The Parthenon

THE PARTHENON

The Parthenon in Athens is the most important and characteristic monument of ancient Greek civilization, it is a universal symbol of freedom and democracy. It shows the finest point of Greek architecture, history and ancient Greek religious beliefs. The Parthenon is a temple dedicated to Athens patron goddess, Athena (Herbert, 2006:3). Athena was the goddess of civilization, wisdom, weaving, crafts and war. She never had a consort or lover, and so she was often known as Athena Parthenos ("Athena the virgin") which is were the Parthenon's name, derives from.

The Parthenon was an architectural masterpiece because of its great size and elaborate decoration. It was constructed between 447 and 438 BCE on the acropolis of Athens at the request of Pericles the leading politician of the time. The Parthenon was built to house the huge gold and ivory (chryselephantine) statue of the goddess Athena (wikipedia, 2006), Which was over 30 feet high, and portrayed the goddess in battle armor and holding in her outstretched hand a six-foot statue of Nike the figure of victory. The Parthenon was constructed from 20,000 tons of white marble, and stretched nearly 230 feet in length and a hundred feet wide making it the largest Greek temple. It was built in the Doric style, however instead of the usual six columns across the ends there where 8 and instead of the usual 13 along the sides there where 17. These dimensions gave it a massive look conveying an impression of power. Since perfectly rectilinear architecture appears curved to the human eye, the Parthenon's architects ingeniously designed subtle curves and inclines in its architecture to produce an optical illusion of completely straight lines. These technical refinements made the Parthenon appear ordered and regular in a way a building built entirely on straight lines would not. By overcoming the distortions of nature, the Parthenon's sophisticated architecture made a confident statement about human ability to construct order out of the disorder of the natural world.

The religious significance of the Parthenon can be seen by the sculptural decoration which proclaimed Athenian confidence about their city-state's relationship with the gods, whom the citizens regarded as their helpers and supporters. The Parthenon had sculptured panels along its exterior above the columns (called metopes) and sculptures in the triangular spaces underneath the roof line at both ends of the building (called pediments) and a unique sculptural feature the Ionic frieze which was around the top of the walls (wikipedia, 2006). The Parthenon's frieze depicted the Athenian religious ritual called the Panathenaic festival, in which a procession of citizens paraded to the Acropolis to present to Athena a new robe woven by specially selected Athenian girls, which was held every 4 years. The frieze showed men riding spirited horses, women walking along carrying sacred implements, and the gods gathering together at the head of the parade to observe their human worshippers (Ð''Parthenon', 2006). This showed how over-confident the spirit of the Athenians where, because they dared put themselves where ordinarily only gods and heroes might be found.

The metopes all represent various instances of the struggle between the forces of order and justice, on the one hand and criminal chaos on the other (Silverman, 2003). There are 4 mythological scenes shown, on the east side of the Parthenon the metopes depict the Gigantomachy which was the mythical battles between the Olympian gods and the Giants. The metopes on the west end show the Amazonomachy which was the mythical battle of the Athenians against the Amazons. The metopes on the south side show the Thessalian Centauromachy which was the battle of the Lapiths aided by Theseus against the half-man, half-horse Centaurs. On the north side of the Parthenon the metopes are poorly preserved but the subject seems to be the sack of Troy (wikipedia, 2006). The pediments however focused on Athena, whom the temple was dedicated to. The western pediment depicted the battle between Athena and Poseidon over the control of Athens. The story goes that they both wanted to be the patron of Athens and so Athena thought of the idea of coming up with a gift and making the citizens choose which is the better and the owner of the gift would be the patron of Athens (Herbert, 2006:3). Poseidon was first and he lifted his trident and struck the ground with it and a spring shot forth and began pouring out water, however when the people tasted it they were not impressed for the spring was as salty as the sea Poseidon ruled. Athena on the other hand knelt down and buried something in the ground, it was an olive tree. It was simple but it also gave the Athenians olives, oil and wood. And so Athena became patron of Athens and