On the east frieze is represented a battle in the presence of six seated deities arranged in two groups. In one part of the frieze the combatants are hurling vast rocks. Colonel Leake (Topography of Athens, 2nd ed. p. 504), supposed that Heracles and some of the gods are engaged in a battle with giants, while other deities, among them some who usually take a leading part in the fray, merely sit and watch. This, however, is a scheme of Gigantomachia to which no parallel can be adduced.
Fig. 17.—The disposition of the East Frieze. (From Baumeister.)
Brunn (Sitzungsber. der k. bayer. Akad. Phil.-hist. Cl., 1874, ii., p. 51), supposes the battle here represented to be that fought by the Athenians under Theseus against Eurystheus in defence of the Heracleidae. The scene on the left would thus represent the first rout of the troops of Eurystheus; then would come the storming of the Skironian pass by Theseus, where we might expect masses of rocks to be hurled on the assailants. The kneeling figure on the left of the central group (404, 4), who is being bound would, according to Brunn, be Eurystheus, who was taken prisoner and put to death. The figure on the extreme right (404, 8), who is stooping forward, Brunn supposes to be one of the victors erecting the boundary stone, which, according to the Attic legend, was set up by Theseus to mark the limits of the Peloponnese on the side of Attica.
The theory is highly ingenious; but it demands a forced interpretation of the rocks to suppose them to be lining the two sides of a pass; and it overlooks the close parallelism with the east frieze of the Parthenon, where the two groups of gods must be supposed to form a single background to the scene. Also, the Skironian pass was a road between rocks and the sea. Moreover, the vast size of the rocks indicates a giant race, rather than a group of warriors who are reduced to using stones in an extremity.
If the subject has any connection with Theseus, the theory of K. O. Müller seems the best that has been proposed. According to Müller (Kunstarch. Werke, iv. p. 1) it represents the Athenians under Theseus attacking the Pallantidae, or sons of Pallas, who was a son of Pandion, king of Attica. These in Attic legend (Plut. Theseus, 13) formed a league against Theseus. Müller supposes them to have been a race akin to the giants. Compare Soph. Ægeus, fr. 19, ed. Dindorf, ὁ σκληρὸς οὗτος καὶ γίγαντας ἐκτρέφων Πάλλας. See also Müller (p. 8) on the close connection between Pallas, son of Pandion, and the Attic Pallenè, with Pallas the giant and the Thracian Pallenè, the field of the great war of the gods and giants.
404. 1. On the left of the slab, two armed warriors carrying large shields on the left arm, and wearing, one a chlamys and one a chiton over the left shoulder only (heteromaschalos), advance to the right. Before them is a conquered adversary, who has been forced down on his knees by the victor, who appears to tread down his buttock, while his hands are engaged binding the hands of the prisoner. The victor wears a chlamys, but the prisoner is nude. The head of the prisoner was probably turned towards the victor. On the extreme right of the slab there remains the right foot of a figure. The original is extant (cf. Stuart, vol. iii. ch. i. pl. 15), and is a nude armed figure, moving to the right. The head is lost.
Height of this and the following slabs, 2 feet 9½ inches; length, 4 feet 6 inches. Mus. Marbles, IX., pl. 12.
2. On the next slab is a group of three deities seated on rocks, of whom the figure on the right is male and the other two female. The two female deities wear long chitons, in the one case with a diploïdion, and in the other case with sleeves. The figure on the left has the right hand, which is still preserved, by her side. It evidently held a spear. In Stuart's engraving this figure wears a helmet, but the drawing published by Le Roy (Les Ruines des plus beaux Monuments de la Grèce, 1758), though in most respects worthless, seems to show conclusively that the heads are conjecturally restored in Stuart, vol. iii. ch. i. pls. 15, 16, while in pls. 17 to 20 no restoration is attempted. The remains of the figure make it probable that the goddess here represented is Athenè.
The central figure turns towards Athenè, to whom her right arm was probably extended. Passing over the back of her head is a large mantle, which is also wrapped about the legs, and falls over the left arm. The male figure in the group probably looked to the right at the pair of combatants which follows next in order. He has a mantle twisted round his lower limbs and passing behind his back. His left hand rested on a sceptre held vertically, which has now been broken away. All these three figures wear sandals.
The second Goddess may well be Hera, and in that case her male companion would probably be Zeus.