The pediments symbolized the will of the gods for Athens. All round the building under the cornice were smaller groups of sculptures called metopes, and these represented in stone the way in which Athens had fulfilled the will of the gods for her. First, there were battles between gods and giants, the conflict between order and disorder, and in every case order had triumphed; then there followed battles between the ancient heroes of legend and tradition and all kinds of evil forces in nature, and in these battles Theseus, the hero-king, fought for Athens and prevailed.
The Parthenon was built after the Persians had been driven out of Greece. The Greeks called all who were not of Greek blood Barbarians, and they believed that it was the will of the gods that in every conflict between Greek and Barbarian, the Greek should in the end prevail. The Greek of the fifth century B.C. thought of all history as the working out of the great drama of the victory of the Greek spirit over that of the Barbarian, and the records of this drama are seen in political history in the development of the Athenian Empire, in literature, in the history of Herodotus, and in art in the building of the Parthenon.
But the Parthenon symbolized more than the history of Athens, it was also the symbol of her religious life. On the outer wall, under the colonnade, was the great frieze symbolizing the Panathenaic procession, that great procession which every four years wound its way up to the Acropolis. This was the festival of Athena, and at the east end of the building was a group of gods and goddesses waiting for her coming. They were waiting for her in her own city, where she would take the foremost place. In the solemn procession all classes of Athenians were represented: noble maidens, bearing baskets with offerings for the sacrifice; youths with offerings, and youths on horseback; chariots; grave elders and priests; and cattle for the sacrifice. Aliens, too, were there, for it was not only Athens that was symbolized, but the Athenian Empire; symbol of what Athens hoped would be a united Greece. It is very difficult to distinguish between Athenian patriotism and religion. To the Athenian, the city was Athena, and Athena the city, and the Parthenon was the crown of both.
The Parthenon was entered by the eastern porch. The light inside was dim, but as the eye grew accustomed to the dimness, the statue of Athena slowly became clearly visible. There she stood, a great figure nearly forty feet high. She was clad in a sleeveless garment that reached to her feet, bracelets in the form of serpents were on her arms, the aegis with the head of Medusa covered her breast. In her right hand the goddess bore an image of Victory, and her left hand rested on a shield, inside of which was coiled a snake. The statue was made of gold and ivory, and it was to the Athenians the symbol of all that was best in the Athenian ideals. Their passionate desire for freedom, their unfaltering search for truth, their great love of beauty were all personified for them in the calm and queenly figure of her whose battles were won, of Athena Parthenos. Having offered their sacrifices outside, they entered her temple with awe, believing that "he who enters the incense-filled temple must be holy; and holiness is to have a pure mind."[[3]]
III. LATER HISTORY OF THE ACROPOLIS
Such was the Acropolis of the fifth century B.C. But now the statues and the altars have disappeared, the columns are broken, and the temples stand in ruins. Is it just the lapse of time that has wrought such destruction on those matchless buildings? When Plutarch saw them, they had been standing for about five hundred years, and he said that there was still a bloom of newness upon them that seemed to preserve them from the touch of time, as if the hand that had wrought such buildings gave them the spirit of eternal youth.
At the beginning of the fifth century A.D. Alaric the Goth invaded Greece, but he left Athens undisturbed. The great statue of Athena Promachos was still standing, and the story was told later that as the barbarian chieftain approached the Acropolis, the goddess Athena appeared before him, clad in mail, with her spear outstretched in defence of her city. He was so much awed by the vision that he withdrew and troubled Athens no more, and he sent messengers to the Roman rulers of the city and made peace with them.
Not long after, an edict was passed ordering all pagan temples in the Roman Empire, for Greece then formed part of it, to be closed or else converted into Christian churches, and from that time onwards nothing has been heard of the statue of Athena Parthenos, though a small copy of it was found later. The Parthenon itself was changed into a Christian church, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and it remained so until Athens was captured by the Turks in 1458. They changed the Christian church into a Turkish mosque and built a minaret at one corner. No further changes took place until the end of the seventeenth century, when during a war of the Turks with Venice, the Venetians were bombarding the Acropolis. The Venetians were told that powder was being stored in the Acropolis, and for several days they directed their fire against it. At first there was no result, even the guns, it was said, refusing to do such deadly work on so glorious a building. But at length a shell was thrown into it, the powder exploded, the roof crashed in and a part of the walls collapsed.
The Parthenon was nothing but a ruin, and for more than a hundred years the sculptures of Pheidias lay neglected on the ground, broken and defaced. But at the beginning of the nineteenth century the attention of Lord Elgin, who was British Ambassador at Constantinople, was called to the danger that threatened them from the ignorance and indifference of the Turks and the unscrupulousness of travellers and visitors, who often defaced and carried off pieces of sculpture, and he made arrangements by which the British Government was allowed to buy the Parthenon sculptures and remove them to the British Museum.
Yet in spite of the ruin, the destruction and the loss, what is still left of the ancient temples and statues is of such beauty, that those who look upon it believe with the Greek poet that it will "live as a song for all who love music, living and yet to be, as long as earth or sun remain."