The temple of the Erectheum was situated at Athens, less than two
hundred feet distant from the Parthenon. It was the temple of Athene
Polias, or Minerva and Erectheus; and adjoining it was the chapel of
Pandrosus. Philocles of Acharnae was the architect of the building,
which Lord Aberdeen, reiterating the opinion of many great
authorities, in his "Inquiry into the Principles of Beauty in Grecian
Architecture," styles the most perfect known specimen of the Ionic
order of architecture. It was built on the spot where Neptune and
Minerva are supposed to have contested the honour of naming Athens.
When Lord Elgin visited Athens, the vestibule of the temple was a
Turkish powder magazine.
Before examining the few relics from this fine building in the saloon,
the visitor should notice the second object, marked 106, which is the
cast of a head found during the progress of excavations at Athens,
between the ancient gate of the Peloponnesus and the temple of
Theseus. Having passed from this relic, the visitor will at once
examine the architectural relics of different parts of the Erectheum,
which are more interesting to the architectural student than to the
general visitor. The fragment 109 is the lower portion of a draped
female statue; the relic marked 110 is part of the shaft of an Ionic
column; the capital of a column, 125, is very beautiful: but the
object that will be most attractive to the general visitor is the
statue marked 128, known in architecture as a Caryatid, which was used
in the temple of Pandrosus instead of columns. Hereabouts also, amid
the miscellaneous fragments, the visitor should notice a colossal
headless and heavily-draped figure, marked 111. This is the wreck of
the great statue of Bacchus which surmounted a monument erected three
hundred and twenty years before the Christian era, by Thrasyllus of
Deceleia, to record the victory of a tribe at a great festival of
Bacchus. This statue has been variously christened. Some believe it to
be the fragment of a Niobe; others of a Diana. It is generally allowed
to be a noble sample of Greek sculpture. Hereabouts, also, is the
well-known imperfect statue of Icarus (113), brought in fragments from
the Acropolis. The urn marked 122 is a sepulchral vessel, with figures
in bas-relief; 123 is a sepulchral column, with an Athenian name upon
it; and then the visitor will pass rapidly the fragments of Doric and
Ionic columns from various Greek temples. With the casts beginning
from 136, the visitor will start with his examination of the fragments
from the