Athenian society decayed at last, not at all because its artists had reached the limit of human invention, or its philosophers the necessary term of human thought, but because the moral faculties and tastes which should have presided in that society were not developed in proportion to the esthetic and intellectual powers which added to its ornament. It was outwardly like the statue of Minerva in the Parthenon, of costly ivory, overlaid with gold; but it was wood within; and the wood rotted; that is all that can be said of it. Then the cunning of the ivory, and the splendor of the gold, fell and were broken, and the nations gathered the shining fragments.
by Richard S. Storrs
