The Parthenon was destroyed in 1638 when a Venetian cannonball landed in a Turkish powder magazine constructed inside the temple.  By the time the British nobleman Lord Elgin arrived on the scene in the early 1800s, the temple was in a pitiful state of disrepair.  Marble pieces that had survived the blast of 1638 were slowly disappearing under the hammers and chisels of local farmers who used the stone to build their homes or fertilize their fields. Perhaps Lord Elgin can be forgiven, then, for chiseling away the last surviving bits of sculpture and carrying them away to London where they eventually went on display in the new British Museum. 

Based on what has been preserved and early engravings made before the blast of 1638, we still have a substantial amount of information about the sculptures that decorated the Parthenon which can be further divided into three major groups: the pediment sculptures, the frieze, and the metopes.  We will briefly consider each of these in turn.

The Pediment Sculptures

The pediment formed by the triangle of the roof on either end of the temple was filled with sculpture work.  Sadly, much of it is broken and lost although enough remains to reveal the tremendous skill with which the Parthenon’s sculptors executed their work.  The work was supervised by the Athenian sculptor Phidias. Ancient authors thought Phidias was the greatest of all Athenian artists, a view that is widely held by scholars today.

The eastern pediment of the temple depicted the birth of the goddess Athena, the patron goddess of Athens.  In one corner, the chariot of the moon is shown descending below the horizon.  Just the head of one horse is visible.  One must imagine the rest of the team and chariot which have already sunk below the horizon (the base of the pediment).  In the other corner, the chariot of the sun is shown rising above the horizon.  The pediment proclaims a message: the birth of Athena, who is said to have sprung fully armed from the side of Zeus, marks the beginning of a new day and the rise to prominence of the city of Athens.  Athena and Zeus would have stood together at the center of the composition although both are missing from the surviving sculpture. 

The western pediment depicted another mythological scene – the competition between Athena and Poseidon for control of Athens.  It was said that the god who gave the greatest gift to the Athenians would win the contest.  Poseidon gave a spring of water whereas Athena gave an olive shoot.  In a sign of how greatly the Athenians valued the olive tree, they awarded the prize to Athena.

From the flowing gowns worn by the women to the flaring nostrils of the horses, these sculptures capture movement and detail in a manner never attained before and only rarely since.

The Frieze

Many consider the real prize of the Parthenon to be the continuous panel, or ‘frieze’, carved in shallow relief high up on the wall of the temple itself. This ‘frieze’ measures 3 1/4 feet high by 525 feet long. It shows men, women, and youths processing towards the temple to celebrate a festival. In one scene, three men wrestle with an ox destined for slaughter. In another, a group of young men ride high-spirited horses in a parade. The frieze probably depicts the Panathenaea, a festival celebrated every four years, when a new peplos (the garment worn by the goddess) was presented to the goddess in her temple.

The Metopes

The upper horizontal beam of the temple, called the ‘entablature’, was divided by three vertical bands called ‘triglyphs’.  The space in between the ‘triglyphs’ were called ‘metopes’.  These were filled with sculptures, 92 in total. 

One of the major themes of these sculptures was the mythological battle that took place between the Centaurs and the Lapiths.   It began after the centaurs, half men and half horse, were invited to the wedding of Pirithous, king of the Lapiths, in central Thessaly.  Over the course of the celebrations the centaurs became drunk with wine. One of them thought to take off with the bride!  The other centaurs began to commit similar outrages and a battle ensued. The metopes of the Parthenon are a graphic depiction of the recurring struggle between the forces of civilization (Lapiths) and chaos (Centaurs).  Bearing this in mind, it is interesting to note that the Centaurs are often shown victorious over the Lapiths!

Conclusion

As the Athenian state grew larger, it also grew hungrier. As the number of people who fell under the umbrella of Athenian “democracy” increased, so did the demand for “contributions” from the other city-states under its protection. Those city-states that balked at the price were ruthlessly destroyed. A portion of these proceeds went towards the construction of the Parthenon. 

As Athens’ power increased, so did tensions with Sparta, the other major power in the region.  Thus the Greek historian, Thucydides (460-400 BC) wrote that, “it was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable.”¹The theory that conflict is inevitable between an established and a rising power was popularized by the social scientist Graham T. Ellison who named it the Thucydides Trap. This, and similar theories about historical cycles, tend to view history in a simplistic and deterministic way that does not allow for human decision-making or moral volition.

Even as Athenian craftsmen were adding the finishing touches to the Parthenon, Athenian hoplites and triremes were preparing for war.  For the next quarter of a century (431-404 BC) the Greek city-states of the Peloponnese would be at war, like Lapiths and Centaurs in the metopes of the Parthenon. At first the Athenian army and navy met with success but a reckless venture in Sicily would ultimately lead to their defeat.  By the time they sued for peace in 404 BC, the Spartans (with Persian support!) had sacked Athens, torn down its walls, and reduced the Athenian navy from 600 ships to a mere 12. As the historian Werner Jaeger observed, the State which gives to each citizen so much, can demand all in return. In the end, the State did demand everything, and even that was not enough!