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Its cold, proud beauty was here again in Greece; the Hermes at Olympia; the Wingless Victory from the temple of Niké Apteros, made wingless that victory might never depart from Athens; the lovelier Winged Victory from the Louvre, with her electric poise, the most exhilarating, the most inspiring, the most intoxicating Victory the world has ever known, was loosed from her marble prison, and was again breathing the pure air of her native hills.
Here, among other structures, he built the temple of Theseus and the Painted Portico, and he also erected, near the summit of the Acropolis, on the western side, the little gem-like temple of the Wingless Victory, Nike Apteros, in commemoration of the success of the Athenian arms at the battle of the Eurymedon.
"Ah, yes; but I never heard anyone else say so. Did you?" "Do you remember that line in the third canto of the 'Inferno?" "Ah, that line my favorite always. Is it possible " "You know the stooping Victory in the frieze of the Nike Apteros?" "You mean the one who is tying her sandal? Then you have noticed, too, that all Botticelli and Mantegna are dormant in those flying folds of her drapery?"
The temple of Nike Apteros was only 27 feet in length by 18 in breadth, and was erected on the Acropolis in commemoration of Cimon's victory at the Eurymedon. A view of it is given at the beginning of this chapter, and its position on the Acropolis, on one side of the Propylaea, is seen in the drawings on p. 91, as well as on the Frontispiece of the work.
Another post-Pheidian work at Athens was the temple of Nike Apteros, the wingless Victory. The bas-reliefs from this temple, now in the Acropolis Museum at Athens, one representing the Victory stooping to tie her sandal, another, the Victory crowning a trophy, recall the consummate grace of the art of Pheidias, the greatest Greek art.
The caryatids of the Erechtheum, the horsemen of the Parthenon frieze, the reliefs of the Nike Apteros balustrade are admired certainly; but they are hardly sympathetically admired; there is a tendency to relegate them to the limbo of subjects for æsthetic lectures.
The entrance to Euston Station is of itself sufficiently imposing. It is a high portico of brown stone, old and grim, in form a casual imitation, no doubt, of the front of the temple of Nike Apteros, with a recollection of the Egyptians proclaimed at the flanks.
Each of these wings was in the form of a Doric temple. The northern one, or that on the left of a person ascending the Acropolis, was called the PINACOTHECA, from its walls being covered with paintings. The southern wing consisted only of a porch or open gallery. Immediately before its western front stood the little temple of Nike Apteros already mentioned.
She was regarded at Rome as the goddess of good fortune only, and was usually represented holding the cornucopia. Victoria, the Latin form for the goddess Nike, was highly honored among the conquest-loving Romans, and many temples were dedicated to her at Rome. There was a celebrated temple at Athens to the Greek goddess Nike Apteros, or Wingless Victory, of which remains still exist.
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