The Parthenon Enigma

by Joan Breton Connelly

  95. Philochoros, FGrH 328 F 12; Kearns, Heroes of Attica, 57–63; Kearns, “Saving the City”; U. Kron, “Patriotic Heroes,” in Hägg, Ancient Greek Hero Cult, 78–79; Larson, Greek Heroine Cults, 20. As heroines, see Oxford Classical Dictionary (1996), s.v. “Hyacinthides or Parthenoi”; as goddess, see Der Neue Pauly (1998), s.v. “Hyakinthides.”

  96. Euripides, Erechtheus F 370.71–74 Kannicht. The Hyakinthides are the same as the Hyades, line 107, scholiast on Aratus, Phaenomena 172.

  5 THE PARTHENON FRIEZE

  1. B. Randolph, Present State of the Morea, 3rd ed. (London: EEBO, 1789), 14. Vernon gives a matter-of-fact account of Eastcourt’s death in his diary entry for September 23, 1675: “Afternoone 2 Cl. Sr Giles in sound fetcht againe with cold water sleep 2 houres wake take Jelly dye 4 Cl. buried by 9 Cl.” In a postscript to a letter written from Athens, addressed to a “Reverend gentleman” and dated October 1675, Vernon recounts, “In the way betweene Lepanto and Salona, a daye’s journey from Delphos, my companion died; one Sir Giles Eastcourt, a Wiltshire gentleman, who had been formerly of Oxford, I think of Edmund Hall. I have written to his friends to give them notice of what hath happened.” For background on Vernon, see Wood, Athenae Oxonienses, 1:509.

  2. The day had started well, as Vernon writes in his diary: “just at break of day arrive at Isphahan, blessed be god. Take Chamber at 7 Cl finde Armenian speaks Italian, placed bed and bages, Change fresh Linens and Finish notes” (fol. 68, in the archives of the Royal Society). The trouble started later in the day when he went to a local kafenion for something to eat. See D. Constantine, Early Greek Travellers and the Hellenic Ideal (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 19, 21–24, 28–29; J. Ray, A Collection of Curious Travels and Voyages, in Two Tomes: The First Containing Dr. Leonhart Rauwolff’s Itinerary into the Eastern Countries…, the Second Taking in Many Parts of Greece, Asia Minor, Egypt, Arabia Felix and Petraea, Ethiopia, the Red-Sea, & from the Observations of Mons. Belon, Mr. Vernon, Dr. Spon, Dr. Smith, Dr. Huntingdon, Mr. Greaves, Alpinus, Veslingius, Thevenot’s Collections, and Others (London: S. Smith and B. Walford, 1693), 172; J. Murray (firm), Handbook for Travellers in Greece: Including the Ionian Islands, Continental Greece, the Peloponnese, the Islands of the Ægean, Crete, Albania, Thessaly, and Macedonia and a Detailed Description of Athens, 7th ed. (London: J. Murray, 1900), 2:250; Wood, Athenae Oxonienses, 3:1113–14.

  3. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall, eds. and trans., The Correspondence of Henry Oldenburg, 13 vols. (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1965–1986), vols. 5–9.

  4. S. P. Rigaud and S. J. Rigaud, eds., Correspondence of Scientific Men of the Seventeenth Century, 2 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1841), 2:243; L. Twells, The Theological Works of Dr. Pocock (London: Printed for the editor and sold by R. Gosling, 1740), 66–68.

  5. R. S. Westfall, Never at Rest: A Biography of Isaac Newton (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 234.

  6. They parted ways with the French doctor Jacob Spon and English clergyman and botanist George Wheler, who had been traveling with them since Venice.

  7. On August 27, November 8, and November 10, 1675. He completed his tabulation of dimensions of the Parthenon on November 11, 1675.

  8. Vernon’s letter to Oldenburg (Royal Society, MS 73) was published under the title “Mr. Francis Vernon’s Letter, Giving a Short Account of Some of His Observations in His Travels from Venice Through Istria, Dalmatia, Greece, and the Archipelago, to Smyrna,” in Proceedings of the Royal Society 11 (1676): 575–82. The letter was translated into French by Jacob Spon (who had traveled with him as far as Zakyn- thos in 1675) in his Réponse à la critique publiée par M. Guillet (Lyon: Amaulri, 1679). In the letter, Vernon gives his measurements for the Parthenon in a cursory fashion only: “I was three times in it, and took all the dimensions with what exactness I could but they are too long for a letter.” However, in his personal diaries, kept in the library of the Royal Society (manuscript 73) and rediscovered by Benjamin Meritt in 1946 (Meritt and Vernon, “Epigraphic Notes of Francis Vernon”), Vernon gives a whole series of exact measurements he took on November 10, 1675 (32 recto and in the transcript made for Meritt, a copy of which is among the W. B. Dinsmoor Papers in the Archives of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 29–31). Among the many measurements Vernon took (in English feet), he lists: “the Length of Cella, the breadth, the circumference of pillar, hence diameter, the intercolumnia, the Breadth of portico on sides, at end over east end, same but wings, the Inner to cella with cut out wing East,” and so forth. In an unpublished manuscript W. B. Dinsmoor writes: “From the very beginning of the Journal it is obvious that Vernon, first among modern travellers, was concerned to a great extent with the measurements and architectural details of Greek buildings. In addition, Vernon had a decidedly mathematical interest in the proportions of buildings, as well as in topographical and astronomical matters. To this he added an indefatigable curiosity regarding inscriptions, botany, and modern manners and customs.” I thank Tessa Dinsmoor for her permission to publish quotations from the Dinsmoor Papers here and am very grateful to the American School of Classical Studies archivist Natalia Vogeikoff-Brogan for her kindness in facilitating my study of the documents.

  9. In which Vernon describes the frieze showing “men on horseback, others in Chariots, and a whole procession of people going to a sacrifice.”

  10. Diary entry for August 26, 1675 (7 recto), this page, read from a copy of the typed transcript of Vernon’s diaries, made by the Royal Society and now in the American School of Classical Studies archives: “wthin sid fregio/men to west end on horsebacke/ people in triumphant/ Chariotts.” And entry for November 8, 1675 (32 recto), this page: “Round the Fregio of the cella, the whole a procession in the/ front severall rid/ing on horses/On south side Chariotts Severall wth two wheeles 4 spokes only/at upper end/ Severall Bullockes wth people conducting them to Sacrifice a great/number/ of women in long vests goeing before … On north side Chariotts and horsemen just as the South Side & oven/ & a procession.” Above the word “oven” (as typed in the transcript from the Royal Society), someone, no doubt Meritt or Dinsmoor, has added a handwritten correction: “ewes?” This would refer, then, to the sheeps led to sacrifice on the Parthenon’s north frieze.

  11. For the Theseion, see R. C. Anderson, “Moving the Skeleton from the Closet Back into the Temple: Thoughts about Righting a Historical Wrong and Putting Theseus Back into the Theseion,” in Aspects of Ancient Greek Cult II: Architecture-Context-Music, ed. J. T. Jensen (Copenhagen, forthcoming).

  12. Meritt and Vernon, “Epigraphic Notes of Francis Vernon,” 213.

  13. See Ridgway, Prayers in Stone, 128, for a discussion of the role of the Ionic frieze as a taenia, meaning “fillet” or “band.” Painted with a blue background or made from bluish stone, the Ionic frieze serves to visually bind together or “fasten” the prostyle columns of the temple to the cella.

  14. Vernon’s perception of “triumph” in the chariots following behind the sacrificial procession concurs with our understanding of the frieze as a depiction of a victory sacrifice following the battle of Erechtheus and Eumolpos.

  15. Pausanias, Description of Greece 1.24.5–7.

  16. Summarized by Marconi, “Degrees of Visibility.” See R. Stillwell, “The Panathenaic Frieze: Optical Relations,” Hesperia 38 (1969): 231–41, esp. 232, fig. 1; Osborne, “Viewing and Obscuring.” For objections to Stillwell’s premise, see Ridgway, Fifth Century Styles, 75n8, 75–76. On November 9–10, 2012, an experiment was carried out on the replica of the Parthenon in Centennial Park, Nashville, Tennessee. The west frieze was re-created in full color with painted canvas stretched atop panels of insulation foam. The panels were installed in the original setting of the frieze within the colonnade, and the general public was invited to view it from a number of station points on the ground to assess its visibility. The project, directed by Bonna Wescoat, professor of Greek art and architecture at Emory University, found that add
ed color greatly increases the visibility of the frieze from below. Results of the experiment are presented in a video: “Seeing Is Believing: Emory Students Shed New Light on the Parthenon Frieze.”

  17. Ridgway, Prayers in Stone, 117, drawing upon the observations of A. L. Millin, Monuments antiques inédits ou nouvellement expliqués (Paris: Imprimerie Impériale, 1806), 2:48. See also L. von Klenze, Aphoristische Bemerkungen gesammelt auf seiner Reise nach Griechenland (Berlin: G. Reiner, 1838), 253, for blue on the background of the frieze; Neils, Parthenon Frieze, 88–93. For a full discussion of polychromy on the Parthenon, see chapter 9.

  18. Marconi, “Degrees of Visibility,” 160n14; Hölscher, “Architectural Sculpture,” 54–56.

  19. Stillwell, “Optical Relations,” 232–33, calculates an observation zone of 30 feet (9 meters) from the stylobate. See Lawrence, Greek and Roman Sculpture, 139: “To those who walked inside the colonnade only a distorted view was possible and by much craning of the neck.” And new findings by Manolis Korres show that the frieze, in fact, was not carved in slightly higher relief at the top than at the bottom, as was previously believed; see Korres, “Überzählige Werkstücke des Parthenonfrieses,” fig. 5. This had been seen as an adjustment calculated to give it better visibility from below; Boardman, “Closer Look,” 306–7.

  20. In referring to architectural sculpture on temple buildings as “prayers in stone,” Ridgway means that the beauty of the decorative program is meant to bring pleasure and honor to the gods, just like sacrifice, libation, votive statues, paintings, song-dances, and any performed ritual that might be offered to divinities to establish communication with them.

  21. Marconi, “Degrees of Visibility,” 159–66; G. Rodenwaldt, Die Akropolis, 5th ed. (Berlin: Deustcher Kunstverlag, 1956), 41; Robertson, History of Greek Art, 310.

  22. Euripides, Ion 190, 192, 211. See F. Zeitlin, “The Artful Eye: Vision, Ekphrasis, and Spectacle in Euripidean Theater,” in Art and Text in Ancient Greek Culture, ed. S. Goldhill and R. Osborne (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 139, 144; R. R. Holloway, “Early Greek Architectural Decoration as Functional Art,” AJA 92 (1988): 178; Ridgway, Prayers in Stone, 9; Marconi, “Degrees of Visibility,” 168. For the ancient experience of viewing art, see also J. B. Connelly, “Hellenistic Alexandria,” in The Coroplast’s Art: Terracottas of the Hellenistic World, ed. J. Uhlenbrock (New Rochelle, N.Y.: Aristide D. Caratzas, 1990), 94–101.

  23. It comes from the verb agallo, “to honor” or “to take glory or delight in,” see Neue Pauly (2002), s.v. “Agalma.” See Marconi, “Degrees of Visibility,” 172–74; T. B. L. Webster, “Greek Theories of Art and Literature down to 400 B.C.,” CQ 33 (1939): 166–79; H. Philipp, Tektonon Daidala (Berlin: B. Hessling, 1968), 103–6; Sourvinou-Inwood, “Reading” Greek Death, 143–47; K. Keesling, Votive Statues of the Athenian Acropolis (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 10.

  24. Manuscript in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. J. M. Patton, Chapters on Mediaeval and Renaissance Visitors to Greek Lands (Princeton, N.J.: American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 1951); Beard, Parthenon, 60–61.

  25. Kaldellis, Christian Parthenon, 143.

  26. Bodnar, Cyriacus of Ancona, letter 3, pages 14–21; C. Mitchell, “Ciriaco d’Ancona: Fifteenth Century Drawings and Descriptions of the Parthenon,” in V. J. Bruno, The Parthenon (New York: W. W. Norton, 1974), 111–23; M. Beard has an interesting discussion of this in Parthenon, 65–68. See also Mallouchou-Tufano, “From Cyriacus to Boissonas,” 164–65.

  27. A copy of Cyriacus’s drawing in silverpoint is illustrated in Bodnar, Cyriacus of Ancona, plate 2; letter 3 is reproduced on pages 14–21. See Bodnar, plate 1, for another drawing of the Parthenon by Cyriacus (from letter 3.5–10) that shows some of the south metopes curiously superimposed above the west pediment.

  28. Ibid., letter 3.5 and 3.8, pages 16–19.

  29. Ibid., letter 3.9, pages 18–19.

  30. As observed also by Beard, Parthenon, 67.

  31. Bodnar, Cyriacus of Ancona, letter 3.8 and 3.9, pages 18–19.

  32. Dankoff and Kim, Ottoman Traveller, ix, book 8: “Athens,” 278–86. See also R. Dankoff, An Ottoman Mentality: The World of Evliya Çelebi (Leiden: Brill, 2004); M. van Bruinessen and H. Boeschoten, eds. and trans., Evliya Çelebi in Diyarbekir: The Relevant Section of “The Seyahatname” (Leiden: Brill, 1988).

  33. Dankoff and Kim, Ottoman Traveller, 281–82.

  34. Dankoff and Kim, Ottoman Traveller, 285.

  35. Ibid.

  36. Stuart and Revett, The Antiquities of Athens, was published in four volumes dating from the first, in 1762, to the last, in 1816. See B. Redford, Dilettanti: The Antic and the Antique in Eighteenth-Century England (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2008), 52–72; F. Salmon, “Stuart as Antiquary and Archaeologist in Italy and Greece,” in Soros, James “Athenian” Stuart, 103–45.

  37. Stuart and Revett, Antiquities of Athens, 2:12.

  38. Ibid., 2:12–13. For a summary of early interpretations of the Parthenon frieze see Michaelis, Parthenon, 218, 262; Brommer, Der Parthenonfries, 147–50.

  39. Stuart and Revett, Antiquities of Athens, 2:12. Writing of the east frieze they observe: “On it are a God and a Goddess, perhaps Neptune and Ceres, and two other figures, one of which is a man who appears to examine with some attention a piece of cloth folded several times double; the other is a young girl who assists in folding it: may we not suppose this folded cloth to represent the peplos?”

  40. For this central panel see, among others, Sourvinou-Inwood, Athenian Myths and Festivals, 284–307; Hurwit, Age of Pericles, 146, 230, 236; Dillon, Girls and Women, 45–47; Neils, Parthenon Frieze, 67–70, 166–71, 184–85; Shear, “Polis and Panathenaia,” 752–55; Hurwit, Athenian Acropolis, 179–86, 222–28; Connelly, “Parthenon and Parthenoi,” 53–72; Harrison, “Web of History,” 198; Wesenberg, “Panathenäische Peplosdedikation und Arrephorie”; Mansfield, “Robe of Athena,” 289–95; Connelly, “Sacrifice of the Erechtheids”; Simon, “Die Mittelszene im Ostfries”; Jeppesen, “A Fresh Approach,” 108, 127–129; B. Nagy, “The Ritual in Slab V.”

  41. Harrison, “Web of History,” 198–202, and Wesenberg, “Panathenäische Peplosdedikation und Arrhephorie,” see this as the folding up of the old peplos rather than the presentation of the new one at the Panathenaia.

  42. Inconsistencies between the testimonia and the images on the frieze were first noted by Petersen, Die Kunst des Pheidias, cited by Michaelis, Parthenon, 209. See S. Rotroff, “The Parthenon Frieze and the Sacrifice to Athena,” AJA 81 (1977): 379–80; Holloway, “Archaic Acropolis”; Boardman, “Parthenon Frieze,” 214; Connelly, “Parthenon and Parthenoi,” 54.

  43. For kanephoroi, see Connelly, Portrait of a Priestess, 33–39, with bibliography.

  44. Efforts to find a basket bearer in the east frieze come up short, though some have seen the tray-like object held in the hands of a “marshal” on the east frieze (E49 in the Louvre) as a basket. It is imagined that the girls before him, E50–51, have just handed him a kanoun, making one of the girls a kanephoros: Brommer, Der Parthenonfries, 148; J. Schelp, Das Kanoun: Der griechische Opferkorb (Würzburg: K. Tritsch, 1975), 55ff.; L. J. Roccos, “The Kanephoros and Her Festival Mantle in Greek Art,” AJA 99 (1995): 641–66; Neils, Parthenon Frieze, 157.

  45. Mansfield, “Robe of Athena,” 68–78; Norman, “The Panathenaic Ship.” The hoisting of the great tapestry peplos as the “sail” of the Panathenaic ship pulled on a wheeled cart during the Panathenaic procession is first attested in the third quarter of the fourth century B.C. See Plutarch, Life of Demetrios 10.5, 12.3. Elizabeth Barber suggests the practice might have begun much earlier, possibly just after the Persian Wars when one of the ships from the Battle of Salamis might have been lifted from the water and paraded before the citizenry to remind them of how Athens was saved from the Persian foe; see Barber, “Peplos of Athena,” 114. A fourth-century marble relief found in the Athenian Plaka shows the Panathenaic
ship-cart; see A. Spetsieri-Choremi, “Θραύσμα αναθηματικού αναγλύφου από την περιοχή του αθηναϊκού Ελευσινίου,” ArchEph 139 (2000): 1–18.

  46. See Thucydides, Peloponnesian War 6.58. For the omission of hoplites on the frieze, see Michaelis, Parthenon, 214; Boardman, “Parthenon Frieze,” 210–11; Boardman, “Another View,” 43–44; Connelly, “Parthenon and Parthenoi,” 69.

  47. Boardman, “Another View,” 42–45, and Boardman, “Parthenon Frieze,” 215.

  48. There is a double anachronism here, in that we would not expect to see soldiers riding astride horses in the Late Bronze Age, when horses were used for pulling wheeled carts and chariots but not for riding. I thank Nicola Di Cosmo for this observation.

  49. The question is raised by M. Robertson in “Sculptures of the Parthenon,” 56; Boardman, “Parthenon Frieze,” 211; Holloway, “Archaic Acropolis,” 223; Kroll, “Parthenon Frieze as Votive Relief”; and, of course, Lawrence, Greek and Roman Sculpture, 144.

  50. Lissarrague, “Fonctions de l’image”; Lissarrague and Schnapp, “Imagerie des Grecs”; Connelly, “Parthenon and Parthenoi,” 55; Connelly, Portrait of a Priestess, 20–21; Ferrari, Figures of Speech, 17–25; Webster, “Greek Theories of Art and Literature”; Marconi, “Degrees of Visibility,” 172; J. Svenbro, La parole et le marbre (Lund: Studentlitteratur, 1976); Sourvinou-Inwood, “Reading” Greek Death, 140–43; Steiner, Images in Mind, 252–59.

  51. Lawrence, “Acropolis and Persepolis,” 118.