Mount Athos, Thessaly, and Epirus
by George Ferguson Bowen (9780217237482)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. ANTIQUITIES AND CHURCHES OF THESSALONICA?SET OFF FOR MOUNT ATHOS ?MODE OF TRAVELLING CHALCIDICE ACANTHUS CANAL CUT BY XERXES CONVENT FARMS?MONASTERIES OF RHILIANDARION AND BATOP.EDION?FIRST NIGHT IN THE MONASTIC PENINSULA. Oct. 22 continued.?Having hired horses for my journey to Mount Athos on the following morning, I set out to lionise Thessalonica under the guidance of a very intelligent rld Turk, the jani- sary of the English consul. There are a great many remains of the Hellenic times here?sculptured marbles built into the walls, pillars lying around the fountains; and I even saw some marble columns, once evidently belonging to an ancient temple, now supporting the roof of a wretched wooden coffee-shop just by the landing- place. There is a fine view of the bay, and of the Thessalian Olympus, from all the upper parts of the town. The two most remarkable antiquities of classical ages are,?1. What is traditionally called the arch of Constantine, and with probability, for Zosimus remarks, that when Constau- tine had subdued the Sarmatians, he went to 36 ANTIQUITIES OF THESSALONICA. Thessalonica, and there constructed a port1. It is an ancient arch, now deprived of its marble facing, and become a mere tottering mass of Roman tile and mortar, thrown over the principal street toward its eastern end. The piers which support this arch still retain their marble facing, and are covered all around with a double range of figures in basso relievo, representing the sieges, battles, and triumphs of a Roman emperor. A great part of the piers is concealed by workmen's sheds built up against them. On entering one of them to get a nearer view of the figures, a ragged Greek boy offered to sell me, as an antiquity, an obol, or halfpenny, of the Ionian Islands, with the ar...

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