Stealing Athena

by Karen Essex

  I HAD NO IDEA why Pheidias wished me to visit him in his studio. “I have something radical to propose,” he’d whispered in my ear as he left me at my house after the performance, though he would not elaborate on what it was. I had once tried to obtain an invitation to view his work, but he’d scolded me, telling me that my womanly presence would be too much of a distraction for the artisans, and they were lagging far enough behind the schedule for completion of the colossal—and colossally expensive—statue of Athena Parthenos that was already causing so much controversy.

  As if to mock my shame and my grim mood, the day was glorious. The marketplace was lively, even at this time in the afternoon, when the air warmed and the silver-green leaves of the olive trees on the hillside began to take on a wilted look. Slaves haggled with beleaguered mongers over the last few fish, which had to be sold before the heat ruined them and they became food for the wandering dogs, and therefore a loss for their sellers. Rancid bits had already been discarded, and I took a small piece of linen, perfumed with lavender oil, out of my pocket to cover my nose.

  No one seemed to notice me. The few men with whom I was acquainted nodded politely before quickly walking on, but that was not unusual. Men did not want to be seen chatting with a courtesan in the agora. Gossip from Athens’s network of slaves inevitably wiggled its way into the men’s homes, causing trouble. Not that wives had much authority to complain about their husbands’ sexual indiscretions. But no one could take away a woman’s prerogative to nag about household money being spent on a whore.

  Though the comedy was as vehement a statement against war as I had ever seen, the reference to me was so absurd that the audience must have taken it in the spirit of parody, and not as an actual indictment. No one was shouting accusations against me in the marketplace as I had feared. Life seemed to be going on as usual. The play would not be performed again in Athens until the next cycle of festivals, if ever. Perhaps last night’s humiliation would be the end of it.

  I slipped into the shade of a colonnade to escape the crush of pedestrians and shoppers and looked up at my destination. The spectacular white columns of the Parthenon glistened in the flat light of the sun. An oxcart passed by me, hauling two great slabs of marble. I knew where it was headed, so I decided to follow.

  The marble was exactly as Pheidias had described it to me—quarried from Mount Pentelikon, about ten miles outside of Athens, the finest of white stone in Greece. The temple to Athena would be built only with this particular Athenian marble, I was told. “It is smooth, with a consistent and beautiful grain,” Pheidias had said, “not coarse and shiny like the marble imported from the islands.”

  “Even Athenian stone is superior to that of the rest of Greece,” I had joked at the time. He laughed, but the selection of stones was, for him, no laughing matter. “Yes, Aspasia, even our marble is destined to be supreme over the other stones of the Greek world.”

  Pheidias’ studio was a makeshift structure at the south end of the Akropolis; it had been erected there so that the marble, once carved, would not have to be carted too long a distance, lessening the labor involved in transportation and also the chances of breakage. Even if I had not known the location of the studio, I could have followed the sounds of the chisels, mallets, and hammers hard at work. I freely entered the high-ceilinged one-room building and was hit by the clouds of dust circling in the air. The artisans wore kerchiefs around their noses as they banged away at the stones. I put my handkerchief up to my nose to shield it from the flying particles, and I heard a voice ring out above the clatter.

  “Welcome.”

  The sonorous greeting caught the attention of the workmen. The tools came to a slow silence as I felt dozens of pairs of eyes turn upon me.

  “Back to work,” Pheidias ordered, and the clamor started once more.

  Body parts huge and small made from stone and ivory were scattered on the floor. A great white arm, as long as I was tall, lay before me, its hand turned upward as if ready to catch something that might drop from the heavens. Two sculptors shaped the formidable, sandal-footed legs, working from giant wooden models made to size. Each limb must have been at least twenty feet long.

  “This might be the workroom where the gods designed the human form,” I said.

  “She’s still in bits and pieces,” Pheidias said. “But when Athena is put together properly, she will be the most superb representation of woman and goddess that has ever been made. Forty feet tall, my dear, sheathed in ivory, and decorated with more gold than a man might see in all the days of his life and his children and grandchildren in theirs. A sight for mortal eyes to behold.”

  “When do you think the lady will be assembled and ready for display?” I asked.

  “That depends on whether we can keep the money flowing. The Assembly continues to say that we cannot both wage wars and build monuments, but we can, and we must. Have they sent you sent here to spy on me?”

  I laughed. “I am not exactly on good terms with the Assembly.”

  “Well, it will all be finished by the Great Panathenaic Festival next year,” he replied. “See how much we have already accomplished?”

  He pointed to the body parts lying about. “The arms, hands, legs, torso, and feet are quite finished, as you can see. We’ve worked in a very industrious manner, emulating the goddess herself, who presides over skill and craftsmanship. The winged Nike that will perch in her outstretched hand is being made. Here is the goddess’s shield, which will rest at her side.”

  The shield was fantastically large, taller than two men, and it rested on a wooden frame. On its surface, Amazon women fought their way up to the Akropolis, but Greek warriors hurled them back, protecting the citadel.

  “I thought that the Parthenon was to commemorate the victory over the Persians. What do Amazonian women have to do with Persia?”

  “They are from the eastern lands, for one. And they are barbaric, for another. Besides, the Persians have employed Amazon-like women in their wars. Have you not heard of Artemisia of Caria, who was a naval commander? She had the ear of King Darius more than her male counterparts. Like yourself, she quite overturned the natural order of things.”

  “Interesting,” I replied. “I thought I might be the first woman in all history to have a man’s ear.”

  “Now you know that you are the second.”

  “I hope that Artemisia was not the subject of so much public scorn,” I said. I did not want to bring up what had happened last night, but if Pheidias had heard any gossip about it, I wished he would tell me.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t worry so much about that. You’re like an Amazon, Aspasia. You are just as strong. They’re quite right here to be afraid of you. Everyone knows that both in battle and outside of it, men can be quite undone by women.”

  “But not yourself.”

  “I have other vulnerabilities,” he replied. He was known as a lover of men, and therefore a great companion to women such as myself, who intrigued him, but who cast no spell.

  “You have left Athena’s face blank as yet. How do you envision it?”

  Pheidias looked at me as if I had asked a startling question. “Come with me,” he said, leading me out of the studio and heading straight for the Parthenon, which was near completion. I had seen the building in various stages of construction, and each time, proximity inspired awe.

  “This is your masterpiece, Pheidias,” I said.

  The temple sat upon the earth with quiet dignity, as if it were itself a deity. Tall, somber columns surrounded the rectangular building, rising upward as if they were living matter growing out of the earth, rather than oppressively heavy slabs of marble placed there by human hands. They tapered slightly as they rose, giving the impression of both lightness and symmetry. Though Pheidias had delegated the specifications and engineering feats to the architects Iktinus and Kallikrates, he supervised every aspect of the design. He often credited the other men, but I was under the impression that on an artistic level, he considered the tem
ple his own work.

  Some distance from the building, a small fire burned in a pit, attended by two craftsmen who kept it alive, a pot of molten lead atop it. The metallic smell was nauseating. “We mold the iron clamps that fasten the sculptural ornamentation to the building with hot lead,” Pheidias explained.

  “We are getting ready to place the metopes,” he said, pointing to the blocks of marble on the ground, upon which were sculpted scenes of battle between centaurs and men. “Most of them are already in place above the columns, situated between the triglyphs.” He gestured toward the metopes beneath the pediments that were already set on the building. In the ones remaining on the ground, it seemed that centaurs were hoisting females over their shoulders, trying to carry them away on their horse-hoofed legs, as the human men fought to prevent the rape.

  “The last of these are ready to be lifted into place by those cranes,” he said, pointing out the system of ropes and pulleys. “I’ve made ninety-two metopes in all. When the last is in place, we’ll finish the roof, and then we’ll fill the pediments with sculpture.”

  “You have made the centaurs so formidable that I am not certain who I wish to win the maidens,” I joked. The bug-eyed centaurs were wild and determined in the face, bearded and hairy, with a hint of pointy ears poking from their tousled manes. As I looked at the carvings, I wondered what it would be like to be carried off by a creature with the face and torso of a man but the legs, hooves, and mane of a horse. “On the one hand, the abducted women seem to shrink in horror, but on the other hand, there is a glint of erotic desire in their faces. Do they find the monsters more alluring than their mortal men?”

  Pheidias looked insulted. “I thought the young sculptors did a fine job with the mortals.”

  “Indeed, Pheidias, the nude figures of the men are as finely formed as any I’ve seen.” The musculature in the chest and stomach could have made me ache with desire if I’d stared for too long. One in particular showed a beautiful naked youth, draped only about the shoulders with a cape, reaching out to capture a fleeing centaur. The heroic strain in his body as he pulled at the creature’s neck seemed so lifelike and beautiful that I wanted to caress him. “Would that all men looked like that beneath their robes!”

  “In my mind, they do,” he answered wickedly. “Besides, it’s crucial for the humans to be victorious. That figure you admire is Theseus. He was an invited guest at the wedding banquet of the King of the Lapiths of Thessaly. The centaurs, in contrast, showed up at the wedding uninvited and tried to carry the women away. Filthy creatures!”

  “So once again the Greeks prevail over foreign monsters?”

  “Precisely.”

  “Each figure in the metopes is more spectacular than the next. Your genius has once again prevailed.”

  “I am aware of that. I refined every one of the figures myself. I allowed the others to sketch the scene upon the stone and make the initial carvings—all after my approval, of course. But the work is truly mine. May I add that there is not a tool mark upon them.”

  “But they will be positioned up so high on the temple that only the gods will be able to appreciate your detail,” I said.

  “What other opinions matter, in the end,” he responded, “if one has the good opinion of the gods?”

  “Now you are sounding like a philosopher,” I said, making him laugh.

  He turned to walk up the steps and into the building, but something stopped me from following him. It was such a formidable structure, foreboding in its beauty. He must have read my mind.

  “Come, Aspasia. The temple is not yet consecrated by the priests nor dedicated by the people. Until then, it is of no consequence to the goddess.”

  Inside, sunlight crept through the incomplete roof, held up by massive structural timbers of cypress. Above, I could see four men in what appeared to be precarious positions placing marble roof tiles. The temple had two rooms, the larger of which would house the statue of the goddess; the smaller one would keep the Athenian treasury. Pheidias showed me where the colossal statue of the goddess would stand. “A shallow pool of water will surround her, casting a great shimmer upon the ivory and the immense tonnage of gold that will be hammered onto the statue.”

  “Ah, yes,” I said. “The gold that has all the tongues wagging over the expense.”

  “They know that they are merely exercising that organ. As Perikles has explained to the Assembly, the gold will be set so that it can be removed in the event that it is needed by the city.”

  He shook his head in annoyance at the pettiness of their enemies. “I prefer to concentrate on the final result, which, as you can see, will be glorious. When all those fools are dead, Athena will still stand. She will be assembled, dressed, decorated with precious gold and jewels and inlays of glass, and presented for the lucky few to see. But all will hear of the majesty of the monument.”

  Only the priests and priestesses and the most prominent people in the land were allowed access to the temples on the Akropolis. Because of my association with Perikles, I was considered one of them.

  “I will tell you why I have asked you here,” Pheidias said. “I have been pondering the details of the face of the goddess. I wish to do something different. I do not want merely to represent the goddess. I wish to give her a real face, one that has the qualities of intelligence, wisdom, compassion, and bravery. I had never seen those qualities in the face of a mortal woman, but I do see them in yours. Aspasia, I would like to use your features and expression for the face of Athena.”

  I was stunned by his suggestion. The idea of the face of a notorious woman representing the great goddess of the city seemed more radical than any other feature of Pheidias’ designs.

  “The idea came to me last night as we were leaving the theater,” he said. “You walked with such dignity—beautiful, bold, defiant. But it must be done in secret, for the obvious reasons.”

  “Yes, your detractors must not know that your model for the face of the Mother of Athens is a woman who is often called a whore,” I said. “That might not evoke a favorable reaction from Athens’s more respectable citizens.”

  “Succinctly put,” he answered without a trace of apology. “But it is true, what I am saying about your face. Perhaps the trials of your life have imbued you with more visible character than ordinary women whose fates as mothers and wives are sealed at birth. Perhaps it is your innate intelligence, or your bold but diplomatic way of speaking. Or perhaps it is that you strategize like a man—an attribute shared with Athena. Whatever the reason, I am committed to the idea. What say you?”

  “Shall we tell Perikles?” Pheidias’ suggestion intrigued me, but I did not know how I would keep a secret from the man I loved, though I often suspected that he kept secrets from me.

  “He is away at war. Let’s not bother him. He is criticized enough as it is, and, as we saw last night, even over his relations with you.”

  “No one minds that Perikles has a mistress,” I said. “They simply do not like that I have influenced him. And I have not—not to the extent that people imagine. I listen, and sometimes I make suggestions. That is all. But one would think that I was casting spells upon him to get him to do my bidding.”

  “Will you be casting any spells upon me, Aspasia? Perhaps you can win friends in the Assembly by casting a spell upon me to work faster and use cheaper materials.” This amused him greatly, and it amused me too. Yet a small part of me felt a sting whipping at my heart.

  “Why do I have to be insulted and thought wicked simply because I have enough intelligence to converse with my lover and offer him a forum for discussing the issues that occupy his mind?” What threat did I, a woman without a dowry—a penniless orphan who lived and breathed and was fed at the pleasure of the man I loved—pose to the powerful men who whispered ugly things about me behind my back? Sometimes it seemed that they feared me more than they feared Perikles, which was nonsensical. How to figure these paradoxes of human existence?

  “There is no sen
se in asking unanswerable questions, Aspasia.”

  “But as a philosopher I take it upon myself to address such questions. There is no such thing as a concrete or satisfactory answer, but one must take comfort in the exploratory path that logical inquiry offers.”

  “Those are the first words of truth I have heard spoken today,” said a strange voice from behind us.

  We turned around to see that a husky young man carrying tools and cloths had entered the room. He bowed to us and began to polish the long plinth that would eventually serve as the base of the statue of Athena. He tried to look as if he were hard at his labor, but I could tell that he wanted to listen to our conversation. Pheidias spoke to him.

  “Ah, Sokrates, I see that you have finally decided to do your work. Did your fellow workers tire of your conversation and send you back to your labors?”

  He was about my age, twenty-five, and quite muscular. His hair was wild, his nose was wide, and his lips were almost crudely full. He was slightly bug-eyed, like the centaurs in the metopes, and he was hairier on the arms and around the neck than I like a man to be. It was not impossible to imagine him as a satyr, with the horns and hoofs of a goat and the giant erection with which they were often portrayed.

  “This fellow could be a good sculptor,” Pheidias said to me, “but he is more taken with the art of conversation and the habit of asking questions incessantly. His father, Sophroniscus, is one of the finest marble workers in Athens. The son could follow, but chooses to waste time in lesser pursuits.”

  “Thank you, Pheidias, but it’s widely known that I am not much of a sculptor. In fact, I know very little about anything. That is why I must ask questions, for as an asker of questions, I excel. However, I did give the matter much thought last night and I decided that I could make a good deal of money as a pimp. For that is my pleasure: introducing others to those who will introduce pleasures to them.”