place of the world.

But meantime the bad fortune of Greece began. Her cities quarreled and
fought among themselves. A king came down from the north and conquered
her. After that the Romans sailed over from Italy and conquered her
again. Often Roman emperors carried off some of her statues to make Rome
beautiful. Shipload after shipload they took. The new country was filled
with Greek statues. The old one was left almost empty. Later, after
Christ was born, and the Romans and the Greeks had become Christian, the
emperor said,

"It is not fitting for Christians to hold a festival in honor of a
heathen god." And he stopped the games. He took away the gold and silver
gifts from the treasure houses. He carried away the gold and ivory
statues. Where Phidias' wonderful Zeus went nobody knows. Perhaps the
gold was melted to make money. Olympia sat lonely and deserted by her
river banks. Summer winds whirled dust under her porches. Rabbits made
burrows in Zeus' altar. Doors rusted off their hinges. Foxes made their
dens in Hera's temple. Men came now and then to melt up a bronze statue
for swords or to haul away the stones of her temples for building.
The Alpheios kept eating away its banks and cutting under statues and
monuments. Many a beautiful thing crumbled and fell into the river and
was rolled on down to the sea. Men sometimes found a bronze helmet or a
marble head in the bed of the stream.

After a long time people came and lived among the ruins. On an old
temple floor they built a little church. Men lived in the temple of
Zeus, and women spun and gossiped where the golden statue had sat. In
the temple of Hera people set up a wine press. Did they know that the
little marble baby in the statue near them was the god of the vineyard