The Parthenon. This picture doesn't do it the faintest justice. The Parthenon seems both solid and light simultaneously. Though everything about the outside columns appears vertical and solid, there is acually no straight, vertical line in the whole thing. Each vertical is almost imperceptibly bowed to a vanishing point some 11,500 feet in the sky. The columns get thinner toward the center of the colonnade and the space between them gets smaller. They also lean slightly toward the center. We think we can see these differences but we're not sure. The Turks used the Parthenon as a powder magazine, when, on September 26, 1687, Venetian artillery scored a direct hit. The Venetians tried to lower tried to swipe Athena's horses from the pediment, but they goofed and the horses smashed the rock below. The Turks regained possession of the Acropolis the following year and later began selling souvenirs to Europeans, including the Duc de Choiseul and Lord Elgin. Elgin took home 50 pieces, the "Elgin Marbles," most of the remaining Parthenon sculpture. He later sold them to the British Museum for 35,000 pounds. (Elgin's shipping charges were 75,000, a huge sum for those days.)

© Monica & Mark Hughes 2000-02