citadel in the world. Hadno workers in marble or bronze, no weavers of eloquence or song, dweltbeneath its shadow, it would stand the centre and cynosure of a remarkablelandscape. It is "_The Rock_," no other like unto it. Is it enough to sayits ruddy limestone rises as a huge boulder one hundred and fifty feetabove the plain, that its breadth is five hundred, its length onethousand? Numbers and measures can never disclose a soul,--and the Rock ofAthens has all but a soul: a soul seems to glow through its adamant whenthe fire-footed morning steals over the long crest of Hymettus, andtouches the citadel's red bulk with unearthly brightness; a soul when theday falls to sleep in the arms of night as Helios sinks over the westernhill by Daphni. Then the Rock seems to throb and burn with life again.
It is so bare that the hungry goats can hardly crop one spear of grassalong its jagged slopes. It is so steep it scarce needs defence against anarmy. It is so commanding that he who stands on the westmost pinnacle canlook across the windy hill of the Pnyx, across the brown plain-land anddown to the sparkling blue sea with the busy havens of Peiraeus andPhalerum, the scattered gray isles of the AEgean, and far away to thedomelike crest of Acro-Corinthus. Let him turn to the right: below himnestles the gnarled hill of Areopagus, home of the Furies, the buzzingplaza of the Agora, the closely clustered city. Behind, there spreadmountain, valley, plain,--here green, here brown, here golden,--withPentelicus the Mighty rearing behind all, his summits fretted white, notwith winter snows, but with lustrous marble. Look to the left: across theview passes the shaggy ridge of Hymettus, arid and scarred, as if wroughtby the Titans, home only of goats and bees, of nymphs and satyrs.
That was almost the self-same vision in the dim past when the first savageclambered this "Citadel of Cecrops" and spoke, "Here is mydwelling-place." This will be the vision until earth and ocean are nomore. The human habitation changes, the temples rise and crumble; the redand gray rock, the crystalline air, the sapphire sea, come from the god,and these remain.