Pnyx from Mars Hill
Pnyx from Mars Hill We are looking toward the southwest. The Pnyx is where the Athenians held their political assemblies. Here it was that Demosthenes and the other orators of Athens thundered. The Pnyx consists of a huge terrace three hundred and ninety-five feet long and two hundred and twelve feet wide, the upper margin of which is cut out of the rock. It is semicircular in form. At the back of the terrace is a perpendicular wall of rock thirteen feet in height. In the picture we see in the distance Piræus, the Athenian port where Paul landed A. D. 51. The large area of the Pnyx rests at the lower side upon a remarkable terrace. It is of Cyclopean architecture, constructed of enormous polygonal stones laid with cement. It is certainly the work of the earliest days of the republic. The so-called “pulpit of Demosthenes” is excavated in the same rock. Demosthenes was born probably about 384 or 385 B. C. He overcame physical disadvantages which would have been sufficient to de...