Note 148 — Chapter II · HELLENIC GREECE.

Among the many attempts made to restore the interior of this temple, the last and most elaborate is that by the late E. Beulé, ‘Acropole d’Athènes,’ 1854, vol. ii. pl. ii.; but it is also one of the worst. Indeed it is quite painful to see how the author twists his authorities to meet a preconceived theory. Without going into it, there is one objection which seems fatal to the whole.

Like most antiquaries when in difficulties for lighting Greek temples, he takes off the roof and makes the Temple of Pandrosus an open courtyard, in which he plants the olive. This is so opposed to the whole spirit of Greek art as to be inadmissible on general grounds, but in this instance it introduces the further absurdity that the Greeks opened three windows in the west wall of the temple to light this courtyard which was already open to the sky! The mode of lighting a temple by vertical windows is so exceptional that it would not have been introduced here had any other means existed of lighting the interior, and consequently the combination shown by M. Beulé seems simply impossible.