The Parthenon Enigma (72 page)

15.
See Boutsikas, “Astronomical Evidence for the Timing of the Panathenaia.”

16.
P. Michalowski, “Maybe Epic: Sumerian Heroic Poetry,” in
Epic and History
, ed. D. Konstan and K. Raaflaub (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 21.

17.
Hesiod,
Theogony
108–16, 123–32.

18.
Homer,
Iliad
8.13. Translation: A. T. Murray (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1924).

19.
Sources for the Titanomachy include Hesiod’s
Theogony
and a lost
Titanomachia
attributed to Eumelos, a semi-legendary bard of Corinth. See M. L. West, “ ‘Eumelos’: A Corinthian Epic Cycle?,”
JHS
122 (2002): 109–33; M. L. West,
Hellenica
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 355. See also Dörig and Gigon,
Götter und Titanen
.

20.
The term “boundary catastrophe” is used by Scodel, “Achaean Wall,” 36, 48, 50, where she describes the Trojan War as a catastrophe that serves as a boundary between the heroes and later, weaker generations, that is, between mythical and truly historical time. I extend the term here to include floods and cosmic wars as well.

21.
Hesiod,
Theogony
424, 486, as discussed by West,
Indo-European Poetry and Myth
, 162–64. For an overview of Near Eastern influence on Archaic Greece, see W. Burkert,
The Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992), 94–95.

22.
West,
Indo-European Poetry and Myth
, 162–63.

23.
Ibid., 162–65; Ataç,
Mythology of Kingship
, 172.

24.
West,
Indo-European Poetry and Myth
, 166.

25.
Ibid., 248.

26.
Clemente Marconi employs this term to describe the experience of Archaic Greek sanctuaries; see Marconi, “Kosmos,” 222; the phrase is first used by R. Otto,
The Idea of the Holy
(London: Oxford University Press, 1928), 12–25, and by A. Huxley,
The Doors of Perception
(London: Chatto & Windus, 1954), 43.

27.
G. Rodenwaldt,
Korkyra: Die Bildwerke des Artemistempels von Korkyra II
(Berlin: Mann, 1939), 15–105; J. L. Benson, “The Central Group of the Corfu Pediment,” in
Gestalt und Geschichte: Festschrift Karl Schefold zu seinem Sechzigsten Geburstag am 26. Januar 1965
, ed. M. Rohde-Liegle and K. Schefold (Bern: Francke, 1967), 48–60.

28.
Kypselos took control of Corinth in 657
B.C.
, and in around 620 Theagenes became tyrant at Megara and Kleisthenes at Sikyon, where remains of a seventh-century shrine have been found beneath the sixth-century temple. Though these tyrants seized power unconstitutionally, they were regarded by the masses as preferable to rule by aristocracy or oligarchy. See P. H. Young, “Building Projects Under the Greek Tyrants” (Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1980).

29.
For the temple of Apollo at Corinth: R. Rhodes, “Early Corinthian Architecture and the Origins of the Doric Order,”
AJA
91 (1987): 477–80. For the temple of Poseidon at Isthmia: O. Broneer,
Isthmia: Excavations by the University of Chicago, Under the Auspices of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens
(Princeton, N.J.: American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 1971); Broneer,
Isthmia: Topography and Architecture
; E. Gebhard, “The Archaic Temple at Isthmia: Techniques of Construction,” in
Archaische griechische Tempel und Altägypten
, ed. M. Bietak (Vienna: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2001). For broader context see A. Mazarakis-Ainian,
From Rulers’ Dwellings to Temples: Architecture, Religion, and Society in Early Iron Age Greece (1100–700
B.C.
)
(Jonsered: Paul Åström, 1997), 125–35.

30.
By 630
B.C.
at Thermon in Aetolia, the first mainland Greek temple measuring
a hundred feet long (
hekatompedon
) with wooden columns wrapping around all four sides was constructed (in both respects it followed the second-phase temple of Hera at Samos, ca. 675–625
B.C.
). For the temple of Apollo at Thermon: J. A. Bundgaard, “À propos de la date de la péristasis du Mégaron B à Thermos,”
BCH
70 (1946): 51–57. For the temple of Hera on Samos: O. Reuther,
Der Heratempel von Samos: Der Bau seit der Zeit des Polykrates
(Berlin: Mann, 1957); N. Hellner, “Recent Studies on the Polycratian Temple of Hera on Samos,”
Architectura: Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Baukunst
25 (1995): 121–27. The temple of Hera and Zeus at Olympia (ca. 600
B.C.
) had a colonnade of wooden columns set on stone socles, while the temple of Artemis at Kerkyra (580
B.C.
) had a colonnade of limestone columns.

31.
Kyle,
Athletics in Ancient Athens
, 30. For Solon, see J. Blok and A. P. M. H. Lardinois,
Solon of Athens: New Historical and Philological Approaches
(Leiden: Brill, 2006).

32.
Kyle,
Athletics in Ancient Athens
, 20, 104.

33.
IG
I
³
507, ca. 565
B
.
C
. See A. Raubitschek,
Dedications from the Athenian Akropolis: A Catalogue of the Inscriptions of the Sixth and Fifth Centuries
B.C.
(Cambridge, Mass.: Archaeological Institute of America, 1949), 305–53 (no. 326) and 353–58 (nos. 327 and 328); Kyle,
Athletics in Ancient Athens
, 26–27.

34.
Marcellinus,
Life of Thucydides
3: “Hippokleides in whose archonship the Panathenaia were instituted” was archon in 566/565
B.C.;
and Eusebios,
Chronica on Olympic
53.3–4: “Agon gymnicus, quem Panathenaeon vocant, actus.” For the date of 566
B.C.
as the inauguration of the Great Panathenaia see Kyle,
Athletics in Ancient Athens
, 25–31; V. Ehrenberg,
From Solon to Socrates
(London: Methuen, 1968), 82–83.

35.
Scholiast on Aelius Aristides’s
Panathenaic Oration
13.189.4–5 = Dindorf 3:323 credits the introduction of the festival to Peisistratos.

36.
Aristotle,
Athenian Constitution
13. For discussion of these families and their roles in shaping the conditions from which Athenian democracy emerged, see Camp, “Before Democracy,” 7–12.

37.
Aristotle,
Athenian Constitution
16.9.

38.
The hypothetical visualization shown on
this page
is not a scientific reconstruction but is meant only to help the reader understand the placement of the early temples on the Akropolis. For scientific treatment, see Korres, “Die Athena-Tempel auf der Akropolis”; Korres, “Athenian Classical Architecture,” 7; Korres, “History of the Acropolis Monuments,” 38; Korres, “Recent Discoveries on the Acropolis,” 178.

39.
Head and belt of Gorgon figure are Acropolis no. 701 in Acropolis Museum, Athens. Some have identified this figure as an akroterion, but Korres has shown that it cannot be.

40.
Snakes in corners of the gables are Acropolis Museum no. 37 and no. 40.

41.
For overview see Bancroft, “Problems Concerning the Archaic Acropolis,” 26–45; Ridgway,
Archaic Style
, 284–85; Hurwit,
Athenian Acropolis
, 107–12; Knell,
Mythos und Polis
, 1–6; Dinsmoor, “The Hekatompedon on the Athenian Acropolis,” and for more recent study of these questions, N. L. Klein, “The Origin of the Doric Order on the Mainland of Greece: Form and Function of the Geison in the Archaic Period” (Ph.D. diss., Bryn Mawr College, 1991), 7–16.

42.
Dinsmoor, “Hekatompedon on the Athenian Acropolis,” 145–47, assigned this group to the east pediment of the temple, though this cannot be known. Reconstructions of the temple’s pedimental compositions were offered early on by T. Wiegand,
Die archaische Poros-Architektur der Akropolis zu Athen
(Cassel: Fisher, 1904), and R. Heberdey,
Altattische Porosskulptur, ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der archaischen griechischen Kunst
(Vienna: Hölder, 1919). See also W. H. Schuchhardt, “Die Sima des alten Athena-Tempels der Akropolis,”
AM
(1935–1936): 60–61; Korres, “History of the Acropolis Monuments,” 38.

43. The “Bluebeard Monster” was first identified as Typhon by Harrison,
Primitive Athens as Described by Thucydides
, 27. Boardman, “Herakles, Peisistratos, and Sons,” 71–72, suggests the beast represents the “body politic” of Athens in which the people of the plains, the people of the coast, and the people of the mountains are signaled by what is held in the monster’s hands: water, cornstalks, and a bird. The Bluebeard Monster has also been identified as the triple-bodied Geryon; as a composite of Okeanos, Pontos, and Aither; as wind divinities known as the Tritopatores; as Zeus Herkeios; as Nereus; as Proteus; and even as Erechtheus. For an overview of these various interpretations, see F. Brommer, “Der Dreileibige,”
Marburger Winckelmann-Programm
(1947): 1–4; Ridgway,
Archaic Style
, 283–88; Hurwit,
Athenian Acropolis
, 106–14.

44.
Munich, Staatliche Antikensammlungen Inv. 596, by the Inscription Painter. M. Beard,
The Invention of Jane Harrison
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000), 103–5, is quick to dismiss Harrison’s association of this image with the Bluebeard Monster, though it has held up well over time; see U. Höckmann, “Zeus besiegt Typhon,”
AA
(1991): 11–23. While there are, of course, methodological difficulties in relating images from monumental stone sculpture to those from vase painting, when dealing with such early periods for which the surviving corpus of images is slight and iconographies are not yet “codified,” one must look as broadly as possible across surviving material culture.

45.
Hymn to Pythian Apollo
, 305–10.

46.
Ibid., 305–15. I am indebted to Nickolas Pappas for making this point.

47.
As West has shown,
Indo-European Poetry and Myth
, 253, 255–57, Zeus kills Typhon, just as Baal fights Yam and Mot in the Ugaritic Baal Cycle, just as Kumarbi fights Ullikummi in the Hurrian-Hittite
Song of Ullikummi
, and just as Marduk fights Tiamat in Babylonian myth. For dragon myths and serpent cult in the Greek and Roman worlds, see Ogden,
Drakon
.

48.
Apollodoros,
Library
1.6.3. For full discussion of Typhon, see Ogden,
Drakon
, 69–80.

49.
Hesiod,
Theogony
820.

50.
Ridgway,
Archaic Style
, 286, points to holes drilled in the upper body of the centermost demon of the Bluebeard Monster (for the attachment of snakes?) and to a scar on his chest indicating he has been wounded. Shield bands from Olympia show Typhon with multiple snakes coming out of his head and shoulders,
LIMC
8, s.v. “Typhon,” nos. 16–19.

51.
Apollodoros,
Library
1.6.3.

52.
Translation: West,
Hesiod: Theogony
, 27.

53.
Translation: ibid., 28.

54.
Acropolis no. 36. Ridgway,
Archaic Style
, 286; Boardman, “Herakles, Peisistratos, and Sons,” 71–72.

55.
Geison, Acropolis no. 4572; painted gutter, Acropolis no. 3934; painted images of water birds, Heberdey,
Altattische Porosskulptur
.

56.
Oppian,
Halieutica
3.7–8 and 3.208–9; Nonnus,
Dionysiaca
1.137–2.712.

57.
I thank Nancy Klein for helpful discussion of this point.

58.
Dörpfeld, “Parthenon I, II und III.” Claw chisel marks, identified on the foundations of the temple but not on the sculptures, have led to the conclusion that in fact the two cannot be associated, see Plommer, “Archaic Acropolis”; Beyer, “Die Reliefgiebel des alten Athena-Tempels der Akropolis”; Preisshofen,
Untersuchungen zur Darstellung des Greisenalters
. Summarized in Hurwit,
Athenian Acropolis
, 111–12; Bancroft,
Problems Concerning the Archaic Acropolis
, 50.

59.
For a complete analysis of the Hekatompedon Inscription and restoration of the text, see P. A. Butz,
The Art of the Hekatompedon Inscription and the Birth of the Stoikhedon Style
(Leiden: Brill, 2010). R. S. Stroud provides additional commentary and bibliography in “Adolph Wilhelm and the Date of the Hekatompedon Decrees,”
in
Attikai epigraphai: Praktika symposiou eis mnemen A. Wilhelm (1864–1950)
, ed. A. P. Matthaiou (Athens: Hellenike Epigraphike, 2004), 85–97. A. Stewart examines the larger context of the Hekatompedon Inscription in his study of Acropolis stratigraphy, “The Persian and Carthaginian Invasions of 480
B.C.E.
, Part 1.” See also G. Németh,
Hekatompedon: Studies in Greek Epigraphy
, vol. 1 (Debrecen: Kossuth Lajos University, Department of Ancient History, 1997).

60.
Korres, “Die Athena-Tempel auf der Akropolis”; Korres, “History of the Acropolis Monuments,” 38; Dinsmoor, “Hekatompedon on the Athenian Acropolis”; W. B. Dinsmoor Jr.,
The Propylaia to the Athenian Akropolis
(Princeton, N.J.: American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 1980), 1:28–30; Ridgway,
Archaic Style
, 283; Childs, “Date of the Old Temple of Athena on the Athenian Acropolis,” 1, 5n14.

61.
Harpokration, s.v. ‘Εκατόμπεδον, says Mnesikles and Kallikrates called the Parthenon
hekatompedon
, as did Plutarch,
Life of Perikles
13.4;
Life of Cato
5.3. See Roux, “Pourquoi le Parthénon?,” 304–5; Harris,
Treasures of the Parthenon and Erechtheion
, 2–5; C. J. Herrington,
Athena Parthenos and Athena Polias
(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1955), 13; Hurwit,
Athenian Acropolis
, 161–63. For find spots of poros sculpture, see Heberdey,
Altattische Porosskulptur.
I thank Professor Manolis Korres for discussing this point with me. See A. Stewart, “The Persian and Carthaginian Invasions of 480
B.C.E.
,” 395–402.