The Parthenon Enigma

by Joan Breton Connelly

  The accounts also tell us that construction of the Parthenon began in 447/446 B.C., that its gold and ivory statue of Athena was dedicated at the Great Panathenaia of 438, and that work was completed in 433/432, when the larger-than-life-size figures were finally set within the pediments.31 It seems that, like so many construction projects before and since, the building wasn’t quite finished in time for its scheduled dedication. Nonetheless, the superstructure was up, the roof was on, and sculptured figures could easily be placed in the pediments five years later. The exquisite quality of the carving of these figures confirms that the extra time was well spent (this page). And it is nevertheless astonishing that the superstructure alone was fully standing in just nine years. Athenian naval technology no doubt contributed to the speed with which the building went up.32 Knowledge of lines, winches, blocks, and pulleys for the hoisting of sails and lifting of cargo was easily transferred to hauling and lifting marble column drums and cornice blocks.33

  A decision had been made at the outset to build the Parthenon entirely of high-quality, fine-grained white marble from the city’s own Mount Pentelikon. Thus, from top to bottom, from roof tiles to all three steps (krepidoma) of the platform on which the temple sits, to every last carved decoration, this thoroughly Athenian monument is made entirely of Athenian material. A hundred thousand tons of Pentelic marble were carried up the Acropolis, re-creating a veritable “mountain of marble.” The Parthenon would be as solid, enduring, and dazzling as Mount Pentelikon itself.

  Ancient sources name Iktinos as the designer/architect of the temple, and Kallikrates as a sort of general contractor.34 Writing some four centuries after the completion of the Parthenon, Vitruvius names Karpion as a co-author, with Iktinos, of a technical manual on its engineering, suggesting a key role for him, though he is unattested elsewhere.35 Mnesikles is named as the architect of the Propylaia, begun in the same year as the Parthenon. But of all the names that come down to us from the cohort of geniuses who conceived and executed the Periklean building program, it is that of Pheidias, friend of Perikles, that figures most centrally as the general overseer of the Parthenon project.36

  Pheidias seems to have started his career as a painter (like his brother Paionios) but soon focused on sculpture, winning some of the most coveted commissions of his day. A recognized talent already during Kimon’s years of leadership, Pheidias had been selected to create a bronze statue group at Delphi commemorating the Athenian victory at Marathon. Funded by a tithe of the Persian spoils, this monument featured Kimon’s own father, Miltiades, hero of the battle, flanked by statues of Athena and Apollo. These were joined by images of the legendary Athenian kings Erechtheus, Kekrops, Pandion, Theseus, and Theseus’s son Akamas, indeed by all the heroes who gave their names to the ten tribes as reorganized by Kleisthenes.37 Thus, the young Pheidias had early practice in carving the likeness of Erechtheus, experience that would serve him well in planning the Parthenon frieze. It was also under Kimon that Pheidias created a gold and ivory statue of Athena for her temple at Pellene in Achaia, a work that prefigured his chryselephantine statue of the Athena Parthenos. Pheidias’s most conspicuous commission was, of course, the Bronze Athena that stood some 40 meters (130 feet) tall on the Athenian Acropolis, an image created in the 470s and financed from the Persian spoils at Salamis. The statue (this page) looked straight out the Propylaia toward Salamis, while the crest of its helmet is said to have been visible all the way from Sounion.38 But Pheidias’s most famous creation of all was the colossal gold and ivory statue of Zeus he made for the temple at Olympia, an image that would become one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

  By the time Pheidias unveiled the Athena Parthenos statue in 438 B.C., he stood accused in a high-profile lawsuit of embezzling gold intended for the cult image. This was part of a wave of legal actions that erupted at this time, owing to the diffusion of power within the radical democracy. Before long, Perikles’s beloved Milesian mistress, Aspasia, was charged with impiety. Athenaeus, quoting Antisthenes (a pupil of Sokrates), tells us how Perikles wept bitterly while pleading her case before the court.39 And soon, new legislation was passed making it a crime to “teach about the heavens,” directly targeting Perikles’s teacher Anaxagoras. Perikles himself had been accused of bribery and embezzlement, and it was when these charges failed to bring him down that his enemies resorted to assailing his inner circle. Plutarch tells us that Pheidias eventually cleared his name by asking that the gold from the goddess’s statue be removed and weighed, thus proving that none was missing. But the accusers persisted, charging him with impiety for sneaking his own likeness and that of Perikles into the composition of the Amazonomachy shown on Athena’s shield, the friends allegedly resembling two Greek warriors portrayed there.40 Convicted and exiled from Athens, the greatest sculptor of the Periklean age and chief overseer of the Parthenon project would die in jail.

  IN PLANNING the new temple of Athena, Pheidias and his team of architects had looked back to the Older Parthenon, a building begun around 488 but destroyed by the Persians before it could be finished.41 Its giant foundation, rising some 11 meters (36 feet)from the bedrock on the south side, would be used to support the new structure. Since its uppermost courses were damaged by fire, the great three-stepped platform would be entirely encased within newly hewn marble blocks. Some economies were observed, such as the use of blocks that had been cut for the Older Parthenon but were still lying in the quarries of Mount Pentelikon or atop the Acropolis itself. It has been suggested that one-quarter of the total construction cost of the Parthenon was saved by the reuse of blocks prepared for the earlier structure.42 The height of the steps of the Parthenon’s krepidoma, including the top step (stylobate), the steps leading into the cella, and the diameter of the peristyle columns, was kept identical to that of the Older Parthenon, making the salvage possible.43

  Still, there were many changes in plan. The footprint of the new Parthenon was extended to the north (following page), making it much wider but somewhat shorter than its predecessor at 30.80 by 69.51 meters (101 by 228 feet). To accommodate the extra width, two columns were added to the façades, making for a peristyle of eight columns rather than six at front and back and seventeen down the sides.44 The new proportions allowed for a more capacious interior of the cella, no doubt in anticipation of Pheidias’s monumental statue of Athena.45 The Parthenon’s peristyle thus comprises forty-six columns in all, with the spaces between the columns at front and back screened by metal grilles and gates to secure the treasure held within. A second row of six columns was added behind the peristyle on the façades, creating a prostyle arrangement reminiscent of the great sixth-century Ionic temples of East Greece, the massive dipteral shrines at Samos, Ephesos, and Didyma.46 This innovation is contrary to Doric conventions that call for a single colonnade wrapping around the cella. Indeed, the Parthenon integrates many Ionic features into an overall Doric program: not just the double row of columns at front and back, but also the bead and reel moldings on the Doric frieze crown, the continuous Ionic frieze set high within the colonnade, and four Ionic bases (possibly supporting proto-Corinthian columns) that stood in the temple’s westernmost room (this page).47

  Widening the platform 5 meters (16 feet) to the north had another consequence: the footprint overlapped a preexisting shrine. Out of respect for the continuity of this holy place, the spot was marked by a small temple structure (naiskos) built exactly above it, within the Parthenon’s north colonnade (below and facing page). Manolis Korres has identified evidence for this naiskos set between the seventh and the eighth columns (from the east end) of the colonnade as well as a circular altar that sat to the east of the structure, between the fifth and the sixth columns (from the peristyle’s east end).48 The altar indicates that ritual observance was continued at this new incarnation of the earlier shrine. Fascinatingly, the naiskos is aligned on the same axis as the Older Parthenon, rather than along the slightly shifted one of the new Parthenon. We will return to the puzzle of
this naiskos in chapter 6, but for now let us recognize the care the builders took to preserve the continuity of this especially sacred spot.

  Plan of Parthenon, with Older Parthenon (dashed line) beneath; naiskos and altar in north peristyle, by M. Korres. (illustration credit ill.28)

  Reconstruction drawing of the Parthenon’s north peristyle with naiskos and altar, by M. Korres. (illustration credit ill.29)

  Another point of reference for the new temple was the sanctuary of Zeus at Olympia. Finished in 456 B.C., the temple was now the largest in Greece.49 Naturally, the architects at Athens viewed the Olympian shrine with an eye to surpassing it. The Parthenon’s exterior columns are, in fact, exactly the same height as those of the Zeus temple: 10.43 meters (34.21 feet). But the Parthenon’s extra width (eight columns across the façade to Olympia’s six) and the use of marble rather than soft limestone make the building incomparably more magnificent.

  The new Parthenon maintained the same basic plan as its predecessor: a great room at the front on its eastern end and a completely separate, smaller room at the west, or back of the building (this page). Inscribed inventories dated 434/433 B.C. refer to this easternmost room as the hekatompedon, or “hundred-footer,” just as we have seen for the temple that might have stood on this spot during the sixth century, that which held the Bluebeard pediment.50 Two windows pierced the eastern wall of the cella on either side of the doorway, allowing extra light to flood in upon Pheidias’s gold and ivory Athena. A recessed section of floor paving in front of the statue’s base might have accommodated a shallow pool of water. This would have facilitated humidification of the ivory components (susceptible to cracking if too dry) and would have reflected morning light from the east windows to better illuminate Athena’s image. The eastern cella featured an elegant means for supporting the roof: a two-tiered colonnade satisfied the canons of Doric proportion (which didn’t allow for tall, slender columns) and, at the same time, created a transparent, screen-like arrangement that wrapped around the sides and back of Athena’s statue (insert this page, bottom). This increased the apparent size of the cult image and greatly enhanced the mystery of the space.51

  In contrast, the western room of the Parthenon was much smaller, measuring 13.37 by 19.17 meters (43.86 by 62.89 feet), with its greater dimension being north to south. Fifth-century inventories refer to this chamber as the parthenon, a word meaning “of the maidens,” the sense of which we shall discover in due course.52 Its roof was supported by four slender columns. The outlines of their bases suggest not Doric but the canonical Attic Ionic profile (toros-scotia-toros). This change of order was necessary since the ceiling of this chamber was higher than that of the peristyle; the use of stouter Doric columns would have made them impossibly large and there was no need for a two-tiered colonnade arrangement here, as we saw in the eastern cella. And so, yet another innovative solution was devised: Ionic columns (with more slender proportions) were introduced. Poul Pedersen goes even a step further and suggests that these columns featured capitals that foreshadowed the Corinthian order, a point to which we will later return (this page).53

  Perhaps in nothing did the Parthenon’s architects and engineers outdo themselves so much as in the advanced use of optical refinements, which they raised to a high art. Builders had for some years been exploring remedies for apparent distortions experienced when viewing large temples from a distance. An allusion of sagging is seen at the centers of the long horizontal lines of the stylobate, as well as the lower two steps beneath it (stereobate), and in the cornice (architrave or entablature) up above. An extraordinary correction was found to remedy this illusion by making all horizontal surfaces bow upward at center.54 Thus, on all four sides of the Parthenon we see upwardly curving surfaces and lines. For example, the steps on the flanks of the platform arch up 6.75 centimeters (2.66 inches) higher at their centers than at their ends (previous page). So, too, do the horizontal lines of the architrave bow up in the middle. A breathtaking level of technical sophistication went into the execution of these adjustments to exacting tolerances. Ingenious combinations of reverse asymmetry can be detected, along with slight diminutions in curvature, all painstakingly worked out to achieve subtle, and enormously pleasing, visual effects.

  Curvature of krepidoma, north steps of Parthenon. (illustration credit ill.30)

  It has long been noted that there are few, if any, straight lines in the Parthenon. First, the very platform on which it sits tilts up, from a low of 3 centimeters (1.2 inches) at the east end to a high of 5 centimeters (1.9 inches) at the west.55 This makes for an imposing visual impression as one enters the Acropolis through the Propylaia: the giant west façade of the Parthenon tilts high and looms large (this page). In addition, the side walls of the Parthenon lean slightly inward, as do each of the forty-six columns of the peristyle. Indeed, if the axes of the flanking columns were extended into the sky, they would meet 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) above the platform on which they stand.56 When we look at the entablature and its Doric frieze, we see that the metopes tilt slightly outward while the triglyphs slant in. And so, from top to bottom, the Parthenon tips, slants, recedes, inclines, and bows, all the while transmitting an overwhelming sense of harmony and balance.

  The Parthenon’s colonnade epitomizes the post-and-lintel system of load bearing in classical architecture. Yet here, too, subtle adjustments trick the eye to compelling effect, to create a reassuring sense of order and solidity while still appearing fascinatingly delicate. The columns taper upward, so they are wider at the base than at the top. At the same time, they swell outward at their midpoint, a phenomenon known as entasis, which gives the appearance of a flexed muscle, as if bulging as it bears the weight. The columns at the very corners of the temple are slightly thicker than the others, creating the impression of extra solidity here on the flanks. Similarly, the final two columns on either end of the façades are not as far apart as other adjacent columns. This device, known as corner contraction, allows the second-from-the-end columns to sit directly below triglyphs. Thus, the corner triglyphs are not centered above the corner columns but rest at the corners of the entablature. The logic of this was considered far more satisfying than centered corner triglyphs with impossible partial metopes at the corners.

  All these calculated differences and variations are governed by a complex system based on a ratio of 4:9, pulling the building (in both plan and elevation) into a unified whole.57 The precision with which the ratio is observed among the individual proportions of the Parthenon is nothing short of astonishing: it governs the height of the columns and entablature to the width of the stylobate; the minimal column diameter to the axial distance between them; the width of the stylobate to its length. The result is a kind of buoyancy, a sublime integration of disparate members that is organic, almost alive as the Parthenon seems to breathe and flex supporting its Pentelic load. The American Beaux Arts architect Ernest Flagg likened the effect of these ratios to that of aural harmony: “The hearer may be entirely ignorant of the methods used, yet charmed by the results. So, too, the observer of harmonious dimensions may be ignorant of their very existence, yet captivated by them.”58

  This visual perfection could not have been achieved without a highly evolved and supremely disciplined technical competency. The fluting of the columns, the carving of the sculptures, the smoothing of surfaces to be joined, indeed every block on the Parthenon was finished on-site. Stone sanding plates enabled artisans to finish surfaces to an accuracy of one-twentieth of a millimeter, so that individual blocks might rest seamlessly against each other. But the passage of time itself has accentuated the uncanny impression of perfect wholeness. One of the most fascinating discoveries made by Korres is that after centuries of constant pressure exerted by the blocks upon one another, granules of marble have fused from one slab into the next, creating a solid mass of stone. Korres calls this erpismos, or “snaking,” within the crystalline structure of the marble, the arrangement of individual granules deformed into an undulati
ng path.59 He was able to observe this phenomenon following an earthquake in 1981 when blocks in the Parthenon’s krepidoma separated enough that he could peer into the core of the platform. What Korres saw was astonishing: discrete blocks seamlessly fused together. This makes the metaphor of the Parthenon as a reconstituted Mount Pentelikon all the more powerful.

  OF ALL THE INNOVATIONS introduced by the Parthenon, however, it is the extraordinary abundance of sculptural decoration that is most overwhelming. Nothing like it had been attempted before: two giant and lavishly adorned pediments, each bursting with dozens of larger-than-life-size figures; a Doric frieze with an unprecedented ninety-two sculptured metopes wrapping around the entire exterior of the temple; and an astounding 160 meters (525 feet) of continuous sculptured frieze, set high on the cella wall within the peristyle. Visual pomposity was entirely of a piece with the aim of proving Athens supreme. But even more important, and just as we have seen on the great temples of the Archaic Acropolis, the Parthenon’s sculptural program is steeped in genealogical narratives that beckon ever backward across imagined aeons. In an age without scriptures or media, this great billboard of the polis held up a constant reminder of just who the Athenians were and where they came from. It is precisely this projection of vast strata of time through monumental sculptures that made Athenian visual art so compelling to the Athenian mind. We cannot remotely understand the temple’s ultimate significance, beyond its status as an exercise in formal perfection, without understanding the stories that these sculptures tell.

  The Parthenon’s east pediment gives us the very beginnings of Athenian genealogical history: the birth of Athena set in Hesiod’s Golden Age. Its companion pediment at the west presents the birth of Athens itself, that is, the primeval contest between Athena and Poseidon for divine patronage of the city. This event is set during the reign of King Kekrops in the first Bronze Age. Just beneath Athena’s birth scene we find in the east metopes the cosmic battle of the gods and the Giants. Of course, as the primary façade, or “front,” of the Parthenon, this east end appropriately shows a profusion of divinities, both in the pediment and on the metopes. On the south and west flanks we find metopes that tell stories drawn from a slightly later era, the second Bronze Age, when the greatest of Athenian heroes, Theseus, battled the Amazons (west metopes) and the monstrous Centaurs (south metopes). Finally, the most consequential “boundary event” of the late Bronze Age—the Trojan War—is narrated across the north metopes. This saga was for the Greeks the ultimate marker between mythical and truly historic times.