The Procession.—This sculptured procession represents the final act of the chief national festival, which lasted for twelve days. The festival was called the Pan-Athenæa; it was celebrated every year, but in its full splendour only every fourth year.
The word pan means all, and Athenæa, Athenians. It was so named because all free-born Athenian citizens were bound to appear in it, but none others were allowed that honour. Accordingly, in this bas-relief we see marshalled in procession all the various people in whose occupations "the blue-eyed goddess"[4] was supposed principally to interest herself. As we approach the temple from the western end, first appear in long array the horsemen, the knights of Athens, the flower of her young nobility, on their prancing and curvetting Thessalian steeds, the defenders of their country in times of peril. Most of these are dressed in light armour. We note both horses and men; how wonderfully instinct with life and movement they are, yet each one different! Next advance the warriors, in their light, open, two-wheeled chariots, every one with his attendant driver beside him.
Marshals at intervals turn to the advancing throng to regulate the order of march, spirited figures that seem greatly to add to the reality and movement of the scene.
Next come the aliens—that is, foreigners resident in Athens who, in acknowledgment of the great favour of being allowed to reside in that proud city, and as a return for her protection, had to carry the heavy pitchers of water and great vases of wine, to be used in the sacrifices. Their wives also walked in the procession, and carried sunshades, (I mean parasols), for the freeborn Athenian ladies, in order to remind them of their dependent position. These so-called aliens were probably well-to-do merchants, either from the Greek colonies or from some neighbouring state, they themselves and their wives in every way as much considered in their own city as the Athenians in theirs.
Next came the musicians, with flutes and lyres, instruments that the "fair goddess" was said to have herself invented.
Then came the farmers from the Attic plains, the worthy countrymen who cultivated the olive orchards that yielded the special harvest of the country; they bear boughs of the tree that Athéné herself was supposed to have planted, the growth of which had so largely conduced to the prosperity of the land. Lastly, come the colonists from all the Athenian colonies, who were obliged to contribute sheep, oxen, and goats for sacrifice; these are accompanied by their officiating priests.
At the head of the procession, with modest air and downcast eyes and slow and stately movement, walk the noble matrons and virgins of Athens, carrying small vases, and saucers called pateræ, for the libations which were to be used in the sacrifices. A marshal takes a roll from the foremost pair of maidens, probably the hymn which has been chanted on the way.
We now approach the climax. The people of Athens do not come empty-handed to their guardian patroness. They bring her a beautiful dress or shawl, called in Greek the peplos, which has been covered with richest embroidery by maidens selected from the noblest families. These Athenian girls have plied their needles daily for many months, in a room set apart within the precincts of the temple, where they have worked under the superintendence of the priestesses of Athéné. The gorgeous embroidery represented the fight with the giants, the brutal and lawless powers of fabulous times, in which the goddess of law and order had been victorious, and had destroyed the monsters. The colour of the dress was yellow, the colour of the sun; by which it was evidently intended to suggest the idea that the power of light, physical and moral, would conquer the evil powers of darkness.
It is the birthday of Athéné, the 28th day of the Greek month, called Hecatombæon, supposed to be our Midsummer Day, the day of the sun's summer solstice; and the beautiful crocus-coloured peplus is her birthday present from the city which she honours with her patronage and mild sway. A young boy bears it folded up in a large fringed square, and presents it to the priest of the temple, while the priestess beside him turns to receive the sacrificial cakes which a maiden carries on her head, on a tray covered with a cloth.
We have by this time come to the space immediately over the main entrance to the temple, at the east end; and here we see the twelve gods of Greece ranged, six on each side, over the doorway, the presentation of the peplus dividing the two groups of gods. Amongst them sits Athéné, as described in Homer's "Odyssey."