nus,
Callicrates, and Carpion, were the architects of this temple; Phidias
was the artist; and its entire cost has been estimated at seven million
and a half of dollars. Of this building, eight columns of the eastern
front and several of the lateral colonnades are still standing. Of the
frontispiece, which represented the contest of Neptune and Minerva,
nothing remains but the head of a sea-horse and the figures of two
women without heads. The combat of the Centaurs and Lapithae is in better
preservation; but of the numerous statues with which this temple was
enriched, that of Adrian alone remains. The Parthenon, however,
dilapidated as it is, still retains an air of inexpressible grandeur and
sublimity; and it forms at once the highest point in Athens, and the
centre of the Acropolis.

[Illustration: THE ERECHTHEUM.]

To stand at the eastern wall of the Acropolis, and gaze on the
Parthenon, robed in the rich colors by which time has added an almost
voluptuous beauty to its perfect proportions--to behold between its
columns the blue mountains of the Morea, and the bluer seas of Egina and
Salamis, with acanthus-covered or icy-wedded fragments of majestic
friezes, and mighty capitals at your feet--the sky of Greece, flooded by
the gorgeous hues of sunset, above your head--Mr. Cook describes as one
of the highest enjoyments the world can offer to a man of taste. He is
opposed to the projects of its restoration, and says that, "to real
lovers of the picturesque, the Parthenon as it now stands--a ruin in
every sense of the term, its walls destroyed, its columns shivered, its
friezes scattered, its capitals half-buried by their own weight, but
clear of all else--is, if not a grander, assuredly a more impressive
object than when, in the palmiest days of Athenian glory, its marble,
pure as the unfallen snow, first met the rays of the morning sun, and
excited the reverential admiration of the assembled multitudes."

On the northeast side of the Parthenon stood the Erechtheum, a temple
dedicated to the joint worship of Neptune and Minerva. There are
considerable remains of this building, particularly those beautiful
female figures called Caryatides, which support, instead of columns,
three of the porticoes; besides three of the columns in the north
hexastyle with the roof over these last columns, the rest of the roof of
this graceful portico fell during the siege of Athens, in 1827. Lately,
much has been done in the way of exc