Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/288

 which was very conspicuous by its magnitude and position, having been inclosed within frames which formed an essential part of the designs of either front, had no more obtrusive effect than an ornamented capital to an unadorned column." (Leake, p. 334.) The whole building was adorned within and without with the most exquisite pieces of sculpture, executed under the direction of Pheidias by different artists. The various architectural members of the upper part of the building were enriched with positive colours, of which traces are still found. The statues and the reliefs, as well as the members of architecture, were enriched with various colours; and the weapons, the reins of horses, and other accessories, were of metal, and the eyes of some of the figures were inlaid. Of the sculptures of the Parthenon the grandest and most celebrated was the colossal statue of the Virgin Goddess, executed by the hand of Pheidias himself. It stood in the eastern or principal apartment of the cella; and as to its exact position some remarks are made below. It belonged to that kind of work which the Greeks called chryselephantine; ivory being employed for those parts of the statue which were unclothed, while the dress and other ornaments were of solid gold. This statue represented the goddess standing, clothed with a tunic reaching to the ankles, with her spear in her left hand, and an image of victory, four cubits high, in her right. She was girded with the aegis, and had a helmet on her head, and her shield rested on the ground by her side. The height of the statue was twenty-six cubits, or nearly forty feet. The weight of the gold upon the statue, which was so affixed as to be removable at pleasure, is said by Thucydides (ii. 13) to have been 40 talents, by Philochorus 44, and by other writers 50: probably the statement of Philochorus is correct, the others being round numbers. (Wesseling, ad Diod. xii. 40.) It was finally robbed of its gold by Lachares, who made himself tyrant of Athens, when Demetrius was besieging the city. (Paus. i. 25. § 5.) A fuller account of this masterpiece of art is given in the Dictionary of Biography, [Vol. iii. p. 250.]

The sculptures on the outside of the Parthenon have been described so frequently that it is unnecessary to speak of them at any length on the present occasion. These various pieces of sculpture were all closely connected in subject, and were intended to commemorate the history and the honours of the goddess of the temple, as the tutelary deity of Athens. 1. The Tympana of the Pediments (i. e. the inner flat portion of the triangular gable-ends of the roof above the two porticoes) were filled with two compositions in sculpture, each nearly 80 feet in length, and consisting of about 24 colossal statues. The eastern or principal front represented the birth of Athena from the head of Zeus, and the western the contest between Athena and Poseidon for the land of Attica. The mode in which the legend is represented, and the identification of the figures, have been variously explained by archaeologists, to whose works upon the subject a reference is given below. 2. The Metopes, between the Triglyphs in the frieze of the entablature (i. e. the upper of the two portions into which the surface between the columns and the roof is divided), were filled with sculptures in high relief. Each tablet was 4 feet 3 inches square. There were 92 in all, 14 on each front, and 32 on each side. They represented a variety of subjects relating to the exploits of the goddess herself, or to those of the indigenous heroes of Attica. Those on the south side related to the battle of the Athenians with the Centaurs: of these the British Museum possesses sixteen. 3. The Frieze, which ran along outside the wall of the cella, and within the external columns which surround the building, was sculptured with a representation of the Panathenaic festival in very low relief. Being under the ceiling of the peristyle, the frieze could not receive any direct light from the rays of the sun, and was entirely lighted from below by the reflected light from the pavement; consequently it was necessary for it to be in low relief, for any bold projection of form would have interfered with the other parts. The frieze was 3 feet 4 inches in height, and 520 feet in length. A large number of the slabs of this frieze was brought to England by Lord Elgin, with the sixteen metopes just mentioned, and several of the statues of the pediments: the whole collection was purchased by the nation in 1816, and deposited in the British Museum. (On the sculptures of the Parthenon, see Visconti, Mem. sur les Ouvrages de Sculpture du Parthenon, Lond. 1816, Wilkins, On the Sculptures of the Parthenon, in Walpole's Travels in the East, p. 409, seq.; K. O. Müller, Commentatio de Parthenonis Fastigio, in Comm. Soc. Reg. Gott. rec. vi. Cl. Hist. p. 191, foll., and Ueber die erhobenen Bildwerke in den Metopen und am Friese dee Parthenon, in Kleine Schriften, vol. ii. p. 547, seq.; Leake, Topography of Athens, p. 536, seq.; Welcker, On the Sculptured Groups in the Pediments of the Parthenon, in the Classical Museum, vol. ii. p. 367, &c, also in German, Alte Denkmäler, erklärt von Welcker, vol. i. p. 67, seq.; Watkiss Lloyd, Explanation of the Groups in the Western Pediment of the Parthenon, in Classical Museum, vol. v. p. 396, seq., in opposition to the previous essay of Welcker, who defended his views in another essay in the Classical Museum, vol. vi. p. 279, seq.; Bronsted, Voyages et Recherches en Grèce, Paris, 1830.

Among the many other ornaments of the temple we may mention the gilded shields, which were placed upon the architraves of the two fronts beneath the metopes. Between the shields there were inscribed the names of the dedicators. The impressions left by these covered shields are still visible upon the architraves; the shields themselves were carried off by Lachares, together with the gold of the statue of the goddess. (Paus. i. 25. § 5.) The inner walls of the cella were decorated with paintings; those of the Pronaos, or Prodoms, were partly painted by Protogenes of Caunus (Plin. xxxv. 10. s. 36. § 20); and in the Hecatompedon there were paintings representing Themistocles and Heliodorus. (Paus. i. 1 . § 2, 37. § 1.)

We have already seen that the temple was sometimes called Parthenon, and sometimes Hecatompedon; but we know that these were also names of separate divisions of the temple. There have been found among the ruins in the Acropolis many official records of the treasurers of the Parthenon inscribed upon marble, containing an account of the gold and silver vessels, the coin, bullion, and other valuables preserved in the temple. (Böckh, Corp. Inscr. No. 137—142, 150—154.) From these inscriptions we learn that there were four distinct divisions of the temple, called respectively the Pronaos ,the Hecatompedon, the Parthenon , and the Opisthodomus.

Respecting the position of the Pronaos there can 