and had taught men to make wine? Out of broken statues and columns and
temple stones they built a wall around the little town to keep out their
enemies. Sometimes when they found a bronze warrior or a marble god they
must have made strange stories about it, for they had half forgotten
those wonderful old Greeks. But the marble statues they put into a kiln
to make lime to plaster their houses. The bronze ones they melted up for
tools. Sometimes they found a piece of gold. They thought themselves
lucky then and melted it over into money.

But an earthquake shook down the buildings and toppled over the statues.
The columns and walls of the grand old temple of Zeus fell in a heap.
The marble statues in its pediments dropped to the ground and broke.
Victory fell from her high pillar and shattered into a hundred pieces.
The roof of Hera's temple fell in, and Hermes stood uncovered to the
sky. Old Kronion rocked and sent a landslide down over the treasure
houses. Kladeos rushed out of his course and poured sand over the sacred
place.

That earthquake frightened the people away, and they left Olympia alone
again. Hermes was still there, but he looked out upon ruins. Victory lay
in a heap of fragments. Apollo was there, but broken and buried in earth
with the other people of the pediments. Zeus and all the hundreds of
heroes and athletes were gone. So it was for a while. Then a new race of
people came and built another little town upon the earth-covered ruins.
They little guessed what lay below their poor houses. But for some
reason this town, also, died and left the ruins alone. Then dusty winds
and flooding rivers began to cover up what was left. Kladeos piled up
sand fifteen feet deep. Alpheios swung out of its banks and washed away
the race-course for chariots. Under the rains and floods the sun-dried
bricks of Hera's walls melted again into clay and covered the floor.