The Parthenon Enigma (14 page)

The Hekatompedon Inscription mentions additional buildings that stood on the
Archaic Acropolis for which no stone foundations survive today. These are called the
oikemata
, or “houses,” a term that suggests they were of smaller scale than the Hekatompedon and Archaios Neos. Fragments of small limestone sculptures can be reconstructed to fill at least five small pediments from buildings that might be the
oikemata
mentioned in the inscription (one is shown above).
⁶³
It is likely that these structures served as treasuries, perhaps housing gifts dedicated to
Athena by rival
Eupatrid families of Attica, much as the treasury buildings at contemporary
Olympia and
Delphi held offerings of rival city-states. Their pedimental sculptures range in date from around 560–550
B.C.
to the early fifth century.
⁶⁴

ONE OF THESE PEDIMENTAL
groups shows Herakles battling the
Lernaean Hydra (previous page), the aforementioned water serpent with huge body and nine heads that, when cut off, grew back again.
⁶⁵
Herakles and his nephew
Iolaos worked as a team in subduing this monster.
⁶⁶
As Herakles bashed off each head with his club, Iolaos would quickly cauterize the wound with a flaming torch. This prevented new heads from regenerating. Thus, the slimy monster was exterminated. Importantly, Hydra was the child of Typhon. So we find, once again, two successive generations in pitched battle on the Archaic Acropolis.
Zeus kills Typhon in the age of the Titans (
Bluebeard pediment), while his son Herakles kills Typhon’s daughter Hydra in the era that follows (the small poros pediment). As we shall soon see, by the close of the sixth century another great temple will be built (the Archaios Neos or Old Athena Temple), this on the north side of the Acropolis plateau, and its pediment will display a cosmic conflict of a later generation still, the battle of the gods and the Giants. But this will come after the momentous years of
Peisistratos’s illustrious
tyranny.

WE CANNOT KNOW
exactly what Peisistratos’s involvement in the Great Panathenaia of 566 entailed, but he clearly regarded it as an opportunity to advance his ambitions for taking control of Athens. This he tried three times, establishing his first tyranny in 561/560
B.C.
through a clever ruse in which he first claimed his life was under threat and then, once the people had granted him protection, employed his bodyguard to help him seize the Acropolis. Soon expelled from Athens, Peisistratos returned in the mid-550s for a short, second regime and, finally, in 546, when he succeeded in establishing a tyranny that lasted for thirty-six years. Peisistratos spent the decade between his second and his third coups in very productive exile, developing strengths that can, in a sense, be seen to exemplify what would become ideal Athenian virtues: careful planning, an entrepreneurial spirit in building wealth through hard work, dogged determination, a taste for culture, and the projection of strong personal charisma. Relocating to distant
Thrace in the northeast of Greece, Peisistratos amassed a fortune in mining concessions from the gold and silver of
Mount Pangaion, developed a network of international
contacts with powerful tyrants, and rallied a mercenary army in anticipation of his return to Athens for a final takeover. Once back in power, he adopted a progressive global economic view, engaging Athens in international trade, minting the city’s first coins and encouraging productivity that, for example, saw Athens overtake Corinth as the leading exporter of fine painted
pottery.
⁶⁷
Peisistratos was, no doubt, impressed by the vast stone temple (55 meters by more than 108 meters, or 180 by 354 feet) begun by the tyrant
Polykrates on
Samos in mid-century and by the grandeur and excess of the East Greek sanctuaries at
Ephesos,
Didyma, and
Miletos. We cannot know how he might have enhanced the Hekatompedon or old shrine of
Athena in his day. But taking careful note of what strong rulers were accomplishing abroad, he followed their example. Like Polykrates on Samos, he introduced a major upgrade in the local
water supply at Athens, building an
aqueduct from
Mount Lykabettos to the Agora and, apparently, constructing the
Enneakrounos Fountain House above the
spring of Kallirrhöe. As John Camp has explained, the
laying out of the Agora, the very focal point of Athenian life and government, was largely the work of Peisistratos and his sons, who also established new drainage systems, fountains, and shrines, including the sanctuary of Dionysos Eleutherios on the
south slope of the Acropolis.
⁶⁸

Peisistratos effectively exploited the power of his “cult of personality” in appealing to the sensibilities of the Athenian masses.
Herodotos tells us that returning to Athens after his first exile, Peisistratos contrived a spectacular homecoming in which he was taken up the Acropolis in a chariot driven by a woman dressed as Athena.
⁶⁹
Nearly 6 feet tall (1.8 meters) and strikingly beautiful,
Phye wore the armor of the goddess, explicitly communicating to the crowd of spectators that Athena herself welcomed Peisistratos back. The tyrant lost no opportunity to parade before the people his particular devotion to the goddess, taking care at the same time to flaunt her special fondness for him.
⁷⁰

This highly visible display recalls another attempt at tyranny played out upon the Acropolis stage some seventy-five years earlier, that of
Kylon in 632/631
B.C.
Having risen to fame as a victor in the
Olympic Games, encouraged by a Delphic oracle, and supported by his father-in-law (the tyrant of
Megara), Kylon tried to seize the Acropolis during the annual festival of Zeus. He and his accomplices met with strong resistance and became trapped on the Sacred Rock, where they took sanctuary
at Athena’s statue, according to
Herodotos, or at her altar, according to Thucydides.
⁷¹
Kylon escaped, but his co-conspirators were held on the Acropolis without food or water in a long standoff that left them close to
death. Some of the archons from the Alkmeonid family (whose leader,
Miltiades, was chief magistrate at the time) promised the accomplices safe passage off the Acropolis but later reneged, killing them as they took refuge at the
altars of the accursed goddesses (
Semnai) down below. This act of gross impiety—murder within a sanctuary—brought a lasting curse upon the entire Alkmeonid clan.
⁷²

The stories of Kylon and
Peisistratos illustrate the dominance of the Acropolis plateau as an ever-visible landmark and target for takeover. Seizing the Sacred Rock symbolized a conquering of all Attica for aspiring tyrants, as it would for the Persian army in 480
B.C.
Even with its transformation from
Bronze Age fortress to Iron Age sanctuary, the Acropolis retained its power as a bulwark, the ultimate prize for contenders in a centuries-long game of King of the Mountain.

To be sure, Peisistratos commandeered power in an unconstitutional manner, but by all accounts he governed according to the laws of
Solon, taking care of the city masses as well as the rural majority. He made loans to small farmers, encouraged the cultivation of olives for export, and exacted a 5 percent tax on agricultural production. He unified disparate local cults from all across Attica into a centralized whole in which all Athenians held a stake, exercising special care to preserve their long-standing relationships with particular noble clans. Indeed, it is likely that Peisistratos instituted
hereditary
priesthoods that ensured the oldest families would forever keep their responsibility (and privilege) of looking after these cults.
⁷³
The Eteoboutadai, that is, the clan of the plains led by
Lykourgos, received the distinction of providing priests for the most venerable of the Acropolis cults, those
of Athena Polias and
Poseidon-Erechtheus. From this point forward, civic, religious, and cultural life at Athens was deeply intertwined. It was becoming clearer and clearer just what it meant to be an Athenian.

When Peisistratos died in 528/527
B.C.
, he was succeeded by his sons, who ruled until
Hipparchos was murdered in 514 and
Hippias was exiled in 510. The early years of their rule went smoothly as they devoted their energies to their father’s vision, beautifying the city with buildings and monuments and greatly enhancing its cultural and religious institutions.
⁷⁴
The sons of Peisistratos (known as the Peisistratids)
played a major role in promoting music, poetry, and the arts at Athens. Their most ostentatious project was the construction of an enormous temple to Olympian Zeus (the Olympieion,
this page
)on the banks of the
Ilissos River, replacing a shrine that their father had built on this very ancient site, occupied already in Neolithic days. The hugely ambitious plan called for a temple platform measuring 41 by 108 meters (135 by 354 feet), clearly meant to rival the gargantuan temples of
Hera on
Samos and Artemis at
Ephesos. But the project would be abandoned and languish incomplete for centuries until the Roman emperor
Hadrian finished it in
A.D
. 131/2.
⁷⁵

It was not until Hipparchos made a reckless advance on
Harmodios, a young man already attached to an older lover,
Aristogeiton, that the fortunes of the Peisistratids turned. The ensuing rejection, affront, and further retaliatory insult led to Hipparchos’s assassination at the Panathenaia in 514.
⁷⁶
Hippias now grew bitter and difficult while the rival Alkmeonid family, having spent much of the Peisistratid tyranny in exile, planned a comeback. They persuaded
Sparta (with the encouragement of the Delphic oracle) to help them overthrow Hippias. The Spartan king,
Kleomenes, obliged, setting siege to the Acropolis, where Hippias and his supporters were ensconced. In 510
B.C.
, after some family members were taken hostage, Hippias agreed to leave Athens for good. The ousted despot took refuge with the Persian governor at Sardis in Anatolia and, twenty years later, returned to Attica in the company of the Persian army, traitorously giving advice on how best to defeat the Athenians at Marathon.

Having successfully ousted the tyrant, the Athenian people now sought to remove the Spartan-led army that was in control of their citadel. Demonstrating an extraordinary ability to take quick and decisive collective action in the face of crisis, ordinary Athenians gathered en masse at the foot of the Acropolis and forced the surrender of the coalition of Spartans and Athenian nobility holding the summit. They called for the return of
Kleisthenes, a member of the Alkmeonid family who had helped in overthrowing Hippias but was later expelled by a rival within his clan.
⁷⁷
Kleisthenes returned as champion of the people in 508/507 and swiftly introduced sweeping reforms that laid the foundations for true and direct
demokratia
, in which the people (
demos
) held the power (
kratos
), the very basis for our
modern democratic system today.
⁷⁸
Kleisthenes reconfigured the legislature, the court system,
and the formation of the Athenian “tribes,” breaking the power of the nobility and establishing the framework for a national army. Ten new tribes were geographically described so that each contained people from different parts
of Athenian territory: the coastal districts, the inland regions, and the urban areas. Each tribe would henceforth consist of a mix of individuals from across these diverse areas, bringing together men of vastly different backgrounds, skill sets, and kinship networks.
⁷⁹
But the experience of serving on tribal teams, both in the legislature and in the Panathenaic competitions, would soon knit these men together in a real brotherhood of common interests. Kleisthenes extended Athenian
citizenship to all adult resident males and their offspring, creating a new
Council of 500 to which each of the ten newly created tribes would send fifty delegates chosen, democratically, by lot. Furthermore, he instituted
ostracism, establishing a process through which unpopular leaders could be expelled. In short, Kleisthenes ushered in an egalitarian revolution, bringing to the Athenian people what he called
isonomia
(equality vis-à-vis law) and what we call democracy itself.

By the end of the sixth century
B.C.
, Athens was ready not only for a new system of government but also for a new temple on the Acropolis. Just as, sixty-five years before, the Bluebeard Temple had projected dynamic images of
cosmic combat in the wake of
Solon’s reforms, so the temple of the young democracy would launch a powerful narrative of
genealogical struggle: the battle of the gods and the Giants. This theme featured prominently in the
Panathenaia, woven as it was into the figured fabric (
peplos) presented to Athena at the festival and, during the second half of the sixth century, painted on so many Attic vases (especially those found on the Acropolis itself).
⁸⁰
Within the realm of myth, the
Gigantomachy may be seen as the next generational conflict following that in which
Zeus destroyed Typhon.

Having vanquished the older generation of Titans, the
Olympians turned to the cosmic war with the Giants. These are the terrible creatures that sprang from blood dripping out of
Ouranos’s severed testicles and mingling with Earth. The Giants, so big that their heads touched the clouds, outnumbered the Olympian gods twenty-four to twelve. And so the gods enlisted the help of mighty Herakles to improve their odds.
⁸¹
Athena
and Herakles fought side by side in battle, valiant warriors who made an excellent team. Athena so distinguished herself that she became
known as Gigantoleteira or Gigantoletis (“She Who Destroyed the Giants”).
⁸²
Earlier in this chapter we saw Athena kill one giant named
Drako and another named
Aster. There is yet a third deadly beast she annihilates in the Gigantomachy, the fearsome
Enkelados, whose name means “Sound the Charge.” According to some sources, Athena lifted and hurled the island of
Sicily at this monster as he fled the battlefield, crushing him beneath
Mount Aitna.
⁸³
The supreme size and strength of gods and Giants made them quite capable of throwing boulders, mountains, and even whole islands in the course of combat.