I will, before proceeding, here pause a moment to account for the shattered condition in which those fragments now are.
In 630 A.D. the Parthenon was consecrated for use as a Christian church. Like the famous church at Constantinople, it was dedicated to Santa Sophia, the Divine Wisdom. The older temple, that stood near the Parthenon, called the Erecthium, which had been far more venerated by the early Athenians than the Parthenon itself, was about the same time also consecrated. This latter was dedicated to the Virgin Mary.
Long before this date, Christianity had happily become the religion of the Roman Empire by law established—that is to say, of the whole civilised world. It is evident that in adapting the Pagan temple for Christian worship it was impossible to allow the fables of Paganism to remain depicted over the chief entrance, however splendid as works of art. Accordingly, we find that the entire centre group in the pediment facing the east was completely done away with, a plain surface of blank wall filling the space whereon, in all probability, the inscription of the Christian dedication was placed. The subordinate figures at the two extremities were left, as, without the central group to explain their object, they could have had no intelligible meaning.
Our business for the moment is to show what means exist for restoring the lost central group, which was the key of the subject. The evidence is two-fold. There is, first, the Homeric hymn which gives the legend of the birth of Athéné; and, secondly, there is the description given of the Parthenon by the ancient author, Pausanias.
Pausanias was a Greek gentleman, native of Lydia, in Asia Minor, a geographer and traveller, who visited noted sites in Greece with the express purpose of seeing and describing all that was most beautiful and interesting in Greek art. He lived about one hundred and fifty years after the Christian era. His travels or “Itinerary” has come down to us, and a most curious and interesting work it is. He saw and described the Parthenon with much enthusiasm, with all its beautiful statues and works of art, as “still perfect,” though they were, even in his day, already considered as ancient art. He refers to the Homeric hymn as suggesting the subject of the group on the eastern pediment over the principal entrance to the temple.
This Homeric hymn to Athéné gives the account of her fabled birth, full grown and fully armed, from the head of her father, Zeus (or Jupiter). It describes her, first as the goddess of war, and afterwards, when she has thrown off her arms, as the goddess of the peaceful arts. I give the hymn in full.
Homeric Hymn to Athéné.
“I sing the glorious power with azure eyes;
Athenian Pallas! tameless, chaste, and wise.
Trito-genia,[1] town preserving maid,