The Cruise of the Branwen

CRUISE OF THE BRANWEN but from its smaller size it loses that magnificent effect of massive serenity which is typical of the Parthenon, its greater sister, and therefore its builders seem to have decorated it with more colour than was usual in tern ples of this order ; and it is only by the rich colouring we can still see in the fa<;ade of St. Mark's at Venice that we should judge what the Greek temples really looked like in their prime. They were not white. They were not even the mellow gold of the Theseum. They were full of brilliant hues. enhanced by the varied surface of their sculptures. But I must complete the thought that Hadrian's columns have suggested. It is, briefly, that a Greek of the best period of classical antiquity would have made so large a building after the Doric style of the Parthenon. For a smaller building, such as the exquisitely graceful Erech– theum on the Acropolis, the Ionic order was appropriate. For the still smaller monument of Lysicrates, and for that alone, the Corinthian order remains the obvious choice of its Athenian designers. The columns of Hadrian's Temple were the first and the Theseum was the last of the famous buildings of Greek history I saw in Athens. Between them in my memory stands out our third visit to the Acropolis. On its southern slopes are the vestiges of the Stoa of Eumenes, built in 200- B.c., and the earliest instance, I am told, of the structural use of the round arch. Not far off, the whole plan of the Temple of lEsculapius was discovered as recently as 1884.. 134