But if this is true, the question arises how does it happen that the bastion of the temple, which certainly antedates the Propylaea, has a north wall aligned with that of the S.W. wing of the Propylaea. The coincidence must be the result of deliberate plan and is best explained by the supposition that when the bastion was built, the ground plan of the Propylaea and its position were already known. The north wall of the bastion could therefore be built in line with that of the wing. The continuation of the north wall of the bastion was broken away when work on the Propylaea was begun.
Neither Pericles nor Mnesicles gave consent to the erection of the Temple of Wingless Victory. In the leaning anta which was built to stand free one reads their buried hope that the Propylaea might enjoy a finely impressive command of the whole region west of the acropolis, a command unannoyed by the hostile lines of the structurally insignificant temple of Victory.
II
THE CARYATID PORCH OF THE ERECHTHEUM
Not the least remarkable feature of the Erechtheum is the Caryatid Porch, which is generally regarded as a creation of the artist's fancy and of no further significance. In the present study an attempt will be made to prove that the maidens serve not only a structural and artistic purpose, but that they also bear a relation in thought to the cult of the temple, notwithstanding the fact that the female figure had been employed by earlier architects merely as a support. If the subject of the frieze of the Erechtheum, like that of the approximately contemporary Parthenon, was appropriately drawn from the life and worship of the gods of the temple, it is possible that the sculptured maidens of the unique Caryatid Porch also bear a logical relation to the cult of the temple.
In the first place it may be observed that the entrance to the Erechtheum at the Caryatid Porch corresponds in position closely to the south entrance of the Pre-Persian Erechtheum. The archaic pedimental sculpture of poros which is now in the Acropolis Museum (Wiegand, Porosarchitektur der Akropolis zu Athen, Taf. 14; Petersen, Die Burgtempel der Athenaia, p. 22, abb. 2) gives us a view of the early temple as seen from the south. Close to the west side of the temple, the sacred olive of Athena appears above a low wall, just as in a later period, it stood close to the west façade of the Erechtheum and appeared above the south wall of the Pandroseum. A precinct wall ran west from the south-west corner of both the earlier and later Erechtheum. Along this wall in the pedimental sculpture figures are passing toward the temple. They have come from the direction of the Propylaea. A procession moving from the Propylaea to the Caryatid Porch had exactly the background of the sculptured figures. The correspondence is complete when one notes that these figures are moving toward an entrance which answers to the later Caryatid Porch.
A further point of value is that the female figures in the procession carried something on their heads, as is shown by their raised but broken left arms. The position of the larger one which was intended to be seen in front view is not certain because it was not attached to the wall like the smaller female figure. It stood probably in the portico and may have served as a Caryatid. Petersen (op. cit., p. 27) thinks these figures represent Arrephoroi rather than Canephoroi and his opinion is very reasonable. The Arrephoroi annually carried some mysterious object on their heads to the temple of Athena and Erechtheus.
The procession including Arrephoroi moving toward an entrance which was the predecessor of the Caryatid Porch suggests an explanation of the fact that the latter porch was not for common use. A restricted use of the Caryatid Porch is a certain inference from the following facts. The opening at the north-east corner of the porch is narrow and the step up to it is twenty inches. If this means of access to the temple had been used by the public, the step would have been lower and convenient. Again, the delicate base mouldings of the building which run under this opening would have been worn if the opening had been frequently used (Frazer, Pausanias, II, p. 337). Frazer's conclusion is that the entrance was reserved for priests.