from the veins whereof came the lustrous marble for the master
sculptor. Closer at hand, nearer the center of the plain, rose
a small and very isolated hill,--Lycabettus, whose peaked summit
looked down upon the roofs of Athens. And last, but never least,
about one mile southwest of Lycabettus, upreared a natural monument
of much greater frame,--not a hill, but a colossal rock. Its
shape was that of an irregular oval; it was about 1000 feet long,
500 feet wide, and its level summit stood 350 feet above the plain.
This steep, tawny rock, flung by the Titans, one might dream,
into the midst of the Attic plain, formed one of the most famous
sites in the world, for it was the Acropolis of Athens. Its full
significance, however, must be explained later. From the Acropolis
and a few lesser hills close by, the land sloped gently down towards
the harbors and the Saronic Bay.

These were the great features of the outward setting of Athens. One
might add to them the long belt of dark green olive groves winding
down the westward side of the plain, where the Cephisus (which
along among Attic rivulets did not run dry in summer) ran down to
the sea. There was also a shorter olive belt west of the city,
where the weaker Ilissus crept, before it lost itself amid the
thirsty fields.

Sea, rock, and sky, then, joined together around Athens as around
almost no other city in the world. The landscape itself was adjusted
to the eye with marvelous harmony. The colors and contours formed
one glorious model for the sculptor and the painter, one perpetual
inspiration for the poet. Even if Athens had never been the seat
of a famous race, she would have won fame as being situated in one
of the most beautiful localities in the world. Rightly, therefore, did