The Parthenon Enigma

by Joan Breton Connelly

  Hoplite warfare only magnified the horrors. It required great phalanxes of foot soldiers, wielding spears and carrying heavy shields, charging headlong at one another, and the result was piles and piles of corpses, some half a dozen deep. The goriest description is the one Xenophon gives of the battle at Koroneia in 394 B.C.: “the earth stained with blood, friend and foe lying dead side by side, shields smashed to pieces, spears broken asunder, daggers drawn from their sheaths, some on the ground, some in bodies, others still gripped by hand.”14 Herodotos puts in the mouth of the Persian commander Mardonios blood-chilling words about the Greek way of war: “When they have declared war on each other, they fight on the best and most level ground they can find, so that the winners go away with great losses; I will not say anything about the losers, for they are utterly destroyed.”15

  The grisly job of collecting, sorting, and identifying the dead is one that does not easily fade from memory.16 This physically and emotionally draining task befell the army too, the separating of enemy corpses from those of comrades, friends, and relatives, many beyond recognition. We hear that the Spartans, anticipating great carnage, scratched their names on little bits of wood (skytalis), wrapping them around their left wrists as they left for battle against the Messenians.17 The need for these proto–dog tags speaks to how disfiguring hoplite warfare was.

  At the end of each combat season, Athenians set up inscribed casualty lists giving the name, patronymic, and tribe of each of the war dead. Pausanias tells us that these lists included not just citizens but also allies, slaves, and foreign mercenaries who fought for Athens.18 Cremated remains of the dead were publicly displayed for three days before burial in the public cemetery (demosion sema), said by Thucydides to be located in “the most beautiful suburb of the city.”19 Excavations show that it started about 200 meters (656 feet) outside the Dipylon Gate and lined the broad avenue running from the Kerameikos to the Academy (this page).20 Along this route casualty lists, mass burials, and tomb monuments have been unearthed; indeed, in 1979 the family plot of Lykourgos himself was discovered near the Academy’s entrance, confirming what we know from literary sources, that the patriot received the highest honor of public burial.21 And it was here in the demosion sema that Lykourgos’s idol Perikles would have stood as he delivered his famous eulogy for the first to die in the Peloponnesian War. Such rituals of remembrance—funeral orations, grave monuments, epitaphs, casualty lists, and burial rites—all reflect an intense desire to demonstrate that the dead would never be forgotten. Importantly, these public commemorations reassured surviving warriors that should the worst come to pass, their corpses too would be retrieved, their ashes buried, their memory kept alive, and their families made proud.22

  The Athenian battlefield was perhaps the most truly democratic space in the democratic society, as men of all ages, equals in representing their tribes, came together in quick, decisive, and bloody resolution of disputes. The brief and brutal anguish of infantry combat has been said to have defined a man’s entire relationship with his family, community, and country.23 So, too, the extreme experience of rowing the great triremes of the Athenian navy (some 170 oarsmen to a ship) brought rich and poor Athenians together on an utterly equal footing, in cramped and miserable galleys where they were acculturated firsthand to democratic values in their rawest state.24 Sharing long weeks of boredom and anticipation, interrupted by bursts of sheer terror in swift and gory battle, the men of Athens bonded fast with one another in their respective tribal brotherhoods. Fear and loss were as galvanizing as shared lineage. Thucydides speaks of this effect at Athens following the catastrophic defeat of the Sicilian expedition in 413 B.C.: “They were overwhelmed by their calamity, and were in fear and consternation unutterable. The citizens and the city were alike distressed; they had lost a host of cavalry and hoplites and the flower of their youth, and there were none to replace them … Still they determined, so far as their situation allowed, not to give way. They would procure timber and money by whatever means they might, and build a navy. As befits a democracy, they were very amenable to discipline while their fright lasted.”25

  When defeated, the Athenians picked themselves up and remembered. In victory, they remembered too. The precious panoplies of armor and weapons were stripped from the fallen enemy and collected in Greek sanctuaries, giving tangible proof of triumph. The dedication of war booty served several purposes, chiefly that of giving thanks as well as pleasure to the gods who made victory possible. But it also inspired and indoctrinated future generations of warriors who visited the shrines, educating the young and reminding the broader citizenry of a shared military history.

  In this chapter, we shall look at how the imperative of memorializing the heroic dead shaped sacred space, furnishing another mystic cord of memory whereby the Athenians were bound to their remote past. As with genealogy, this bond connected the present-day populace not only to one another but also to their legendary forebears and to divinities. It also amplified the emotional and psychic charge of such places, beyond even the effect of their sanctification to particular gods, creating a unique nexus of death, memory, and holiness, of which the Parthenon is the most sublime example.

  Map of Greece. (illustration credit ill.84)

  The pattern is attested throughout Greece. Mythic heroes from the Bronze Age whose “tombs” were still visible in historical times and heroes from the present who died defending their communities: both groups were commemorated within the great sanctuaries. War, death, and remembrance overhung each city, informing the placement of local shrines and the development of local rituals. We will consider as particular examples the great Panhellenic sanctuaries of Olympia, Delphi, Isthmia, and Nemea (facing page), where the tombs of mythical heroes are located close to the temples of Olympian gods. Ultimately, of course, our purpose is to understand how the meaning of the Acropolis’s most sacred spaces developed from the perceived presence of the tombs of Erechtheus and his daughters within temples of Athena: the Erechtheion and the Parthenon. In this way we can understand how the Parthenon inevitably also became the Athenians’ (and, eventually, all Greeks’) supreme place of memory.

  STUDENTS OF ANCIENT GREECE have long been taught to study space hallowed to gods (and votive offerings left there) as distinct from funerary space (and grave goods), but the two are more interconnected than such thinking allows. Not so surprisingly perhaps: triumph in battle required a combination of human and divine will; the favor and intervention of the gods were absolutely essential but so too was the shedding of human blood. Gods and goddesses must do their part, handing out good fortune and distributing defeat; heroes must give their lives, in return for which their remains are, fittingly, sanctified. Tombs and temples are thus intricately linked, much like the asking and thanking that characterized Greek piety as a whole. It is no wonder, then, that trophies of war took pride of place within the great sacred precincts. They are the perfect totems of the city’s rightness with the gods.

  The great Panhellenic sanctuaries, those that drew Greeks from everywhere across state borders, were dynamic arenas for the display and commemoration of military victories. Indeed, the development and growth of these sanctuaries were in large part financed by the spoils of war, linking death and worship together from their earliest foundations. At the end of the eighth and the beginning of the seventh centuries, there is a surge in the dedication of arms and armor at sanctuaries and, at the same time, a decline in martial grave goods deposited in private burials.26 This has been seen to reflect a shift in emphasis, from honoring an individual’s role as a warrior (marked privately by his family) to commemorating the soldier as national hero, recognized publicly in rituals financed by the state. This institutionalization of commemoration rites in public sanctuaries has been seen to play an important role in state formation itself.27

  By the early fifth century there were four principal Panhellenic shrines on the official festival circuit of the Greek mainland, known as the periodos. Olympia and Delphi were t
he most prestigious, with festivals held in the first and third years of the sequence. Celebrations at Isthmia and Nemea, both held every second and fourth year of the cycle, were carefully timed so as not to interfere with the more senior festivals.28 Pilgrims came from all over the Greek world to participate in these feasts; city-states sent their finest athletes to represent them in the associated games. These states contributed to and invested in the Panhellenic shrines, constructing lavish treasury buildings, dedicating expensive offerings, setting up statues of renowned members of their communities, erecting victory monuments, and, very important, offering tithes from the spoils of war, arms and armor from fallen enemies. The local administrations overseeing these Panhellenic sanctuaries not only consented to the setting up of offerings by independent states but absolutely welcomed them as critical investments in their financial, cultural, and religious well-being.

  Anthony Snodgrass has shown how sacred pilgrimage to the periodos sites made for a world of competitive emulation and cultural exchange in sanctuary centers where information and ideas could be shared by travelers from across the Greek world. In early days, this was very much the rarefied milieu of prominent aristocratic families competing with one another; over time, it evolved into a conspicuous showcase for interstate rivalries, even enmities.29 This is brilliantly communicated in the dedication of vast amounts of armor and weapons that gave these sanctuaries their overwhelmingly martial character. It has been estimated that more than a hundred thousand helmets had been dedicated at Olympia by the seventh and sixth centuries B.C.30 The sanctuary of Poseidon at Isthmia was not far behind, with quantities of arms and armor offered throughout the eighth and seventh centuries, soldiers’ booty awarded after successful campaigns. More than two hundred fragmentary helmets and countless shields have been excavated from within Poseidon’s precinct, where dedications from wars peaked during the mid-sixth and early fifth centuries.31 The road leading out from the sanctuary to Corinth was lined with helmets, shields, and cuirasses conspicuously set up as a display of Corinthian superiority.32

  Delphi was a most prestigious setting for the dedication of war booty. It housed the world’s most famous oracle and, as the so-called navel of the earth, was visited by throngs of pilgrims from across the ancient world who came to consult the Pythia about their future. Visibility was supreme at Delphi, and if a state wanted to show off, this was the place to do it. In the mid-sixth century, the rich king Kroisos of Lydia dedicated a gold shield at the temple of Athena Pronaia just down the road from the Apollo sanctuary.33 Herodotos tells that some two thousand shields were sent to Delphi following the Phokians’ defeat of the Thessalian cavalry in a conflict a few years before the Battle of Thermopylai.34 In 339 B.C., the Athenians sent golden shields to be hung on the new temple of Apollo (the old one having burned down in 373). These were inscribed: “The Athenians from the Medes [Persians] and Thebans when they fought against the Greeks.”35 This, of course, was terribly insulting to the Thebans, who had collaborated with the Persians some 140 years earlier. The Athenians made absolutely sure that no one would forget this, broadcasting it here in perpetuity, at the very “navel of the earth.” In 279 B.C., following their victory over the Gauls at Thermopylai, the Athenians and Aetolians once again hung gold shields upon the architrave of Apollo’s temple.36

  In fact, no city-state dedicated more monuments at Delphi than Athens did, heaping the sanctuary with lavish offerings to keep Athenian supremacy ever on full display.37 The Athenians built a treasury entirely of Parian marble, decorated with sculptured metopes showing the exploits of their great heroes Herakles and Theseus. Pausanias says the building was financed from the spoils of their victory at Marathon in 490 B.C.38 We have already noted in chapter 3 that a victory monument celebrating Miltiades’s success at Marathon was set up by the Athenians at Delphi. Kimon’s father, the hero of the battle, was shown in a bronze portrait statue, flanked by Athena, Apollo, and the legendary kings and heroes of Athens, images created by no less a master than Pheidias himself. The Athenians also built a marble stoa at Delphi, commemorating their victory over the Persians at the Battle of Mykale in 479. Here they displayed the actual cables used by Xerxes to bind his famous pontoon bridge across the Hellespont, a triumph of engineering that enabled the Persian army to stream into Greece from Asia. As tangible “objects of memory,” the captured cords bore witness to the courage with which Athenians reversed their losses of a decade earlier to defeat the Persian foe.

  Panhellenic sanctuaries thus served as international stages on which the Greek city-states broadcast their commitment to winning, putting their resolve on display through the dedication of victory monuments and the establishment of rituals honoring those who served.39 Let us consider how this system worked.40 Olympia served as the regional cult place for all of Elis (a district in the northwest Peloponnese), as well as a center for interstate activity. As administrators of the sanctuary, the people of Elis financed the building of the temple of Zeus with spoils from their victory over Pisa in 470 B.C. But when the Spartans wished to hang a golden shield on the front gable of the temple (prime real estate for showing off their victory over the Athenians at Tanagra in 458/457), the Elian administration was happy to consent. And so the Spartans installed a great gold shield with a Gorgon’s head (a symbol of Athena and thereby Athens) along with a hurtful inscription: “From the Argives, Athenians, and Ionians.”41 This was particularly stinging to their Athenian adversaries, who would ever after suffer in seeing their humiliating defeat memorialized at Zeus’s Panhellenic shrine.

  Years later, the Messenians and Naupaktians set up their own victory monument somewhat deflating this Spartan trophy. Supported on a tall column to reach the height of the golden shield fixed on the gable, the beautiful marble statue of Nike (this page) was offered by the people of Messene and Naupaktos following the Athenian victory over the Spartans at Sphakteria in 425. Thus, we see a monumental tit-for-tat. The master sculpture Paionios’s winged Nike flew right in the face of the Spartan victory dedication from thirty years earlier. Gold and marble may endure, but triumphant advantage is fleeting.

  As early as the Archaic period, we find a tradition for setting winged sphinxes atop tall columns within Greek sanctuaries. The Naxians erected such a sphinx column just beneath the temple of Apollo at Delphi around 570–560 B.C. (this page). Fragments of similar sphinx columns have been found in the sanctuaries of Apollo on Delos, Apollo at Cyrene, and Aphaia on Aegina, as well as on the Athenian Acropolis (where the column probably stood just north of the Old Athena Temple, insert this page, bottom).42 These dedications served as apotropaic devices, the airborne creatures intended to ward off evil forces that might threaten the temple’s beauty. The flying Victory of Paionios can be seen as a fourth-century iteration of this long tradition of winged creatures set high in the air above sanctuaries, propelled into flight, as it were. With Panhellenic precincts functioning as great arenas for competitive displays of booty and power, the need for protective charms, as well as boastful emblems of victory, was great.

  The Spartan surrender at Sphakteria was a huge triumph for the Athenians and their allies. It is no wonder the Athenian general Kleon brought 120 shields from the battlefield to Athens for public display.43 Some were hung in the Painted Stoa within the Agora; one among these, unearthed during excavations in 1936, bears an inscription confirming its provenance: “over the Spartans at Pylos.”44 Ninety-nine other shields, also from this victory, were apparently carried up the Acropolis for display on the high podium that supports the Athena Nike temple (this page).45

  As worshippers approached the Acropolis, the first thing they would see was the small, elegant shrine of Athena Nike, perched atop the old Mycenaean defensive bastion, a constant reminder of its glorious past as an unbreached citadel. Construction began on the Nike temple in the mid-420s B.C. and was completed around 410.46 It replaced an earlier cult building from the first decade of the century, a structure that replaced an even earlier, Archaic shrine. T
he graceful Ionic temple of the late fifth century, the last of the Periklean vision for the Acropolis, served as an important harbinger of what was to come once the visitors passed through the Propylaia and into the sacred space. Indeed, this beacon of Victory heralded the astonishing excess of military booty, trophies, and treasures that would dazzle worshippers once inside, culminating in a treasure trove of dedications within the Parthenon itself. All around the podium of the Nike temple, pairs of cuttings can be seen in the marble for the attachment of hooks of some kind, no doubt to affix shields upon the marble wall.47 A strong case has been made that the shields once held here were those taken by Kleon at Sphakteria. Just a year following this battle, in Aristophanes’s play the Knights, the “Sausage-Seller” comments that Kleon hung his shields in an unusual manner, that is, with their handles still attached.48 Trophy shields usually had their handles removed before they were hung for display and Kleon apparently chose not to do this. The strange double cuttings on the podium have been interpreted as dowel holes necessary to hang the shields with their handles intact, perhaps so they could be taken down and used.49

  Statue of Nike carved by Paionios and dedicated by the Messenians and Naupaktians at the sanctuary of Zeus, Olympia, following their victory over the Spartans in 425 B.C. (illustration credit ill.85)

  The Nike temple bastion is sheathed in Pentelic marble blocks that wrap around the Mycenaean fortifications that still stand beneath it. Indeed, the Athena Nike precinct is built on the very spot where the Mycenaean defensive bastion stood, at some distance out from the gateway in a highly strategic spot (this page). This construction was vital to the security of the Acropolis, giving a direct line of fire down onto the right-hand side of an advancing enemy. This was the vulnerable side, since most fighters held their sword in their right hand and their shield in their left. The ability to get off a good shot from high on the upper right was crucial to protecting ancient fortresses generally: similar Mycenaean defenses are found near the gateways of Mycenae, Tiryns, and Thebes.50