In his Ion, Euripides focuses on this cave of Pan and indicates that it was close to a place where Athenian maidens danced. We hear that Pan’s pipe playing accompanied their nimble steps:
O seats of Pan and rock lying near the Long Rocks full of recesses, where the girls of Aglauros, all three, tread choral dancing places with their feet, running-courses of green-sprouting grass in front of Pallas’s [Athena’s] temple, to the flashing-tuned, wild cry of hymns when you pipe the syrinx, O Pan, in your caves where sunlight does not enter…
Euripides, Ion 492–502108
This would suggest that ritual dancing took place near the caves of Pan and Apollo, a subject we will return to in chapter 7.
Farther east on the Peripatos, more than halfway along the north slope, we come to a broad terrace near the entrance of Cave S, a natural cleft in the rock from which a well shaft leads down to the water beneath and a Mycenaean ascent leads up to the summit (this page). More than twenty niches were carved into the cliff face of the adjacent ledge and once held votive dedications in marble. Two inscriptions carved in the living rock and dating to the mid-fifth century B.C. have led to the site’s identification as a shrine to Aphrodite and Eros. One text specifically mentions Aphrodite and a festival of Eros.109 A nearby pit filled with stone phalloi, pottery, and terra-cotta figurines further bolsters the case for a link with Aphrodite. This shrine has sometimes been identified as the sanctuary of Aphrodite in the Gardens, mentioned by Pausanias as the destination of the girl arrephoroi who carried unnamable things (arreta) in night rituals during the Arrephoria festival.110 But this is by no means certain.
Meanwhile, beneath the sanctuary of Aphrodite, some 20 meters (66 feet) down from the Peripatos walkway, an artificially leveled terrace (designated the “Skyphos Sanctuary”) preserves a rare look at ritual practices of the early third century B.C.111 Here, some 221 miniature drinking cups, all of the same skyphos shape, have been found in the exact placement where they were carefully set by worshippers thousands of years ago.
Just above the shrine of Aphrodite and Eros, we see column drums salvaged from the Older Parthenon (destroyed by the Persians in 480 B.C.) set in commemorative display within fortifications built after the Persian siege (this page). Metopes and architrave blocks from the ruins of the Old Athena Temple are similarly set into this wall just a little farther to the west. These architectural members bear witness to the most devastating event in Athenian history: the Persian sack. Their display rendered the memory of this destruction ever present. Keeping open the wounds of trauma, as we shall see, was a definitive feature of Athenian public art and the collective psyche.
THE EASTERN FACE of the Acropolis is the most precipitous of all (insert this page, bottom). Its sheer cliffs are penetrated by one deep cave measuring 14 meters (46 feet) in width and 22 meters (72 feet) in depth. This cave was first excavated by Oscar Broneer in 1936; he found little in it.112 But years later, laborers clearing for a “modern” Peripatos in front of the cave and down its slopes found (at a much lower elevation) an inscribed stele still attached to its base. The text, published by George Dontas in 1983, concerns sacrifices made to the nymph Aglauros, one of the three daughters of the legendary king Kekrops.113 It records honors awarded by the Athenians to Timokrite, priestess of Aglauros in 247/246 or 246/245 B.C., with specific instructions that the decree be mounted “in the shrine of Aglauros.”114 The location of this sanctuary concurs with Herodotos’s description of the surprise attack by the Persians in 480:
In front of the Acropolis, and behind the gates and the ascent, was a place where no one was on guard, since no one thought any man could go up that way. Here some [Persian] men climbed up, near the sacred precinct of Kekrops’s daughter Aglauros, although the place was a sheer cliff.
Herodotos, Histories 8.52–53115
It is within this sanctuary that the eighteen-year-old ephebes would come to make their solemn pledge of allegiance to Athens. Invoking Aglauros (one of the daughters of Kekrops), Ares (god of war), and other divinities, the young men swore the Ephebic Oath upon their freshly acquired weapons, promising to defend their city as new soldiers.116 Its nearness to the very spot where the Persians breached the Acropolis made the sanctuary of Aglauros a perfect place for the ephebes to pledge their defense of Athens. Herodotos goes on to say that once the Persians had breached the citadel, some Athenians leaped to their deaths from this eastern cliff, rather than leave themselves to the enemy’s rage:
When the Athenians saw that they [the Persians] had ascended to the acropolis, some threw themselves off the wall and were killed, and others fled into the chamber [of the temple?].
Herodotos, Histories 8.53117
It is from these same cliffs that, according to a later source, Aglauros is said to have willingly jumped to save Athens from a siege by Eumolpos, fulfilling a prophecy given by the Delphic oracle. This story, told in a commentary on a speech by Demosthenes, says that the Athenians then established a sanctuary to Aglauros under the cliffs and that it was here the ephebes swore their oath.118 The commentator is surely confusing Aglauros with yet another princess of Athens, the daughter of the Athenian king Erechtheus, she who was sacrificed to save the city from Eumolpos’s attack. In the chapters that follow, we will see just how the myths of the maiden princesses of Athens become fused and blended over time. Nonetheless, the memory of a triad of heroic daughters survives, including the one who gave her life for the city and who thus provided special inspiration for the young soldiers of Athens. Here, on the dramatic eastern cliffs of the Acropolis, landscape, topography, myth, history, and memory come powerfully together in a single highly charged location.
PROCEEDING ALONG THE Peripatos walkway to the south slope of the Acropolis, we find cliffs similarly pocketed with caves and ledges, home to Neolithic inhabitants already in the fourth millennium.119 At the east end, an especially deep cave (this page) in which significant Neolithic material has been found sits above the later site of the Theater of Dionysos Eleutherios.120 At some point after the middle of the sixth century B.C., the natural hollow in the slope beneath this cave began to be used for seating viewers who watched dramatic performances down below, where a temple of Dionysos was built around 530. By the end of the fifth century this theater comprised a wood-built structure with theatron, orchestra, and scene building and seating for around five thousand to six thousand viewers.121 In the 330s, the statesman and orator Lykourgos greatly expanded this theater to accommodate an audience of around seventeen thousand, rebuilding it, along with a new temple of Dionysos, entirely of marble. Just to the east of the Theater of Dionysos stood the Odeion of Perikles, believed to be a great covered concert hall built by the leader in the 440s B.C. (this page).122
In 320/319 B.C., a man named Thrasyllos who served as choregos (a benefactor who financed theatrical productions) set up a monument high above the Theater of Dionysos—just in front of the Neolithic cave—to commemorate his contribution. Two tall Corinthian columns, reerected at the cave mouth, represent an enhancement of Thrasyllos’s dedication set up by his son years later.123 The enduring power of this cave as a divine place of memory is manifest by its use until recently as a shrine of Panagia Spiliotissa, “Our Lady of the Cave.” Painted icons and other offerings to the Virgin are hung all about its rustic interior. Tradition has it that with the coming of Christianity, the cave’s former resident (possibly Artemis) was replaced by the Virgin Mary. Ritual visitation continued at this site, especially by mothers bringing their sick children to the grotto in hope of a cure.124
At the center of the south slope, we find more caves and a broad rock terrace lying close to yet another major spring (marked “South Slope Spring” on this page). It is easy to understand why this location attracted inhabitants from early on (Middle Helladic material has been found within the caves) and how, in time, an Archaic springhouse came to be built here. The area later served as the setting for an important sanctuary to the healing gods Asklepios and Hygieia.125 Established
in 420/419 B.C., in the wake of the great plague at Athens, the Asklepieion was a place where pilgrims came to seek cures, pray at the temple, purify themselves in the spring waters, and spend the night in the adjoining stoa. Indeed, one wonders if Our Lady of the Cave takes some of her curative powers from a distant memory of the healing abilities of Asklepios and Hygieia, long settled here on this same south slope.
To the west of the Asklepieion, a tumulus of Middle Helladic date (1900–1600 B.C.) and wells of the Late Helladic period (1600–1050 B.C.) have been discovered, while farther to the south Neolithic remains have been unearthed. What appears to be an ancient foundry has been recovered here, along with evidence of refuse from bronze casting.126 And much farther down to the southwest, a fascinating sanctuary has been identified by a fifth-century stone inscription reading horos hiero numphes, “boundary of the sanctuary of Numphe (the Bride).” The large number of loutrophoroi (vases used by brides for their nuptial baths) found here suggests it was a place special to women at the time of approaching marriage.127
The south slope remains ever vibrant across the ages, with impressive additions made by the Pergamene king Eumenes II, who built a vast stoa here (this page) in the second century B.C., as well as by the Roman philhellene Herodes Atticus, who constructed a covered theater (odeion) here in the second century A.D., a performance space used to this day. But there is no greater testament to the sanctity of place than the abundance of chapels and churches that have been built on the Acropolis slopes over time. In addition to Panagia Spiliotissa we have the chapels of Saint George Alexandrinos and Saint Paraskevi (at the Theater of Dionysos) and Our Lady of the Holy Spring (at the Asklepieion). On the north slope are remains of the cave chapel of Saint Athanasios, the Church of the Transfiguration of the Savior, and the Church of Saint Nikolaos (recently restored).
AT THE VERY CORE of Athenian solidarity and civic devotion was the awareness of a shared past, and part of that awareness for some was special pride in being earthborn, or gegenes (from the Greek Ge or Gaia, meaning “Earth,” and genes, meaning “born”). Gegenes denotes a literal springing up from the earth itself. The sense is slightly different from another designation, autochthonos, from autos (“self”) and chthon (“earth”), which refers to the very first or oldest inhabitants of a region, a people that have always lived on the same land and that were not brought in from elsewhere.128 But even in antiquity many authors, including Plato, use the two words interchangeably.129 In the funeral oration of his Menexenus, Athenians are praised for coming out of the soil, and Athens is acclaimed for “growing human beings.”130
According to certain accounts, the first earthborn ruler of Attica was the primeval Ogyges, whose name may reflect a connection with that of Okeanos.131 He is said to have been the first lord of Boiotia (named for his father, Boiotos) and king of Thebes (named for his wife, Thebe).132 By other accounts, Ogyges is the first king of Athens and father of the Attic hero Eleusis. During his rule, the earth suffered its first worldwide flood, the Ogygian deluge named after him. Next came the autochthon Aktaios, who is sometimes identified as the first king of Attica. Indeed, it has been suggested that there may be a connection between the names Aktaios and Attica with an alternation that allows for a further connection with the similarly non-Greek “Ath-” form, seen in Athena and Athens.133 Aktaios’s daughter, the nymph Agraulos or Aglauros I (mother to Aglauros II, she of the sanctuary near the Acropolis east cave), married the second gegenes, King Kekrops.134 In the visual arts, gegenic rulers are traditionally shown with snaky legs, signaling, among other things, their close connection to the earth, and Kekrops is no exception (this page).135 By most traditions Kekrops and Aglauros I had three daughters, Herse, Aglauros II, and Pandrosos, as well as a son, Erysichthon. By another tradition they had a son called Kranaos, said to be an autochthon, who succeeded as king. Fascinatingly, Kranaos is described as a Pelasgian. Following the reign of Kranaos there was yet another flood, the deluge of King Deukalion of Attica. And finally, we come to the gegenic Erechtheus, or Erichthonios, who ruled Attica during the days when kings were human.136 Homer is the first to speak of him as earthborn and specifically as springing from the cultivated lands of Attica: “Great-hearted Erechtheus whom once Athena tended after the grain-giving fields had born him.”137 It was an appropriately auspicious start.
Erechtheus’s birth myth is singular in every respect. According to Apollodoros, conception occurred when the god Hephaistos caught sight of the maiden Athena.138 He chased her, even as the virgin goddess resisted his advances. Much excited, Hephaistos “spilled his seed” upon her leg. Disgusted, Athena wiped the semen from her thigh with a piece of wool and threw it upon the ground. There, the seed of Hephaistos impregnated Mother Earth. From this improbable union, the hero known as Erechtheus was conceived. All Athenians were the progeny of this king, and while not sprung directly from the soil, they understood themselves to be descended from Mother Earth herself.139 No birth story could give the Athenians a stronger claim upon the land.
THE EARLIEST GENEALOGIES of the Athenian people are richly inhabited by both earth and water divinities. But the origins of the goddess who would become the city’s patron are in water. By most accounts, Athena is said to have been raised on the banks of Lake Tritonis or the river Triton, in Libya. Aeschylus refers to the river Triton as Athena’s “natal stream” (genethlios poros).140 Versions of her birth myth are conflicting and many. By some accounts, she is the daughter (or foster daughter) of the sea god Triton, son of Poseidon. By most, she is the daughter of Zeus. Hesiod tells us that Zeus gave birth to Athena on the banks of the river Triton. Apollodoros adds that Zeus then placed her under the care of Triton, who reared her alongside his own daughter, Pallas. Pausanias contradicts this version, identifying Athena as the daughter of Poseidon and a nymph named Tritonis.141 Thus, Athena’s epithet Tritogeneia, which could mean “Triton-Born,” might point to her foster father, Triton, or to the lake/river beside which she was born, or to her nymph mother, who mated with Poseidon. Alternatively, the epithet could refer to the third day of the month on which Athena is said to have been born or even to “third born,” which might have some connection to the recurring triad of daughters born to Athenian kings. Herodotos tells us that somewhere near Lake Tritonis Athena was drawn into a fight with her sibling Pallas. Athena killed her sister and claimed the name, thereby becoming Pallas Athena.142 By other accounts, Pallas is a patronymic. Whatever the case, references to Lake Tritonis, the river Triton, and the epithet Tritogeneia persist across time and may point to the goddess’s Libyan origins, long before she came to Athens.
The most widely known account of Athena’s birth story has her spring from the head of Zeus as a fully formed warrior-goddess. Zeus had heard a prophecy that he would be overthrown by his second child, and so, when the nymph Metis, daughter of Okeanos and Tethys, conceived a baby, Zeus had to prevent her from giving birth. And so, naturally, he swallowed her whole.143 In time, Zeus suffered a terrible headache, and Hephaistos, god of craft, came to the rescue. Taking up his ax, Hephaistos struck Zeus’s throbbing skull in an effort to bring relief. Out popped Athena in full armor, brandishing her spear. Born from a father rather than from a mother, Athena nonetheless inherited traits from her maternal side. Metis, whose very name means “Cunning” or “Wise Counsel,” endowed her daughter with such astuteness that she was ever known as the goddess of wisdom. The birth story of Athena is so crucial in the Athenian awareness that it will take center stage on the east pediment of the Parthenon. Celebrating the very moment she sprang into being only befits the “mother” of all Athenians.144
Despite watery origins, Athena comes to be more strongly identified with the earth, with the serpents that live in it and the olive trees that grow from it. Above all, she becomes a fierce advocate for the land of Attica. She is a shrewd architect of military strategies designed to protect it and a warrior goddess prepared to defend it with all her might.145 It is Athena’s wisdom, cunning, and craft, as well
as her increasingly intimate ties to the land and therefore the people, that finally enable her to win Attica for her own.
Writing in the age of the Parthenon’s creation, Herodotos tells the story of Athena’s victory in the contest for the patronage of Athens, a foundation myth retold in greater detail by Apollodoros four hundred years later.146 Zeus had announced that the Athenians’ primary devotions would go to whichever divinity could first provide a witnessed gift to the city. Toward that end, Poseidon, going first, struck his trident into the Acropolis to unleash a gift of a sea spring.147 For her part, Athena planted an olive tree, an offering that promised the precious commodities of oil and wood but that required care and patience in its cultivation. The choice was one between the wild, untamed sea and olives that demand human attention and vigilance, the development of agriculture, and, indeed, civilization itself. Kekrops testified that he had witnessed Athena plant the olive tree first, and so the twelve gods whom Zeus appointed as arbiters judged Athena the winner. Infuriated at the outcome, Poseidon let loose a torrent, submerging Attica beneath the rising flood.
Poseidon’s retributive flooding of the Thriasion Plain, the great flatland between Athens and Eleusis, is not simply yet another inundation. We must view it alongside the age-old flood myths of the Sumerian, Akkadian, and Hebrew traditions.148 Just as these floods serve to mark an ultimate “before and after,” a transformed relationship between god and man, a point from which the present age can claim descent, so too the flooding of the Thriasion Plain, signaling the end of the first Bronze Age, marks the dawn of Athenian awareness. And more: Poseidon’s power to summon torrential waters, earth-splitting tremors, and era-ending cataclysms suggests an age of virtual chaos. Athena, in contrast, represents the approach of a “thinking divinity”: civilized, orderly, intelligent, nourishing, cultivated, and urbane—everything the Athenians, somewhat despite themselves, will aspire to be.
The Parthenon Enigma Page 6
