I quote this glowing description from Sir Richard Westmacott’s “Lectures on Sculpture.”
This, however, is all conjecture, for the space is a mere blank. As some little aid to the imagination to help to fill the blank, I give a sketch of the same subject, viz., the birth of Athéné, copied from a painting on a vase now in the British Museum. The artist may have probably seen the Parthenon, and may have taken a free version of the subject, from memory, to decorate his vase. We find the same subject repeated, with variations, on other vases. Zeus (Jupiter) occupies the centre, a small Athéné springs forth from his head, Hephaestos (Vulcan) stands by with his axe (with which he has split open the thunderer’s head to let forth the infant deity), Poseidon (Neptune), with his trident, behind him; and Artemis (Diana), with her bow, and a nymph, on the other side, look on. The figures on the vases are so extremely stiff and formal as compared to the grand, life-like statues of the pediments, that I hesitate to give my illustration. But it shows the probable arrangement of the group. The figures on the vase are red on a black ground, treated perfectly flat, without the slightest modelling.
To return to the pediment of the Parthenon itself, the space immediately surrounding the blank, on each hand, is filled with different gods, who appear to look with wonder and admiration towards the central group. At the extreme end on the left the rising sun, Phœbus-Apollo, drives the car of day out of the ocean; while Seléné, goddess of night, plunges downward with her team of steeds, into the waves, at the end on the right.
Of the figures referred to, we may identify the following fragments:—First, we note a fragment of the sun-god, his powerful throat and extended arms emerging from the waves, as he shakes the reins to urge on his prancing steeds; before him, a splendid head of one of the horses of his car, the head flung back, as if he tossed his mane in eager movement to rush up into the daylight. Next comes a recumbent figure, of heroic manly proportions, the most perfect of the Elgin collection. A lion’s skin on which he reposes, leaves little doubt but that it was intended to represent the youthful Hercules, the god of strength. It is popularly, but erroneously, known as Theseus. Then come two grand, matronly, seated personages. The attitude and beauty of proportion in these two stately figures is considered no less admirable than the subtle arrangement of their flowing draperies. They probably represent Demeter and her daughter, Persephone (the Ceres and Proserpine of the Roman mythology). The younger one leans her arm lovingly on the shoulder of her mother. The mother, Demeter, raises her arm, as if in astonishment at the news communicated by the next figure, who comes rushing towards them, her drapery flying far out behind her, from the rapidity of her movements. This is doubtless Iris, the messenger of the gods, sent to announce the wonderful events transacting in the central group. Three fine dignified female figures, on the further side of the pediment, equally distant from the centre, appear to have balanced this last group of Iris, Ceres, and Proserpine. These were the three Fates, who spun the thread of human life, named by the Greeks, Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropus. Two are seated, a little apart; the third reclines, half leaning on the lap of the second. These three figures are equally well preserved, and equally noble and beautiful with the group to which they correspond on the further side.
The subject of this eastern pediment is evidently supposed to have taken place on Mount Olympus, the highest mountain in Greece, the fabled home of the gods, and the figures were intended to represent a conclave of the gods.
The Western Pediment.—The subject of the west end, on the contrary, may be supposed to have taken place in Athens itself, on the Acropolis. The subject here was the contest between Athéné and Poseidon (or Neptune) for supremacy in Athens. Here we find local personages, such as the river deities (the rivers personified), and the legendary kings and heroes of Athens. These statues, with the exception of Athéné and Poseidon, are a size smaller than those on the eastern pediment, being not at all more than life size. The object for which this assembly has met is to see which of the two deities could present the best gift to the Athenians. Poseidon struck the earth; the horse appeared, so the story runs. Athéné did the same; the olive tree grew before them. Both were most useful gifts; but the olive tree, on account of its fruit and the oil which it yields, was considered to have the higher claim.
Athéné was proclaimed the victor. The gods bestowed the city upon the goddess, after whom it was named Athens; and Poseidon was so enraged, continues the legend, that he let loose the waters of the angry sea (which, as monarch of the waves, of course obeyed his behests), and straightway it overflowed its banks and deluged the plain round Athens.
Such is the story, and in the times of Pausanias were shown the three great dents on the rock, the marks of the trident of Poseidon, where he had struck the earth, as well as a small pool of salt water. The Greek traveller mentions having seen these things.
Strangely enough, these two same old-world curiosities were re-discovered not many years ago when excavations were being made on the Acropolis, in the very centre of the older temple, near to the Parthenon, where Athéné and Poseidon were once jointly worshipped. Athéné and Poseidon were the two central figures in the midst of their assembled votaries, the legendary kings and heroes of Athens, and the local nymphs and river gods.
This group is terminated at each end by recumbent figures, supposed to represent the two streams that water the plain round Athens—the Illissus and the Cephissus. The figure of Illissus is scarcely second to the so-called Theseus for beauty of manly proportions; it is perhaps more graceful and less vigorous. “Half reclined, he seems, by a sudden movement, to raise himself with impetuosity, being overcome with joy at the agreeable news of the victory of Athéné. The momentary attitude which this movement occasions is one of the boldest and most difficult to be expressed that can possibly be imagined. The undulating flow given to every part of the drapery which accompanies the figure is happily suggestive of flowing water.” Next to the Illissus is a broken fragment of the nymph Callirrhoë, who represents the only spring of fresh water in Athens; while next to the Cephissus, on the other side, sits King Cecrops, the mythical first king of Attica, with his wife, Agranlos (her name means a “dweller in the fields”), and his daughter Pandrosus (whose name means “the dew”).