Sun. 16. [16 February 1902] Father better, storm still raging but fine.
Colder. Wrote letters and went out soon after 11 to the Acropolis from
whence I had a very splendid view over broken bare country, very
southern. Here I borrowed 50c. from a neighbouring German having
forgotten my purse, and went on down the hill to the T. of Ceres and
Proserpine, a cella with antae on the E turned by the Normans into a
church. After lunch H [Hugo] and I sallied out and went to the T of
Juno losing our road and being obliged to scale up to it. I saw starch
hyacinth, a scarlet vetch and a charming red clover. This T stands
most magnificent. It is hexastyle peripteral with antae at both ends;
the E and S lines of columns much broken. It looks out over the plain
and a great stretch of sea, grey and yellow and blue with storm. It
stands on the edge of the cliff with a flight of steps leading up to the E
end. On the N side the ground drops quickly and the stylobate is very
high in consequence. The whole effect is to give the temple great
height - most splendid it is. On to Concordia following the line of the
wall. It is almost perfect and gives that suggestion of boxiness which I
always feel in a perfect temple. Still it is extremely fine. The cella as
perfect as at Palmyra [Tadmur]. We took a merry custode whose
one word of English was y-e-e-s and went (by all that was wonderful!)
to see some catacombs. They came in very handy for we sheltered
ourselves there from a shower of rain. Then on to the T of Hercules,
almost entirely fallen - very old with bulging and tapering columns and
very wide capitals. Then to the Great T of Zeus which is a complete
ruin. It was of colossal size and the columns were engaged in the
walls, the entablature being too massive for them. The flutes in the
columns are big enough for a man to stand in. I saw a colossal
triglyph. Lots of stones with an odd horseshoe in them. In the middle
was lying a gigantic Telamones, one of the giants that supported the
roof. He is so worn with exposure and weather that he looks such[?]
some monstrous and obscene image. Then to the exquisite fragment
of Castor and Pollux, the most malerisch of all. Lovely in detail with a
bit of curved cornice over the tryglyph. Below, between us and the
town, we saw a deep dip, an old stone quarry, with a wonderful mass
of orange trees loaded with fruit. We dropped down into in by a
breakneck path and were received by the owner of that Hesperides
and his charming family who sold us the golden apples, blood red
inside, from from the boughs. Then we made our way up to the high
perched town by an old peasant road cut in some places through the
solid rock and deep into it. It took us however a good 3/4 of an hour
to get up. On the top we met Mr Round, just outside the town and
walked home with him. We have a delightful sitting room from whence
we can see the T of Concordia.