crowned in the Parthenon, is still more groundless. Indeed, if it proved anything, it would prove the reverse. In the floor of the Parthenon, towards the west end, there appears at the present day a space, about twenty-six feet long and half as many broad, not covered with marble, like the rest of the floor, but showing the rougher Peiraïc stone of the foundation. This space has usually been supposed to mark the position of the great statue or else of an altar, and no valid ground has, thus far, been produced against either theory. But Bötticher, who is determined to show that the temple was not used for worship, and that it was used for the conferring of crowns after the great games (he calls it distinctly an agonal temple), finds that the space in question marks the position of the great platform on which the victors received their crowns! His argument, as approvingly stated by Michaelis, runs thus: "For this purpose [crowning the victors] use was made at Olympia of a chryselephantine table, adorned by Kôlôtês with reliefs referring to contest and victory. A corresponding table, inlaid with ivory, occurs in the inventory of that division of the Parthenon specially designated by this name, that is, in the division where the statue and the construction in question stood." Michaelis goes on to show that this table (?!) appears, along with Panathenaic (?!) amphoræ and olive-boughs, upon Attic coins and upon marble chairs plainly (?!) belonging to Athênâ, and draws the conclusion that there* Der Parthenon, pp. 28, 29. This, as we shall see, is untrue. C fore the Panathenaic victors were crowned in the "Parthenon," before the Parthenos. The whole force of this argument, of course, lies in the two assumptions that there was a platform for the crowning of victors in the temple of Zeus at Olympia, and that the chryselephantine table of Kôlôtês stood in the same temple. But Pausanias, who describes that temple most minutely, says not a word of any such platform, and the table of Kôlôtês stood in the temple of Hêrâ!* According, therefore, to Bötticher and Michaelis, we ought to conclude that the Olympic victors were crowned in the temple of Hêrâ! Since no one will be bold enough to draw this conclusion, and since the fact that the crown-table stood in the temple of Hêrå shows that the crowning did not take place in the temple of Zeus, there is nothing to prevent us from unreservedly accepting the evidence which goes to prove that the ceremony took place in the open.air (sub ipso Jove). We may, therefore, affirm that there is not a shadow of proof derivable from the arguments of Bötticher and Michaelis, to show that the Parthenon had the * Pausanias, v. 20, 1. Cf. v. 12, 5, where we are told that there stood in the temple of Zeus "the bronzed tripod (τplæovs lxaλkos) that was used for laying out the crowns for the victors, before the table was made." But "before the table was made," means, before the statue of Zeus was made; for Kôlôtés was a pupil of Pheidias and helped him to make that statue (Colotes discipulus Phidia et ei in faciendo Fove Olympio adjutor, Pliny, Nat, Hist,, xxxv. 54. Cf. xxxiv. 87). At the time, therefore, when the tripod was used, the Olympic victors were not crowned before the Pheidian Zeus, for he did not then exist. slightest connection with the Panathenaia. Michaelis plainly feels the weakness of these arguments, when he says, "To all these moments must be added the appearance of the Panathenaic procession on the frieze of the cella (!), and of oil-cruises, symbols of battle, on the corners of the pediment." * The truth is, the whole argument for the connection of the Parthenon with the Panathênaia rests upon a vicious circle of reasoning:-The Parthenon frieze represents the Panathenaic procession, therefore (!!) the Parthenon was connected with the Panathenaia; but, since the Parthenon was connected (necessarily, say Stark and Overbeck!) with the Panathenaia, the subject of the frieze must be (!!) the Panathenaic procession. Until some stronger and more logical argument is adduced, we may say with Petersen, "that the Parthenon in some way stood connected with the Panathênaia is generally assumed, although no direct evidence for the fact has thus far been produced."† Nay, we may even go farther, and boldly declare that no evidence of any kind has been produced. There are, indeed, two other arguments of light * Der Parthenon, p. 30. On the following page, Michaelis calls the argument we have just refuted a "scharfsinnige Combination!" Germans have a charming, euphemistic way of calling audacious and groundless reasoning scharfsinnig. ↑ Die Kunst des Pheidias, p. 35. The same author, nevertheless, on the same page tells us, "The peplos of the Panathenaia was used to clothe the old wooden statue of Athena Polias. But the peplos was first carried into the Parthenon: this the frieze tells us in clear picture-writing" (!!!). What can be said to such reasoning? ... weight, that have sometimes been brought forward to show that the Parthenon was in some way connected with the Panathenaia. The first may be stated thus: The Parthenon was dedicated in the year 438, a year in which the greater Panathenaia was celebrated; therefore, the building must have had some connection with that festival. This argument hardly deserves serious refutation. There were surely reasons enough why the temple should be dedicated in such a year without its being connected with the festival. What is more natural than that a city should endeavour to finish and inaugurate a great work just before an occasion that brings a large number of strangers to visit it? The second argument runs thus: The Parthenon of Periklês was merely a restoration, on an enlarged scale, of the Hekatompedos of Peisistratos. But as Peisistratos was the institutor of the greater Panathenaia, the Hekatompedos must have been intended to bear a part in that festival. Therefore, so must likewise the Parthenon. Here we have three distinct assumptions: first, that the Hekatompedos was built by Peisistratos; second, that it was intended to play a part in the Panathenaia; and third, that therefore the Parthenon, which was in part a restoration of it, must have had a similar purpose. All these assumptions are entirely groundless. The pre-Periklean Hekatompedos is mentioned only once by a Greek author,† who merely tells us that it was fifty • See Michaelis, Der Parthenon, p. 9. + Hesychios, sub voc. Cf. Michaelis, Der Parthenon, pp. 5-8, 119-123. feet shorter than the Parthenon, and that it was burnt by the Persians, without adding one word respecting its date, origin, or purpose. Penrose, arguing from the fact that the temple was never finished, concludes: "We are not likely to err much, if we assign the period of its erection to the age of Peisistratos."* This modest suggestion is all the authority that exists for the belief that the Hekatompedos was built by Peisistratos ! Slight enough surely. Temples often lay unfinished for centuries. A striking example of this fact is the Olympieion at Athens, which was begun by Peisistratos and which remained unfinished for seven hundred years! The fact that the Hekatompedos was burnt by the Persians goes far to show that it was not built by Peisistratos, for the sake of whose family they spared the altar to the twelve gods in the Agora, the altar to Apollo in the Pythion, and what was constructed of the Olympicion. Again, even if it were shown that the Hekatompedos was built by Peisistratos, it would not follow that it was intended to be connected with the Panathenaia.† And lastly, even were it shown that the Hekatompedos was built by Peisistratos and intended by him to be used at the Panathenaia, it would by no means follow that the Parthenon was either a restoration of it or was intended for the same purpose. Indeed, there would be reasons for drawing the very opposite conclusion. After the Persian wars, # Investigation of the Principles of Athenian Architecture, P. 75. †The almost universal belief that Peisistratos founded the greater Panathenaia rests on extremely slender grounds. |