With the flight of the Pagans the work of demolition began. Even women
and children hurried to join in the welcome task of indiscriminate
destruction. No defenders on this occasion barred the gates of the
temple to the Christian hosts. The sublime solitude of the tenantless
building was outraged and invaded in an instant. Statues were broken,
gold was carried off, doors were splintered into fragments; but here for
a while the progress of demolition was delayed. Those to whom the
labour of ruining the outward structure had been confided were less
successful than their neighbours who had pillaged its contents. The
ponderous stones of the pillars, the massive surfaces of the walls,
resisted the most vigorous of their puny efforts, and forced them to
remain contented with mutilating that which they could not destroy--with
tearing off roofs, defacing marbles, and demolishing capitals. The rest
of the buildings remained uninjured, and grander even now in the
wildness of ruin than ever it had been in the stateliness of perfection
and strength.
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