The Parthenon Enigma

by Joan Breton Connelly

  We will remember that Erichthonios is said to have appeared at the first Panathenaia as a charioteer with an armed companion at his side.161 And we have already seen an image of a charioteer carved on the marble frieze of the Old Athena Temple at the end of the sixth century (this page). This figure may well represent the hero Erechtheus/Erichthonios. We learn from Nonnos, writing in the fifth century A.D., that Erechtheus was intimately associated with the yoking of horses to chariots and that he brought his stallion Xanthos (“Light Bay” or “Auburn”) under the harness, teaming him together with the mare Podarkes (“Swift-Footed”).162 Both horses were sired by Boreas, the North Wind, and born to the Sithonian Harpy, Aellopos (“Storm-Footed”), after he raped her. Boreas gives the horses to his father-in-law, Erechtheus, as a “love price” in payment for Oreithyia, Erechtheus’s daughter whom Boreas abducts from the banks of the Ilissos River. Thus, the chariot groups seen on the Parthenon frieze are closely associated with Erechtheus and evoke the strategic advantage they provided the Athenians in their war against Eumolpos.

  We find ten four-horse chariots on the south frieze and eleven on the north. Each has a driver and armed rider with helmet and shield (this page–this page, this page, this page, this page, top, and front and back of book) looking very much like the apobatai, the armed chariot riders who competed in a special class of Panathenaic event. This contest required the soldiers to mount and dismount a chariot moving at full speed.163 The oldest and most distinctive event of the Panathenaia, the apobates race was open only to members of the Athenian tribes. Plutarch suggests this was an especially demanding event in the Panathenaic Games, duplicating the harsh conditions of combat, which required robust athleticism while carrying a full load of armor and weapons.164 Those performing this remarkable feat on the Parthenon frieze are not Athenians taking part in the historical games but their legendary forebears who actually made war this way.

  Inscriptions from the second century B.C. locate the apobates race in the vicinity of the City Eleusinion, the temple to Demeter and Kore perched on the southwest slope of the Acropolis (just above the Agora).165 Sometime in the fourth century B.C., a victor in the apobates race set up a monument here in the City Eleusinion to celebrate his triumph (this page, bottom).166 It features a sculptured relief showing the athlete driving a four-horse chariot, its composition and iconography matching that of the charioteers on the Parthenon frieze.

  South frieze, Parthenon, showing cattle led to sacrifice (lower right), followed by musicians, elders, chariots, and horsemen. (illustration credit ill.75)

  There is good reason to believe that the apobates race commemorated the first Athenian victory, the one enabled by Erechtheus’s introduction of the chariot. This would explain why the event was open only to the scions of old citizen families, the perceived descendants of the earliest Athenians. It would also explain why the race seems to have been run to the City Eleusinion as its final destination.167 Conducting the apobatai toward the Eleusinion connects it with the defeated Eumolpos, who came to be so closely associated with Eleusinian cult. And there is, as well, the matter of what would otherwise be a strange detour taken by the Panathenaic procession on its way up the Acropolis; beginning at the Dipylon Gate at the northwest of the city, the sacred train went deliberately out of its way to circle the Eleusinion (insert this page, top).168 To do so would make sense if the sanctuary was believed to occupy the site of Eumolpos’s encampment at the foot of the Acropolis, and thus an important place of memory around which the Athenians could take a victory lap.169

  Horses and riders dominate the composition in terms of sheer numbers of figures, occupying all of the west and more than a third of the north and south sides of the frieze (this page, this page–this page, facing page, above, this page and this page, and front and back of book). Interpreters have undertaken the counting of horsemen, looking for all manner of encoded historical and political meanings. John Boardman, for instance, has counted 192 horsemen in all and sees in this the number of the fallen at Marathon.170 Several scholars distinguish four groups of fifteen horse riders on the north frieze and see in this a reference to the four pre-Kleisthenic tribes of Athens.171 They then count ten ranks of six riders on the south frieze, as a reference to the ten tribes created by Kleisthenes in 508.172 These various ranks of riders are differentiated through their costumes and equipment. Some wear Thracian caps, others double-belted woolen chitons, and others still the himation, or cloak. We see some riders in metal or leather body armor, some with helmets, others with flat broad-brimmed traveler’s hats, and still others wearing hats of so-called Thracian style, with three flaps. In fact, to see in the imagery a fifth-century Athenian army taking part in the Panathenaic procession may inevitably oblige one to ascribe to these mounted figures multiple levels of meaning at once.173

  Charioteer and armed rider, south frieze, slab 31, Parthenon. (illustration credit ill.76)

  Victory monument, apobates race, found near the City Eleusinion, Athenian Agora. (illustration credit ill.77)

  Horse rider, north frieze, slab 41. Parthenon. (illustration credit ill.78)

  According to Aristotle, however, it was only in days of old that the cavalry dominated the army.174 In addition, there is no evidence for the participation of the cavalry in the Panathenaic procession. Throughout the historical period, mastery of horses was viewed as noble, harking back to the glorious past, but by the time of Perikles it was a decidedly antiquarian pursuit, much as polo is today. Indeed, Xenophon points to the heroic associations of the equestrian tradition, one that maintained its aristocratic cachet across the centuries.175 It is far more plausible, then, to see the horse riders on the Parthenon frieze as members of the heroic cavalry of Erechtheus, noble forebears of the venerable tradition of the Athenian knights, rather than as some anachronistic presence in a fifth-century spectacle.176

  The west frieze is generally viewed as representing preparations for the Panathenaic procession (below). Frisking horses are held, mounted, and put through their paces by younger and older men. Iconographic parallels have been drawn between these figures and those shown on a series of Athenian red-figured cups.177 The vases show young horsemen in a variety of costumes, including the wide-brimmed traveler’s hats, “coonskin” caps, and Thracian hats with flaps, the very same variety evident on the Parthenon frieze. The event depicted on the Attic cups has been identified as the dokimasia, an annual tryout of men and horses held by the Athenian cavalry, as described by Aristotle.178

  A central element of the dokimasia was the testing of Athenian youths in their eighteenth year for acceptance into the military as ephebes. This is the age at which young men would enter their names upon deme registers as members of their tribes.179 They swore their Ephebic Oath upon the arms they’d just received in the sanctuary of Aglauros on the east slope of the Acropolis (insert this page, bottom).180 This oath, as discussed in chapter 3, was regarded as a relic of the heroic age, a rite of passage reaching back to the earliest days of Athens. In the images of the young riders on the Parthenon frieze, Athenians would likely have recognized the origins of their contemporary ephebate.181 Indeed, the lofty status of the Athenian knights finds its roots in the cavalry of King Erechtheus, the young noblemen who won the city’s first decisive victory in the battle against Eumolpos. We must remember that in the early sixth century, when Solon reconfigured the citizenry in a first blueprint for what would become Athenian democracy, the hippeis class, made up of those who had enough money to maintain a horse and thus join the cavalry, ranked second only to the wealthiest of Athenian landowners.

  West frieze, Parthenon, showing horse riders and preparation for the procession. (illustration credit ill.79)

  THIS NEW MYTHOLOGICAL READING of the Parthenon’s sculptural program allows it to be understood as a coherent whole and as comprehending the vast sweep of time embedded in Athenian consciousness. The east pediment celebrates the origins of Athena, while the east metopes show the boundary event in which she first
distinguished herself so valiantly: the Gigantomachy. The west pediment celebrates the origins of Athens in the contest of Athena and Poseidon, manifesting for all to see the genealogies of the royal houses of Athens and Eleusis. It emphasizes the descent of the Athenian tribes from Athena through Kekrops and Erechtheus and that of the Eleusinian clans from Poseidon through Eumolpos and Keleos. The “boundary catastrophe” of the deluge is intimated by Poseidon’s striking the earth with his trident, furious at his defeat. The west metopes, in turn, show the later, heroic age in which Theseus battles the Amazons, while the south metopes memorialize his decisive role in the Centauromachy. The north metopes manifest that greatest boundary event of all, the Trojan War, which brought a decisive end to the Bronze Age, the final moment dividing mythical from historical time. The articulation and perpetuation of genealogical narrative can thus be seen as a primary function of sacred architectural sculpture in general and of the Parthenon in particular.182

  Our mythological understanding of the frieze fits comfortably into this genealogical program, with the great carved band narrating the last Athenian hurrah of the heroic age: the war between Erechtheus and Eumolpos. By portraying the struggles of successive generations against the forces of chaos and barbarism, the Parthenon’s sculptural program repeats a pattern already witnessed on the Archaic Acropolis and discussed in chapter 2. The limestone pediments of the Hekatompedon and the small poros buildings (oikemata) present, respectively, Zeus killing Typhon and Zeus’s son, Herakles, killing Typhon’s daughter, the Lernaean Hydra. In the very same way, the conflict between Athena and Poseidon on the Parthenon’s west pediment is carried on by their children, Erechtheus and Eumolpos, as depicted on the Parthenon frieze. And so have the Athenians, generation by generation, ensured a future for their city. As it was, so shall it ever be: the Parthenon’s full sculptural program is also, of course, a not-so-subtle metaphor for the Athenian triumph over the Persians in 479 B.C.183

  It is the duty of all Athenians to save the city from exotic, barbaric outsiders, to preserve an Athens by and for the autochthonous Athenians: this is the central message of this supernal temple, where metaphysical understanding and civic solidarity are wedded for all to see. That the frieze shows the royal family itself personally paying the ultimate price to save Athens is of the highest significance, and not merely for offering a heroic contrast to the ways of the Persian royals, who survived the great defeat at Salamis. That the very founding family of Athens, from whom all are descended, could not put itself above the common good speaks to a radical egalitarianism, not in circumstances, but in responsibility, the very antithesis of the barbarian sentiment that society exists for the exaltation of its most exalted members. All may not be equal in Athens, but all are equal in relation to this sacred trust, which comes of being bound to the same earth and to one another by birth. And this trust in one another is what permitted the delicate plant of democracy to take root.

  ANGELOS CHANIOTIS, professor of ancient history and classics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, has observed that “from Plato to Aelius Aristides, the praise of Athens was always based on a standard constellation of Athenian victories over the barbarians: the victory of Theseus over the Amazons, of Erechtheus over Eumolpos, and the Persian Wars.” He asks, “Can the victory over Eumolpos, so prominent in Athenian collective memory, be the only one absent from the iconography of the Parthenon?”184 Indeed, the Athenian victory over Eumolpos is not only present on the Parthenon; it is spectacularly celebrated in the largest, most lavish, and most aesthetically compelling length of sculpture ever carved by human hands.

  Poseidon and Eumolpos ride into battle. Lucanian pelike from Herakleia, near Policoro, Italy. (illustration credit ill.80)

  When Pausanias visited the Acropolis, he saw a big bronze statue group of Erechtheus fighting Eumolpos set up right in front of the Parthenon. He tells us that this was the most important work ever created by the master sculptor Myron of Eleutherai, that acclaimed portrayer of the so-called Myronic moment of tension before the high action, as exemplified in his statue of the Diskobolos.185 Since Myron was active in the middle of the fifth century, we can imagine his bronze Erechtheus in battle set just below the sculptured frieze on which his great victory was glorified.

  By the fourth century B.C., the war of Erechtheus and Eumolpos was so well known that it was painted on a vase produced in the Western Greek colony of Lucania in southern Italy. Vibrant images on this wine jar from Herakleia, near Policoro, portray the antagonists charging into battle.186 On one side of the vase we see Poseidon, riding with trident held high and accompanied by an armed warrior who is, surely, his son Eumolpos (above). The father-son duo charge into battle astride horses, creatures with which Poseidon always had a very special connection, having been known since the Iliad as the “tamer” of horses and, thanks to his creative coupling with mares, even as the “father” of some equines. In time, Poseidon acquires the epithet Poseidon Hippios.187

  On the other side of the vase we see Athena, spear in one hand and shield in the other, as she is driven into battle on a chariot (below). Just as the horse is special to Poseidon, so the chariot is special to Athena as the vehicle introduced to Athens by her own “son,” Erechtheus/Erichthonios. The charioteer, however—and most astonishingly—is a maiden. The girl leans forward, holding her reins high and brandishing a whip, as she urges the yoked horses toward the battlefield. This maiden is likely to be none other than Erechtheus’s brave daughter, shown here as Athena’s comrade in the war against Eumolpos. Portraying Athena as a kind of apobates rider to the girl’s charioteer, the artist makes explicit the goddess’s intimate connection to the maiden called Parthenos, the girl who gave her life to save Athens.

  The fact that the battle of Erechtheus and Eumolpos is not attested in surviving literature prior to Euripides’s Erechtheus has led some scholars to question whether it can be represented on the Parthenon frieze. Since Euripides wrote “a decade after the frieze was finished,” one skeptic argues, “the play cannot be the source of the sculpture.”188 Of course it can’t, and no one has claimed that it is. As we have seen, the popularity of a particular myth, like that of its variants, can ebb and flow over time. It is even possible that the arrow of inspiration was shot the other way, with Euripides getting his idea from what he saw on the Parthenon frieze. What if those wordlessly eloquent images moved him to bring to the stage the very story most prominently narrated on his city’s newest and most wondrous temple? And what if the Erechtheus myth, reenergized in the wake of the Persian Wars, was expanded to include a major victory over an exotic enemy, evoking that most recent, and greatest, of all Athenian triumphs? One can understand how the story of Erechtheus, elevated to a new prominence within Athenian consciousness, reached a peak in popularity at this time, celebrated in architectural sculpture, ritual practice, and, yes, drama. As Perikles and the Athenians renewed their Acropolis, they embraced a reinvigorated hero, a fresh face for a fresh start.

  Athena and daughter of Erechtheus ride into battle. Lucanian pelike from Herakleia, near Policoro, Italy. (illustration credit ill.81)

  A false assumption that text precedes image has long bedeviled our understanding of visual culture. It is motivated, in part, by the mostly documentary and illustrative role that images play in our contemporary world, capturing moments in time as supplement to the main work of literary accounts. The field of classical archaeology has been particularly beset by this bias, going back to the days of Heinrich Schliemann and earlier, when written texts were the primary guides and the archaeologist’s job was to search for material evidence to support what the texts say, just as Schliemann used the Iliad to discover the Troy and Mycenae of Homer. In a field shaped for centuries by philological inquiry, visual culture has invariably suffered, its distinctive grammar and stories neglected.

  In fact, a “language of images” and a “language of texts” exist quite independent of each other.189 Sometimes they overlap, but more often they t
ake parallel tracks that never intersect. Art can inspire words just as words can inspire art. And a myth or story that is “in the air” at a particular moment can find expression equally in either. In the course of history, myths can be retold and codified through visual as well as through textual and oral expression, not to mention through ritual itself. Just like the chorus of serving maids in Euripides’s Ion, who view the sculptures decorating the temple of Apollo at Delphi, the poet might have walked around the Parthenon and been inspired by the stories that its sculptured figures tell.190 We have no difficulty accepting that the Parthenon sculptures inspired Keats’s poem “On Seeing the Elgin Marbles for the First Time.” Or that, two years later, in 1819, in “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” the poet would transmute his experience of the Parthenon frieze into that of viewing a more compact artifact, a fictional Greek vase:

  What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?

  …

  What pipes and timbrels?…