that Pheidias, the architect and sculptor, was called upon, in commemoration of the victory, to build a temple to the patron goddess of Athens, and to adorn it with sculpture which should be worthy alike of the occasion and the divinity.
The Temple.—In the centre of the city of Athens rises the bold rocky eminence known as the Acropolis, in earliest prehistoric days the citadel and stronghold of her kings, but long since given up exclusively to her temples. From this commanding height might be seen the city stretched below, the fertile plain beyond, enclosed by the two winding streams, the Illissus and the Cyphissus, which spread verdure and abundance as they flowed on into the blue Ægean sea. The view was bounded on the south by the dark waters of that sea, while the distant mountains skirted the plain on the north, and varied the beauty of the scene.
On this rocky height, and on the highest part thereof, was erected the new temple, built entirely of white marble. It was called the Parthenon, and was dedicated to Pallas-Athéné, the patron goddess of Athens. The same divinity was worshipped by the Romans under the name of Minerva. For, just as Ephesus is known to have worshipped especially the great goddess Diana, so Athens devoted herself to the worship of Pallas-Athéné, the goddess of wisdom, the virgin daughter of Jove. She was one of twelve chief gods who were worshipped throughout Greece, but was held as more peculiarly the protecting deity of ancient Athens. A temple to this goddess had stood on the self-same spot before the war, which the Persians had destroyed. The former one was called the Hecatompedon, referring to its size.[1] The new one, the Parthenon, was the house (or chamber) of the virgin.[2] It was to be used for festivities and ceremonies in honour of the goddess, rather than for worship. It was of the same size as its predecessor, and was for that reason occasionally, but very rarely, called by the older name. The building of this temple was commenced 445 B.C., soon after the happy termination of the Persian war, while peace and prosperity ruled in the land. It took ten years to complete, and was accordingly finished in 435 before the Christian era. The times were therefore pagan times; but a great wave of civilisation passed over the favoured land of Greece, to which all modern art and literature owes so much; and the worship of Athéné, the goddess of wisdom and activity, takes its place amongst the purest and most elevating of the heathen religions.
It is, then, with Athéné and her worship that we have now to do.
Athéné.—We must pause to devote a few words to the description of the qualities and attributes of this goddess who inspired these works of art, once so perfect. Athéné (or Pallas-Athéné, as she is frequently called) was the fair daughter of Zeus or Jupiter.[3] In her, "power and wisdom were harmoniously blended; she appears as the preserver of the State, and of everything which gives to the State strength and prosperity. She was the protectress of agriculture." With the Greeks, those most superstitious people, every fresh invention that led the way for the arts of civilisation was at once attributed to the inspiration of a god, thus "Athéné was said to have invented the plough and the rake, and to have created the olive tree"—that tree of so much importance in all Eastern countries, where the fruit is often an article of daily food, and the oil extracted from the olives is also serviceable for domestic purposes. As Apollo is associated with the sun, so Athéné is associated with the dawn, which wakes men from their slumbers when there is work to be done. She is therefore the goddess of industry and work, which daylight brings to all mortals. Athéné was thus the goddess of industry in every form. Besides agriculture, she was the patroness of arts and artificers, of embroidery and spinning, and all kinds of women's needlework. Also of intelligent and scientific warfare, as opposed to Ares (or Mars), the other Greek god of war, who was the god of "blind brute force," while she is called the "preventer of war," "the defender of towns." She protected the State from outward enemies, and, as the patron divinity, she maintained the authority of law and order in the courts of the assembly of the people. It was she who was believed to have instituted the Court of the Areopagus, the Court of Justice, at Athens. She was, moreover, good and pure, a virgin deity whose heart was inaccessible to the passion of love.
Such are the many attributes of this beneficent goddess—ever young and ever strong, but thoughtful and serious—the beautiful, blue-eyed Athéné. Sometimes she is represented by artists in her warlike character; she then wears a golden helmet adorned with sphinxes, a breastplate of armour over her woman's drapery, the terrible snake-wreathed Medusa head in the centre, which turned to stone all who looked on it; she grasps her long spear in one hand, and holds her shield with the other. But, as often, we meet with her in her character of goddess of the peaceful arts. Then, her hair waves in long curls over her shoulders from beneath her helmet, but her dreadful corslet is put off, and instead of the spear she carries the spindle, emblem of domestic work, or feeds the serpent of Æsculapius (god of medicine)—type of the kindly acts of peace.
We shall find that she appears in both these capacities among the sculptures on her beautiful temple, the Parthenon. The two chief incidents of her fabled story were represented in the two pediments—the long, triangular spaces at the east and west ends of the building. The grand broken fragments are all that now remain to the world of those majestic figures; while the chief ceremonies yearly performed in her honour by her worshippers, are depicted in the bas-relief of the procession, which ran continuously round the outer wall of the temple, under the colonnade. The delicate forms were here protected from inclement weather, and the work was seen in pleasant, subdued, reflected light. The effect was enhanced by delicate tinting, both of flesh and drapery, against a background of blue; also by points of judicious gilding here and there—for instance, on the spear of Athéné, the harness and trappings of the horses, the olive-branches borne by the farmers. Holes are plainly visible in the marble, where these gilt or bronze additions were made.