The Stones of Athens

beautiful statues for the gods.' Athens was indeed blessed in its building stones, as in its fine clay. The immensely complicated geophysical processes which created the exquisite landscape of Attica produced a variety of useful and often beautiful materials, nicely distributed about the land. The stones are mostly limestones of different sorts. Marble itself is a limestone miraculously metamorphosed by titanic heat and pressure into its characteristic crystalline structure, thus forming in the body of the earth what M. Aurelius (ix. 36) aptly calls poroi, calluses or nodules. This has happened in many places, but in most the result consists of comparatively small lumps or thin veins; much rarer are the massive beds from which can be extracted the great blocks needed for the major architectural members of temples and other large buildings. In this too Attica is exceptionally favoured. More than one huge layer runs through the fabric of both Pentelikon and Hymettos; and other extensive beds lie near the southern tip of Attica.z Yet ancient Athens was not a city of gleaming marble, nor even of grey or brown stone. It would be much nearer the truth to say it was a city of mud brick. In sheer bulk this was by far the commonest material. The raw ingredients were ready to hand in inexhaustible quantities, and easily processed and handled. Unbaked or sun-dried brick (sometimes called adobe) on a low stone socle, was used for all houses, even the wealthiest as far as we can tell; for some public buildings and lesser shrines; and for most of the length and the major part of the height of the great fortification walls, even in their later and more sophisticated form, as inscriptions show. This by no means implies that such structures were ill-built. Unbaked brick is a very serviceable material, if the bricks are well made and well laid. It is strong and durable, if given protection above from the rain and a coat of plaster. When fully exposed to the