HOW ATHENS ROSE FROM ITS
ASHES.

Tue torch of Xerxes and Mardonius left Athens a
heap of ashes. But, like the new birth of the fabled
phoenix, there rose out of these ashes a city that be-
came the wonder of the world, and whose time-worn
ruins are still worshipped by the pilgrims of art.
We cannot proceed with our work without pausing
awhile to contemplate this remarkable spectacle.

The old Athens bore to the new much the same
relation that the chrysalis bears to the butterfly. It
was little more than an ordinary country town, the
capital of a district comparable in size to a modern
county. Pisistratus and his sons had built some
temples, and had completed a part of the Dionysiac
theatre, but the city itself was simply a cluster of
villages surrounded by a wall; while the citadel had
for defence nothing stronger than a wooden rampart.
The giving of this city to the torch was no serious
loss; in reality it was a gain, since it cleared the
ground for the far nobler city of later days.

It is not often that a whole nation removes from its
home, and its possessions are completely swept away.
But such had been the case with the Attic state.
For a time all Attica was afloat, the people of city
and country alike taking to their ships; while a

186