Excursions in Art and Letters

by William Wetmore Story

The first fact to be opposed to this entirely gratuitous assumption is, that during the execution of the great public works at Athens under the administration of Pericles, Phidias himself was occupied on his great chryselephantine statue of Athena, which was the chief ornament of the Parthenon; and this alone, without considering the other great statues in ivory, and gold, and bronze, on which he was probably engaged at or near the same period, was amply sufficient to occupy his entire time and thoughts.

The next most important fact is that no ancient contemporary author asserts that any of the sculptures of the Parthenon, with the exception of the chryselephantine statue of Athena, were executed by him; and considering his fame in his own and subsequent ages, it seems most improbable, to say the least, that, had he been the author of any of the other statues and alti or bassi-relievi, not only no mention of this fact, but no allusion to it, should ever have been made.

In the next place, it will be found, on careful examination of the ancient writers and of other facts bearing on the question, to be exceedingly doubtful whether Phidias ever made any statues in marble. If he did execute any works in this material, they were exceptions to his general practice, his art being chiefly in toreutic work, and in gold and ivory, or bronze. It was in these arts that he established his fame; and there is no mention of any work by him in marble within five hundred years of his death.

Plutarch, in his Life of Pericles, says that “Phidias was appointed by Pericles superintendent of all the public edifices, though the Athenians had other eminent architects, and excellent workmen.” It is plain, however, that even if Phidias was director of the works, Plutarch does not mean to represent him as the architect or artist by whom they were either designed or executed; for he immediately adds that “the Parthenon was built by Callicrates and Ictinus.” Probably also Carpion was another architect actively engaged upon it, for he and Ictinus wrote a work upon it. Plutarch then goes on to enumerate other buildings built by different artists at this very period during which Phidias was director of public works. Afterwards he positively states that “the golden statue of Minerva was the workmanship of Phidias, and his name is inscribed on the pedestal;”[1] and adds that, “as we have already observed, through the friendship of Pericles, he had the direction of everything, and all the artists received his orders.” But he does not say or intimate that Phidias himself made anything in the Parthenon except the statue of Athena, unless “having the direction of everything” is to be understood as equivalent to making everything himself. Such an interpretation is, however, absolutely in contradiction with his statements that the Parthenon was built by Callicrates and Ictinus; that the Temple of Initiation at Eleusis was begun by Corœbus, carried on by Metagenes, and finished by Xenocles of Cholargos; that the vestibule of the Citadel was finished in five years by Mnesicles; and that the Odeum was built under the direction of Pericles, by which he incurred much ridicule.

Strabo, however, would seem to differ from Plutarch on this point, and to attribute to Pericles himself, and not to Phidias, the general superintendence of the public works. Speaking of the Temple of the Eleusinian Ceres at Eleusis, and the mystic inclosure, Σηκός, built by Ictinus, he adds, “This person it was who made the Parthenon in the Acropolis in honor of Minerva, when Pericles was superintendent of the public works;” and in another passage he mentions “the Parthenon built by Ictinus, in which is the Minerva in ivory, the work of Phidias,”—thus clearly distinguishing the work of Phidias, and saying not a word about the metopes, bassi-relievi, or statues in the pediment, or indicating him as their author.

But granting that Plutarch is right, it is quite manifest that it was impossible for Phidias to have had more than an official superintendence of these great works. The sole administration of public affairs was conferred on Pericles in B. C. 444, and it was not until then or subsequently that Phidias could have been appointed to this office. Among the public works built at this period were the Propylæa, the Odeum, the Parthenon, the Temples of Ceres at Eleusis, of Juno at Argos, of Apollo at Phigaleia, and of Zeus at Olympia—the last being finished in B. C. 433. Within these eleven years, therefore, Phidias is supposed to have superintended all or a portion of these temples, with their manifold sculptures and statues, and, in addition, to have made the colossal chryselephantine statues of Athena in the Parthenon, Zeus at Olympia, Aphrodite Urania at Elis, and also, perhaps, the Athena Areia in bronze at Platæa.

But excluding all consideration as to the other temples, and confining ourselves solely to the Parthenon, let us see if it be possible, with all his occupations, for him to have executed the Athena alone, and also executed or even designed the other sculptures of the Parthenon.

In the tympanum there are 44 statues, all of heroic size. There were 92 metopes representing the battles of the Centaurs and Lapithæ, and the frieze, which was covered with elaborate bassi-relievi representing processions of men, women, and horses with riders, was about 524 feet in length.

There seems to be no distinct statement of the exact time when the Parthenon was begun; but it certainly was after the appointment of Pericles in 444 B. C., and we know that it was finished and dedicated in 438 B. C. This gives us six years as the outside possible limits within which it was built. Now, if Phidias made, executed, or even modeled or designed, only the 44 statues of the tympanum within this period, he must have been a man of astonishing activity and rapidity in his work. To do this he must have made more than seven heroic statues in each year, or more than one statue every two months for six years. This may safely be said to be impossible, unless we mean by the term designing the making of small sketches in clay or terra cotta, with little elaboration or finish. But if we add the 92 metopes and the 524 feet of figures in relief, the mere designing in clay of all the figures and groups becomes impossible.

But this is not enough: we know that he executed in this time the colossal chryselephantine statue of Athena,—and to the other statues, therefore, he could only have given the overplus of his time which was not needed for his great work. Nor are we without data by which we can estimate the probable time given to the Athena alone. At Elis he was engaged exclusively from four to five years upon the Zeus, in the temple at Olympia; and in the execution of this colossal work we know that he had the assistance of other artists, and especially of Kolotes; and we also know that he did nothing else in this temple, the statues in the two tympana having been executed by Alcamenes and Pæonios. In all probability about the same amount of time was given to the Athena. Supposing, then, that he began his work on the Parthenon immediately after the appointment of Pericles, which is most improbable, he would have had about a year’s time in which to make all the statues and reliefs in the Parthenon, and exercise supervision of the public works. If he modeled the designs only of the tympana in this period, he must have made a statue in eight days. If he also modeled the designs of the metopes, 92 in number, of two figures each, he must have given less than three days to each, without allowing any time for the performance of his functions of general director, and supposing him also to have worked without a day’s intermission. Such suppositions must be rejected as approaching so near to impossibilities as to render them utterly untenable. All probabilities are in favor of the supposition that, during the period in which the Parthenon was constructed, Phidias was employed solely upon the statue of Athena, and upon the duties incident to his position as superintendent of public works.