The personality of Pandrosos is hard to seize and fix. One thing is clear; ‘Pandrosos’ is not a mere ‘title of Athena.’ She manifestly, as daughter of Kekrops, belongs to that earlier stratum before the dominance of The Goddess. Later Athena absorbed her as she absorbed everything else. In official inscriptions she usually comes after Athena, and is clearly a separate personality. Thus the epheboi[105] offered their ‘sacrifices at departure (ἐξιτήρια) on the Acropolis to Athena Polias and to Kourotrophos and to Pandrosos,’ and women swore by her, though not so often as by Aglauros. We have one ritual particular that looked as though between her and Athene there was at some time friction. Harpocration[106] in explaining the rare word ‘ἐπίβοιον,’ ‘that which is after the ox,’ says, quoting from Philochoros, that it was the name given to a sacrifice to Pandrosos. If any one sacrificed an ox to Athena it was necessary to sacrifice a sheep to Pandrosos. Pandrosos was in danger of being effaced by Athena, and some one was determined this should not be; all that ‘The Goddess’ could secure was precedence.
We have found, then, a maiden goddess who was there before ‘The Goddess,’ nay, who may have herself been ‘The Goddess’ before Athena claimed the title. Pandrosos belongs to the early order of the Kekropidae, before the dwellers on the hill became Athenians. It is possible that her presence throws some light on the beautiful, but as yet enigmatic figures of the ‘Maidens’ who have been restored to us by the recent excavations. Who and what are they?
The ‘Maiden’ whose figure is chosen for the frontispiece of this book was found alone, somewhat later than the rest, in October, 1888, not like the others ([p. 16]) North of the Erechtheion, but near the wall of Kimon to the South, between the precinct of Artemis-Brauronia and the West front of the Parthenon. There is a certain fitness in this, because though in dress, adornments, colouring, general type, she is like the rest, her great beauty will always make her a thing apart. The torso and head were found separate, and about the torso there is nothing specially noteworthy. The unique loveliness is all of the face, and it escapes analysis. There are, however, peculiarities worth noting. The right eye is set much more obliquely than the left. This gives an irregular charm and individuality; the unusually high forehead emphasizes the austere virginal air, and the same may be said of the straight chest and long thin throat. But the secret of her beauty is still kept; standing as she does now among the other ‘Maidens,’ she is a creature from another world, and for all their beauty the rest look but a kindly mob of robust mothers and genial housewives.
The statues in question, which now number upwards of fifty, have been called by the name ‘Maidens,’ a name current among archaeologists. It is open to objection, because ‘maidens’ (κόραι) meant in the official language of the inscription already quoted[107] the ‘Caryatid’ figures of the Erechtheion. The word has, however, one great advantage, it is vague and commits the user of it to no theory as to the significance of the statues. The word korè meant to the Greek not only maiden, but doll or puppet or statue of a maiden. We need only recall the familiar epigram with the dedication to Artemis[108]:
Maid of the Mere, Timaretè here brings
Before she weds, her cymbals, her dear ball
To thee a Maid, her maiden offerings,
Her snood, her maiden dolls their clothes and all.
Here the korai are actual dolls, but in Attic inscriptions we find the word korè used of a statue[109], thus, ‘a korè of gold on a pillar’; or again in a dedication to Poseidon, ‘he dedicated as firstfruits this korè.’ A korè is one form of an agalma, a thing of delight.
The statues, then, may be called ‘Maidens,’ but the word is too vague to help us much as to their significance, and it is their significance, who and what they are, not their value in the history of art that here concerns us.