The sculptural decoration of the Parthenon was not simply famously beautiful; it had important messages to impart. As typical for ancient Greek temples, the exterior carried the figural decoration. The interior was reserved for the cult statue, without additional imagery. The sculpture illustrated themes that concerned both the city, its patron goddess, Athena, and its religious practices, and the continuing need for the forces of order and civilization to fight for victory. Absent are any pictures of the rulers or prominent citizens of Athens. This last feature, a characteristic of Classical Greek art, contrasts strongly with, for example, the art of the Ancient Near East and Egypt, in which the divinity and the monarch are habitually shown in beneficial partnership.
This lavish and complex program of sculpture took some time to complete. The metopes were the first component of the sculptural decoration to be carved, from ca. 447 to 442 BC, followed by the frieze and the cult statue (both finished by 438 BC, along with the building itself, and finally, thepedimentalsculptures (by 432 BC). This, and other details of the construction of the Parthenon, we know from building accounts, inscriptions carved on stone which recorded for public appreciation sources of money and exactly for what it was spent.
The metopes
All ninety-two metopes contained sculpture. Many were destroyed or damaged in the explosion of 1687, but enough have survived to give a good idea of subject matter and style. The metopes illustrated the combats of Lapiths vs. Centaurs, Gods vs. Giants, Greeks vs. Amazons, and probably Greeks vs. Trojans, all allegories for the battle of Order vs. Chaos, Civilization vs. Barbarism — which for fifth century BC Greeks specifically meant their conflict
Figure 16.5 Parthenon, South Metope no. xxxi
With the Persians. The styles vary, indicating that the design and execution of the metopes was done by several artists, but all display the optically realistic treatment of the human body developed first in late Archaic sculpture and vase painting (Figure 16.5).
The frieze
The frieze, far better preserved than the other sculpture, records the procession during the Panathenaic Festival that led through the city up to the Acropolis, with the aim of presenting a newly woven, brightly coloredpeplos to dress the venerable cult statue of Athena Polias, Athena as patron goddess of the city. The Panathenaia, the most important religious festival of Athens, was held every year in mid-August (in our calendar) to celebrate the birthday of Athena. Every fourth year a grander version took place, the Great Panathenaia. The centerpiece of this quadrennial procession was a monumental peplos displayed like a sail on a ship pulled on a wheeled cart. At the base of the Acropolis the giant pep-los was then taken down from the ship and carried up to be hung in a temple as a backdrop until replaced in the next Great Panathenaia. In the time of Pausanias at least, the ship was parked nearby until the next festival, on view for tourists.
The frieze measures 160m in total length, ca. 1m in height. It shows only portions of the procession; the ship, for example, is lacking. The scenes are clear enough, even if the exact understanding of who is doing what, and when, has been much debated. Horses and riders, all young men, gather on the west side, then advance, picking up speed, along both long sides, the north and the south (Figure 16.6). At the east end of the long sides, other participants in the procession appear, men carrying hydriae, or water jars; officials; women; and sheep and cows for sacrifice. On the east side, in the presence of seated gods the peplos is displayed, a folded cloth (although perhaps originally painted with gods battling giants, the subject always woven into the peplos).
This frieze would have been difficult to see, placed high up in the shadows of the narrow colonnade. Nevertheless the sculptors took no short cuts. Some aids were granted the viewer: the frieze was thicker at the top than at the bottom, and the figures would have been painted bright colors. Otherwise, the artists worked to please Athena. Details of bodies and clothes are precisely carved. The composition is sophisticated and varied; participants in the procession are shown in a great variety of poses, with overlapping in particular of horses and riders. How different from the stately, repetitious procession of tribute bearers at Persian Persepolis!
The pediments
With this lively scene from the Panathenaia, the frieze offered worshippers a connection with the actual religious life of the city. In the pediments, the sculptors returned to mythology, the
Figure 16.6 Parthenon, West Frieze, Slab II, nos. 2-3
Favorite source of subject matter. Unlike the metopes, with their allegorical treatment of recent Greek history, the pediments show episodes from the distant mythical past of Athens. In depicting regional legend, they resemble the east pediment of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, with the fateful chariot race about to begin. All pedimental figures were completed on the invisible back side as well as the front, another testimony to the reverential attitude of the artists toward work done for this temple.
Only a small number of the pedimental figures were decently preserved when Lord Elgin stripped the Parthenon of sculpture. Because these pieces are so few, the original appearance of the pediments eludes us. Pausanias noted only the basic subjects, not the complete cast of characters or their arrangement in the triangular space. Furthermore, the explosion of 1687 seriously damaged the sculpture. Drawings made earlier, in 1674, by French painter Jacques Carrey help, but they are not as precise as we might wish; in any case by Carrey’s time some portions, notably the center of the east side, had already disappeared.
In the important position over the main entrance to the temple, the east pediment depicted the distinctive birth of Athena: she emerged fully armed from the head of her father, Zeus, when he was knocked on the head by Hephaistos. Zeus and Athena must have been shown in the now vanished center. The miraculous event, so important for the city of Athens, was witnessed by divinities arrayed on either side of Zeus and Athena, standing, sitting, or even reclining to fit the height of the pedimental space diminishing into the corners. These deities represented the other cults of Athens welcoming Athena within their midst.
The west pediment showed Athena’s victory in her contest with Poseidon for the position of patron deity of the city (Figure 16.7). A miracle was required of each. When Poseidon struck the ground with his trident, water had bubbled forth — salt water, appropriate for the god of the sea. Athena then created an olive tree on the barren Acropolis, a feat that was life-sustaining for humans at least, in contrast with the salt water spring. The miraculous olive tree may have occupied the center of the pediment, with an excited Athena and Poseidon stepping back on either side, the event witnessed by gods, goddesses, horses and chariots, and perhaps families prominent in the legendary origins of the city.
The cult statue
Figure 16.8 The Varvakeion Athena, a marble statuette; a Roman copy of the Athena Parthenos. National Archaeological Museum, Athens
Figure 16.7 Parthenon, West Pediment (reconstruction), after the drawings of Carrey (1674) and Quatremere de Quincy (1825)
The final piece of sculptural adornment was the cult statue itself, a work of Pheidias. This colossal chryselephantine statue of Athena disappeared in late antiquity, but the detailed description left by Pausanias, statuettes that roughly copy it (Figure 16.8), and depictions on coins provide evidence for a reconstruction. With its complex array of victory imagery, the statue, as indeed the entire temple, was a reminder that Athena led the Greeks to triumph against the Persians. The goddess stood ca. 12m high. She wore a peplos and her armor: a breastplate and a triple-crested helmet, and with her left hand she held a spear and shield. A snake lay curled by her left foot, just inside the shield. In her outstretched right palm, supported on a column, she held a statue of Nike, winged victory, her offering to the city. The colossal Athena was a vehicle for display of allegorical myths appropriate for Greek victory: the Greeks fought Amazons on the outside of the shield; gods pitted against giants, possibly painted, on the inside; and Lapiths vs. centaurs on the thick edge of her sandals. An unusual scene, in contrast, appeared on the statue’s base: the birth of Pandora, attended by gods. After Prometheus had stolen fire for humans against the will of the gods, Zeus in anger had Pandora created and sent to earth, carrying with her a box filled with all possible miseries. The box once opened, the evils escaped, becoming an ineradicable part of human existence. Here in the Parthenon, the appearance of Pandora seems intended as a caution to the Athenians in their hour of triumph.
Like the later Zeus of Olympia, the statue was made of a skin of ivory and costume of thin sheets of gold fitted onto a wooden framework. The gold, weighing 44 talents (= approx. 1,120kg), belonged to the city, was inventoried every four years by the state treasury, and could
Be removed for safe-keeping. Pheidias was accused of stealing some of this precious material. Whether true or simply slander, he left Athens for Olympia, where he made the statue of Zeus. Where he ended his days is unknown. Whatever the truth of his complex life, his sculpture — votives for the Acropolis, the complex program conceived for the Parthenon, and the cult statue for Olympia — has stood as a benchmark for Classical Greek art in its grandeur, nobility of expression, and precision of execution.
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