Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: APPENDIX THE PRE-PERSIAN TEMPLE ON THE ACROPOLIS l In 1886 the excavations conducted by the Greek Archaeological Society on the Acropolis at Athens laid bare the foundations of a large ancient temple immediately to the south of the Erechtheum. It was at once recognised that this temple must have been the one burnt by the Persians when they sacked Athens in 480 B.c. This conclusion has been generally accepted and there is no ground for questioning it.

But Dr. Dorpfeld, who superintended the excavations and to whom we are indebted for a detailed plan and description of the existing remains, has propounded a theory that the temple was rebuilt by the Athenians shortly after the Persian war, and that it continued to exist as late certainly as the second century of our era and probably much later. If Dr. Dorpfeld had based this theory on the nature of the existing architectural remains, his judgment might well have been regarded as final, since no man living is better qualified than he to pronounce an opinion on all questions relating to Greek architecture. Certainly I for one would not have presumed to differ from him. But although Dr. Dorpfeld believes that the temple was twice burnt and twice rebuilt by the Athenians, he does not maintain that a single stone of the existing remains is of later date than the Persian sack. His theory of the restoration of the temple rests almost wholly on considerations of historical probability and on literary and epigraphical evidence.

It is therefore one which every scholar is free to examine and estimate for himself. I have lately had occasion to do so; and an attentive and, I trust, unprejudiced consideration of Dr. Db'rpfeld's evidence has led me to the conclusion that his theory is open to grave, if not insuperable, objections. These obje.