What happened to the Greek and Roman temples and religious statuary?

[struggle4progress]

The Colosseum might provide a bit of clue: it remains there only because of its massive size, having been used for various purposes over the centuries, having been damaged in earthquakes, and having been quarried for its bronze fittings and stone



Some other buildings survived better.

The Parthenon in Athens remained a usable building until the seventeenth century, when

The Venetians sent an expedition .. to attack Athens and capture the Acropolis. The Ottoman Turks fortified the Acropolis and used the Parthenon as a gunpowder magazine ... On 26 September a Venetian mortar round, fired from the Hill of Philopappus, blew up the magazine, and the building was partly destroyed.

The Parthenon once housed a giant statue:

When Pericles rose to power in 449, he initiated a great building program in Athens and placed Phidias in charge of all artistic undertakings. Among works for which Phidias is famous are three monuments to Athena on the Athenian Acropolis (the Athena Promachos, the Lemnian Athena, and the colossal Athena Parthenos for the Parthenon) and the colossal seated Zeus for the Temple of Zeus at Olympia ... Phidias’ last years remain a mystery. Pericles’ enemies accused Phidias of stealing gold from the statue of the Athena Parthenos in 432, but he was able to disprove the charge. They then accused him of impiety (for including portraits of Pericles and himself on the shield of Athena on the Athena Parthenos), and he was thrown into prison.

... <The Athena Parthenos>, according to Pliny, was around 11.5 metres tall (26 cubits) and was made of carved ivory for flesh parts and gold (1140 kilos or 44 talents of it) for everything else, all wrapped around a wooden core. The gold parts could also be easily removed if necessary in times of financial necessity. Extra embellishments were rendered using glass, copper, silver, and jewels. It is estimated the statue cost the city around 5,000 talents, a truly huge sum of money which made it more expensive than the construction costs of the Parthenon itself ...

As the accusation against Phidias shows, such a large expensive statue might have posed a certain temptation to looters

The cult statue, begun in 447 BCE and dedicated in 438 BCE, would remain the great city’s symbol for a thousand years until, in Late Antiquity, it disappeared from the historical record, possibly taken to Constantinople

The Pantheon is still in relatively good condition in Rome today:

It has been in continuous use throughout its history, and since the 7th century, the Pantheon has been used as a church dedicated to "St. Mary and the Martyrs" but informally known as "Santa Maria Rotonda"

The Temple of Hercules is today the oldest marble building in Rome; it was used as a church (Santo Stefano alle Carozze) from the twelfth century



What of the ancient god-images such temples once held?

The Greeks had their own scale; they rated chryselephantine most highly - because it was the most expensive and thus rarely used - then bronze, and then possibly wood because of the great antiquity of its use in sculpture. Marble came after these. Great sculptors did of course carve some of their masterpieces in marble, and Pliny tells us that Praxiteles worked better in marble than bronze, but of the three categories into which Classical sculpture as a whole was divided, marble came last, after chryselephantine and bronze. This is suggested by its constant use for works of secondary importance: for copies of famous bronzes, which will be described below; for votive or funerary reliefs provided by minor craftsmen, no doubt at a moderate price, to anyone who wanted them; and for monumental sculpture ... Wood is preserved only in very dry or very wet soil, and only a few remnants of wooden sculpture survive, including a large statuette from Samos. Very little chryselephantine statuary remains: the combination of ivory and gold was very fragile - in the middle of the Hellenistic period, the inventories of the temple treasuries at Delos tell us that a piece of gold had already come away from the statue of Apollo - and when paganism came to an end it was tempting to reuse these two precious materials. We still have various small ivories and plaques of worked gold, but of the vast chryselephantine statues mentioned and sometimes described in ancient texts, the only parts now exist are three heads and some other life-size Archaic fragments, much restored, which were discovered at Delphi in a trench dug beneath the Sacred Way. Finally bronze - easy to melt and therefore to re-cycle for other purposes - has largely disappeared. We owe the preservation of bronzes to special circumstances. The Charioteer of Delphi was found where it had been buried ever since Classical times; the Zeus of Cape Artemisium, the Ephebe of Antikythera and the Ephebe of Marathon, owe their survival only to the shipwreck of the vessels taking them to Rome. In contrast to the almost total disappearance of any chryselephantine work and the rarity of sculpture using wood and bronze, thousands of marble works fill our museums. In short, the material most commonly found today was regarded as relatively mediocre in Classical antiquity.

Love of bronze was very old; the Zeus of Cape Artemisium dates to about 500 BCE



Bronze had the advantage of high strength, compared to (say) terra cotta or marble. The hypothesis that many such statues might have been melted down seems credible, since we have many reports throughout history of the reuse of bronze monuments. Pliny, for example, says the Athenians melted down three hundred statues of Demetrios of Phaleron; it has been estimated that half of the public monuments in Paris were melted down for ammunition during the Vichy years; and the bronze plaques on the WWI memorial in Chicago's Pullen Park were removed during WWII to provide metal for the war effort. Back in 2005, a two tonne Henry Moore bronze was stolen and apparently melted down as scrap:

A twice life-size bronze statue of Pope Julius II was melted down for artillery less than three years after Michelangelo completed it.

[Cartoonist]

1. Who would win a fight

between Samson and Hercules?

[edhopper]

2. based on their portrayals in the myths

I'd say Hercules.
What about between Jesus and Superman.

[bvf]

3. Jesus.

For the simple reason that he could transubstantiate anything handy into Kryptonite.

Superman wouldn't stand a chance, IMHO.

Just my two cents.

[beam me up scottie]

4. But what's Jesus' kryptonite?

[bvf]

7. We'll have to wait

for the resident scholars to weigh in on that.

[beam me up scottie]

8. I hope they weigh in soon.

I learn so much here.

[edhopper]

9. not loving him

And not bringing him into our life.

[beam me up scottie]

12. Yeah, my money's on Superman.

I wouldn't mind seeing The Doctor thrown into the mix.

[edhopper]

13. the Doctor vs

St. Thomas Aquinas

[beam me up scottie]

16. "I’m the Doctor."

I’m the Doctor. I’m a Time Lord. I’m from the planet Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborous. I’m 903 years old, and I’m the man who’s gonna save your lives and all six billion people on the planet below. You got a problem with that?

[stillwaiting]

19. Conservative American Christians.

They are Anti-Christ, and they would eagerly kill him again if he came back saying the same things he did the first go round.

[awoke_in_2003]

22. Figs

[LostOne4Ever]

25. Jesus kryptonite is Thor!

[struggle4progress]

34. Uh, yeah ... Which side are you on?

[LostOne4Ever]

36. Im on the side of the winners

I also realized I was wasting perfectly good emotional energy by sticking with my teams when they were doing poorly. My rooting life was scarely better than those Cubs fans who think it's a sign of character to feel shitty all the time. It's absurb.

I decided it's not necessary to suffer and feel crappy just because my teams suck. What I do now is cut 'em loose for awhile. I simply let them go about losing, as I go about living my life. Then, when they've improved, and are doing well once again, I get back on board and enjoy their success. Yeah, I know, I can hear it: diehard, asshole loyal sports fans screaming, "Front-runner!" Goddamn right! Don't be fuckin' juvenile. Teams are supposed to provide pleasure and entertainment, not depression and disappointment.

It is also completely unnecessary to suffer several days' emotional devastation just because your team loses some big postseason deal like the Super Bowl. Why on earth would you place your happiness and peace of mind in the hands of several dozen strangers? Listen, folks, if they win, fine; if they lose, fuck 'em! Let 'em practice more. As for you, for Chrissakes find something to do! Get your ass down to the massage parlor and spring for a blow job.

If you really want to enjoy sports, do what I did. Become a Harlem Globetrotters fan. There's no losing, no stats, no strikes, no trades, no contract hassles, no postseason, and no annoying media. Just winning, all the time, every night. By the way, I'm diseased enough to root for the Washington Generals, the team that loses to the Globetrotters every night. At least you wouldn't have to put up with all that annoying, preseason optimism bullshit.

[font style="font-family:'Georgia','Baskerville Old Face','Helvetica',fantasy;" size=4 color=teal]-George Carlin[/font]

[rug]

41. Great rendition!

[okasha]

46. Absolutely!

I was fortunate enough to hear Pete Seeger sing this in concert. And a friend who's both a musician and an IWW organizer belts it out pretty fair, too.

[AtheistCrusader]

29. Space/Time, apparently.

[edhopper]

5. don't know about that

Can Jesus transubstantiate anything but food?

[bvf]

10. All he would have to do

is keep a herring with him at all times. No religious scholar I'm aware of has addressed this one way or the other.

[edhopper]

11. Superman could

Attack him from afar. And Jesus is vulnerable at his wrists and feet.

[bvf]

15. Excellent point.

In the interest of full disclosure, I haven't read enough of Aquinas (or Shuster and Siegel, for that matter) to have a good answer.

[edhopper]

17. well, much like Jesus

Superman is capable of whatever the writers want him to be.

[awoke_in_2003]

27. Halibut

"All is said it "that halibut is good enough for Jehovah'"

[Jim Lane]

18. Jesus wouldn't even need transubstantiation

He caused a fig tree to wither when it displeased him, right? (I think its "sin" was not bearing fruit in the middle of winter, but whatever.) That indicates that Jesus has some sort of destructive power over living organisms.

And don't tell me that Superman is invulnerable. It was stated numerous times in the comics that Superman can be affected by magic.

[bvf]

37. The very idea of someone yelling at a tree

and over a billion people congratulating him for that...

Words fail me.

Was Mr. Mxyzptlk involved in any of that magic monkeybusiness, or was that purely an extra-dimensional sort of thing? I forget.

[Jim Lane]

38. My first reaction was that Mr. Mxyzptlk used magic, but it may be a bit more complicated.

The Wikipedia article about the imp states:

It was explained in the Silver Age Superman comics that the reason that Mr. Mxyzptlk could affect Superman is because Superman is susceptible to magic, which established a major weakness for the superhero.

That explains my reaction -- I was a comics reader during the Silver Age. Apparently, however, that isn't firmly canonical. The Wikipedia article also states, "Mr. Mxyzptlk has access to fifth-dimensional technology that appears to be magical to third-dimensional beings." A later sentence in that paragraph deploys scare quotes around the word:

His only apparent weakness is that whenever he speaks his name backwards, he is shunted back to the fifth dimension, and all effects of his "magic" vanish, making everything as it was before he appeared.

I conclude that this is another difficult issue, a challenge for scholars right up there with your question about Jesus and the halibut.

By the way, everyone who has posted in this subthread is going to Hell.

[Cartoonist]

6. I see the Temple of Hercules

was used as a church. I bet if there was a Temple of Samson, it would be a barber shop now.

[edhopper]

14. they turned a lot of Roman buildings

into churches.
Probably the only thing that saved them.

[Warren Stupidity]

20. Theodosius I

In AD 385, Theodosius I directed Cynegius, his praetorian prefect in the East, to enforce the prohibition of sacrifice for the purpose of divination (CTh. XVI.10.9). Exceeding his mandate, Cynegius began to suppress the temples, themselves, including the Temple of Zeus at Apamea in Syria. Its destruction by the bishop there is described Theodoret in his Ecclesiastical History. An attempt was made, but the stone was so hard and the columns so massive, each measuring some twenty-five feet in circumference and held together with iron and lead clamps, that the prefect despaired of pulling them down. Praying for divine assistance, the bishop was visited the next morning by a simple laborer, who suggested that the foundation of three of the columns be undermined and replaced by timber beams, to which he then set fire. "When their support had vanished the columns themselves fell down, and dragged the other twelve with them. The side of the temple which was connected with the columns was dragged down by the violence of their fall, and carried away with them. The crash, which was tremendous, was heard throughout the town" (V.21). The bishop destroyed other pagan shrines in his diocese and Cynegius proceeded to Egypt.

[struggle4progress]

31. According to Theodoret, destruction of the temple first required a miraculous expulsion of demons:

... Now there had arrived at Apamea the prefect of the East with two tribunes and their troops. Fear of the troops kept the people quiet. An attempt was made to destroy the vast and magnificent shrine of Jupiter, but the building was so firm and solid that to break up its closely compacted stones seemed beyond the power of man; for they were huge and well and truly laid, and moreover clamped fast with iron and lead. When the divine Marcellus saw that the prefect was afraid to begin the attack, he sent him on to the rest of the towns; while he himself prayed to God to aid him in the work of destruction. Next morning there came uninvited to the bishop a man who was no builder, or mason, or artificer of any kind, but only a labourer who carried stones and timber on his back. Give me, said he, two workmen's pay; and I promise you I will easily destroy the temple. The holy bishop did as he was asked, and the following was the fellow's contrivance. Round the four sides of the temple went a portico united to it, and on which its upper story rested. The columns were of great bulk, commensurate with the temple, each being sixteen cubits in circumference. The quality of the stone was exceptionally hard, and offering great resistance to the masons' tools. In each of these the man made an opening all round, propping up the superstructure with olive timber before he went on to another. After he had hollowed out three of the columns, he set fire to the timbers. But a black demon appeared and would not suffer the wood to be consumed, as it naturally would be, by the fire, and stayed the force of the flame. After the attempt had been made several times, and the plan was proved ineffectual, news of the failure was brought to the bishop, who was taking his noontide sleep. Marcellus immediately hurried to the church, ordered water to be poured into a pail, and placed the water upon the divine altar. Then, bending his head to the ground, he besought the loving Lord in no way to give in to the usurped power of the demon, but to lay bare its weakness and exhibit His own strength, lest unbelievers should henceforth find excuse for greater wrong. With these and other like words he made the sign of the cross over the water, and ordered Equitius, one of his deacons, who was armed with faith and enthusiasm, to take the water and sprinkle it in faith, and then apply the flame. His orders were obeyed, and the demon, unable to endure the approach of the water, fled. Then the fire, affected by its foe the water as though it had been oil, caught the wood, and consumed it in an instant. When their support had vanished the columns themselves fell down, and dragged other twelve with them. The side of the temple which was connected with the columns was dragged down by the violence of their fall, and carried away with them. The crash, which was tremendous, was heard throughout the town, and all ran to see the sight. No sooner did the multitude hear of the flight of the hostile demon than they broke out into a hymn of praise to God ...

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/27025.htm

[Warren Stupidity]

21. Theodosius I

It was then, in AD 386, that Libanius made an impassioned plea to Theodosius that the temples be preserved. Four years earlier, the emperor had decreed (CTh. XVI.10.8) that the temple at Edessa in upper Mesopotamia, "in which images are reported to have been placed which must be measured by the value of their art rather than by their divinity," remain open. It was destroyed nevertheless, even though it was as great a marvel as the Temple of Serapis, "which I pray may never suffer the same fate." Libanius argues that the destruction of the temples, which have been erected "with so much toil and time, labour and expense," is not only detrimental to society but a foolish loss of the emperor's own property, which, if not used as intended, could serve in some other way, perhaps for the collection of taxes. He pleads, too, for toleration and the preservation of the temples against the predation of Christian monks, who

[struggle4progress]

33. Libanius seems to have made friendship with Julian, and after him, Theodosius, who gave him

an honorary appointment. His later years (from 354 CE onward) were spent at Antioch

Edessa was sacked by Trajan, Caracalla was later assassinated there, and the town was ravaged by a great flood in 201 CE. The Sassanids defeated and captured the Roman army there in 260 CE. This seems to have been a border region between the Roman and Sassanid empires. The Chronicle of Edessa reports that in "the year 614 <that is, c. 300 CE>, were broken down the walls of Edessa the second time in the days of Diocletian the king"

After becoming emperor in the early 6th century, Justin rebuilt the city and named it after himself.

Here's a link Libanius's Oration 30 (Pro templis), in the form of a letter to Theodosius

... But I return to them, to demonstrate their injustice by what they have said: Say then, for what reason you destroyed that great temple? Not because the Emperor approved the doing it. They who pull down a temple have done no wrong if the Emperor has ordered it to be done. Therefore they who pulled it down did not do wrong by doing what the Emperor approved of. But he who does that which is not approved by the Emperor, does Wrong; does he not? You, then, are the men who have nothing of this to say for what you have done. Tell me why this temple of Fortune is safe? and the temple of Jupiter, and of Minerva, and of Bacchus? Is it because you would have them remain? No, but because no one has given you power over them; which, nevertheless, you have assumed against those which you have destroyed. How, then, are you not liable to punishment? or how can you pretend that what you have done is right, when the sufferers have done no wrong? ...

This oration is almost entirely rhetorical

[Warren Stupidity]

23. Theodosius I

"hasten to attack the temples with sticks and stones and bars of iron, and in some cases, disdaining these, with hands and feet. Then utter desolation follows, with the stripping of roofs, demolition of walls, the tearing down of statues and the overthrow of altars, and the priests must either keep quiet or die. After demolishing one, they scurry to another, and to a third, and trophy is piled on trophy, in contravention of the law. Such outrages occur even in the cities, but they are most common in the countryside. Many are the foes who perpetrate the separate attacks, but after their countelss crimes this scattered rabble congregates and they are in disgrace unless they have committed the foulest outrage...Temples, Sire, are the soul of the countryside: they mark the beginning of its settlement, and have been passed down through many generations to the men of today. In them the farming communities rest their hopes for husbands, wives, children, for their oxen and the soil they sow and plant. An estate that has suffered so has lost the inspiration of the peasantry together with their hopes, for they believe that their labour will be in vain once they are robbed of the gods who direct their labours to their due end. And if the land no longer enjoys the same care, neither can the yield match what it was before, and, if this be the case, the peasant is the poorer, and the revenue jeopardized."

[Warren Stupidity]

24. John Chrysostom

In AD 401, the last remnants of the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, built to house the great cult image of Artemis and regarded as one of the seven wonders of the world, were plundered by John Chrysostom, the patriarch of Constantinople, its marble burned in lime kilns to make cement, and the stone robbed for the construction of other buildings. Before his conversion, John had studied rhetoric and law and been a pupil of Libanius.

[struggle4progress]

32. The Temple of Artemis in Ephesus seems to have been a popular target!

On July 21, 356 B.C.E., a man named Herostratus deliberately set fire to the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus ... When the people of Ephesus saw the smoking ruins of the temple, Herostratus made certain they knew that he was the guy responsible. The motive behind Herostratus’ seemingly senseless act of arson was recorded by the historian Valerius Maximus, “so that through the destruction of this most beautiful building his name might be spread through the whole world” ...

In the so-called Acts of John (from the 2nd or 3rd century CE), a certain John prayed the temple to destruction:

... John said: Let us first go unto the temple of Artemis, for perchance there also, if we show ourselves, the servants of the Lord will be found ... And John said to them: If then ye desire not to die, let that which ye worship be confounded, and wherefore it is confounded, that ye also may depart from your ancient error. For now is it time that either ye be converted by my God, or I myself die by your goddess; for I will pray in your presence and entreat my God that mercy be shown unto you. And having so said he prayed thus: O God that art God above all that are called gods, that until this day hast been set at nought in the city of the Ephesians; that didst put into my mind to come into this place, whereof I never thought; that dost convict every manner of worship by turning men unto thee; at whose name every idol fleeth and every evil spirit and every unclean power; now also by the flight of the evil spirit here at thy name, even of him that deceiveth this great multitude, show thou thy mercy in this place, for they have been made to err. And as John spake these things, immediately the altar of Artemis was parted into many pieces, and all the things that were dedicated in the temple fell, and ... was rent asunder, and likewise of the images of the gods more than seven. And the half of the temple fell down ...

Here, however, is a different view:

The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World but almost nothing is left of it today. So, the question of who destroyed it is an interesting one. Luckily, we have an explicit historical source that tells us the answer. It is in Jordanes’ History of the Goths composed around 550AD. He tells us (20:107), that in about 259AD, “Respa, Veduc and Thuruar, leaders of the Goths, took ship and sailed across the strait of the Hellespont to Asia. There they laid waste many populous cities and set fire to the renowned temple of Diana at Ephesus, which, as we said before, the Amazons built.” Jordanes’ work comes with a health warning because the beginning is pure legend (not to mention his claim that the Amazons built the Temple). However, it is generally felt to be reliable when it deals with encounters between the Goths and Romans from the third century AD. After the Goths destroyed the Temple of Artemis, it was quarried by the local inhabitants for its valuable marble and very little is left today. Bits of it have been found in local buildings and Justinian took much of the statuary that survived to his time back to Constantinople. So why is the destruction of this Temple blamed on Christians? ... The source of this legend is the Acts of John. This is a very late and inauthentic apocryphal book that claims to tell the life story of St John the Apostle ... The Acts of John is normally dated to the third century and the inclusion of this episode in all likelihood means that it was written after the Temple had actually been burnt down by the Goths (who were, at this stage, still pagans). But the Acts do provide further evidence that the Temple really was destroyed during the third century. We can be absolutely certain it was not pulled down on the orders of St John around 100AD as the Acts pretends.

[Warren Stupidity]

26. Martin of Tours

"Examples of the destruction of pagan temples in the late fourth century, as recorded in surviving texts, describes Martin of Tours' attacks on holy sites in Gaul, the destruction of temples in Syria by Marcellus, the destruction of temples and images in, and surrounding, Carthage, the Patriarch Theophilus who seized and destroyed pagan temples in Alexandria, the levelling of all the temples in Gaza and the wider destruction of holy sites that spread rapidly throughout Egypt. This is supplemented in abundance by archaeological evidence in the northern provinces (for which written sources hardly survive) exposing broken and burnt out buildings and hastily buried objects of piety. The leader of the Egyptian monks who participated in the sack of temples replied to the victims who demanded back their sacred icons: 'I peacefully removed your gods...there is no such thing as robbery for those who truly possess Christ'."

[brooklynite]

28. You want religious statuary?

Hittite Lion -- Syria (outside Aleppo) -- 5,000 years old

(we saw this on our visit, two weeks before the uprising started. Fortunately ISIS doesn't seem to have found it)

[littlemissmartypants]

39. Beautiful!

Thanks for posting.

~ lmsp

[edhopper]

40. beautiful

I have never been to Iraq, but there are some good Assyrian artifacts at the Met Museum in NY. Including a large gate.
It breaks my heart thinking about the destruction these monsters are doing in the name of their religion.

[img][/img]

[okasha]

30. s4p vs. rest of this thread

s4p

[bvf]

35. Well, someone's getting played.

That should be obvious by now.

[cbayer]

43. No shit.

[cbayer]

42. I was not aware until I visited how many of the temples had been re-purposed with the

advent of christianity. The Parthenon is the most amazing example. The Temple of Minerva in Assisi is another amazing building. One can not avoid being enraptured by the history of some of these buildings.

[struggle4progress]

44. ... In 341, Constantine II and Costanzo prohibited paganism and pagan celebrations in the temple,

both of which were punishable by death. In 380, under the emperor Theodosius, Christianity became the state religion. In 435, Theodosius II ordered the sign of the cross to be put everywhere. The pagan cult was brought to an end and the Temple of Minerva remained abandoned and silent for over a century ... The precise date is not known, but probably in the second half of the sixth century, the Benedictine monks restored the temple and made use of it. The divided the cella into two floors, creating living rooms in the upper part and the church of “San Donato” in the lower part ... With the act of May 24, 1212, for one hundred years, with the option of renewal, the Benedictines leased the temple to the Comune of Assisi ... It should be noted that in the time from 1200 to 1300 the pronao functioned as the Tribunal court and the little church of “San Donato” was used as the municipal jail at least until the beginning of the fifteenth century ... In the years 1527-1530, the magistrates of Assisi, following requests and complaints by the citizens, ordered some urgent restoration projects to be undertaken. In 1539, Pope Paolo III, making a visit to Assisi, ordered the Temple of Minerva to be completely restored and dedicated to the Virgin Mary, queen of true wisdom. The temple then took the name of “Santa Maria sopra Minerva” ... http://www.franciscanum.it/en/temple-of-minerva/

I think "Costanzo" here means "Constantius II." Three brothers (Constantine II, Constantius II, and Constans) co-ruled briefly following the death of their father Constantine I in 337 CE -- but they had a falling out around 340 CE, leading to a split of the territories and protracted warfare. Constantine II died in a failed invasion of Italy in 340 CE. Constans was assassinated in 350 by members of his guard loyal to Magnentius, who had declared himself emperor. In this context, anti-pagan edicts from Constantine II or Constantius II might reasonably be understood as political moves, intended to consolidate support.

Theodosius II became Byzantine co-emperor in 402 CE and ruled as emperor 408 - 450 CE. Valentian was simultaneously Western emperor 425 - 555 CE, when he was assassinated and Petronius Maximus declared himself emperor, ruling for two months: a Roman mob stoned Petronius Maximus to death only three days before the Vandals under Geiseric captured and sacked Rome. The Theodosian Code was promulgated in 439 CE. The empire was collapsing at this time. The Visigoths had already sacked Rome in 410. Geiseric broke the treaty between the Vandals and Rome in 439.

[cbayer]

45. Fascinating.

What I loved was how they had preserved some elements of the temples.

The Parthenon was probably the most interesting building I have ever been in.