Parthenon

I

Introduction

Parthenon, ancient Greek temple dedicated to the goddess Athena Parthenos (Athena the Virgin), on the Acropolis in Athens. Although partly in ruins today, it remains a masterpiece of Greek architecture, especially of the Doric order—the earliest and simplest of the classical Greek styles. The Parthenon is noted for its perfect simplicity of design and the harmony of its proportions. It was built from 447 to 432 bc, under the leadership of Pericles, by the architects Ictinus and Callicrates. Greek artist Phidias supervised the design of its sculpture, which he and other sculptors executed.

II

Architecture

The Parthenon was a large, rectangular marble temple with 17 columns along each of its sides and 8 columns on each end. It measured about 31 by 70 m (102 by 230 ft). The tilt and the dimensions of the columns reflect remarkable awareness of certain optical distortions. For example, a perfectly straight column would appear to lean outward, and so the builders inclined the columns slightly inward to compensate for this distortion. In addition, they curved the columns somewhat so that the columns would appear to be straight as they tapered upward.

The central part of the Parthenon was a chamber that had two rooms separated by a wall. Each room was entered from a porch at its end faced with columns. One room housed a statue of Athena. A cloistered walking area, sheltered by the building’s graceful fluted columns, surrounded the central chamber.

III

Sculpture

The Parthenon was richly adorned with sculpture. Sculpture on the pediment (triangular area below the roof) at the eastern end depicted the birth of Athena, who sprang fully grown from the head of the god Zeus, flanked by a number of gods and goddesses. The pediment sculpture at the western end represents Athena’s contest with the sea god Poseidon to decide who would be the patron of Athens. (Athena’s gift of an olive branch was judged more useful to humanity than Poseidon’s gift of a horse.) Above the outer columns was a series of metopes (square panels carved in relief) that showed battles between mythological figures. A frieze (continuous horizontal band with sculpture) decorated the outside of the central chamber. It represented the Panathenaic Procession and portrayed young men and women, musicians, priests, and sacrificial animals in ceremonial procession to make an offering to Athena. The variety of figures, their composition, and the rhythm of their movements are extraordinary. All the sculpture on the Parthenon were painted in red, blue, ochre, and gold.

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At the rear of the central chamber was an ivory and gold statue of Athena perhaps 10 m (33 ft) tall. The helmeted goddess stood resting one hand on a shield and holding a winged statue of Victory in the other. On the base of the statue was a representation of the birth of Pandora, who in Greek mythology was the first woman on Earth. Although the statue no longer exists, a description of it appears in writings of Greek author Pausanias from the 2nd century ad.

IV

History

The Acropolis in Athens is a natural limestone hill originally fortified for the city-state’s defense. By the Archaic period, which began in 750 bc, it had become a religious sanctuary. The buildings and monuments on the Acropolis were destroyed during a war with the Persians that ended in 479 bc. Athens flourished after the Persian Wars, and its leader Pericles undertook a building program to beautify Athens and demonstrate its cultural importance. The centerpiece of his plan was the rebuilding of the Acropolis; the Parthenon was the showpiece, the chief temple on the Acropolis. Work on the Parthenon began in 447 bc, and the dedication of the temple took place in 438 bc with the installation of the statue of Athena.

In ad 426 the Parthenon was converted to a Christian church and dedicated to Hagia Sophia (Greek for “holy wisdom”). Later, in 622, it was rededicated to the Virgin Mary. Changes were then made to accommodate worshipers inside the church and an altar at the end of the building. A bell tower went up at one corner. After Athens came under Ottoman Turkish rule in 1458, the Parthenon was converted to a mosque. The Parthenon suffered extensive damage in 1687, when a Venetian general laid siege to Athens. At that time the Acropolis served as an Ottoman garrison, and gunpowder was stored in the Parthenon. A cannonball fired by the Venetians set off an explosion that destroyed the central part of the Parthenon, blew off the roof, and knocked down columns. Efforts to put back fallen columns and sculpture began in 1928, but the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Lord Elgin, had taken many of the sculptures to England in the early 1800s. Known as the Elgin Marbles, they are on view at the British Museum in London. Successive Greek governments have campaigned for their return.

See also Acropolis; Greek Art and Architecture.

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