Parthĕnon
（
Παρθενών, “the maiden's chamber”),
particularly a temple of Athené Parthenos (the virgin goddess), especially that on
the Acropolis of Athens, distinguished by the grandeur of its dimensions, the beauty of its
execution, and the splendour of its artistic adornment; so that it is usually regarded as the
most perfect specimen of Grecian architecture. There was an earlier temple of
Athené immediately to the south of the Erechtheum (see plan under
Acropolis), and the foundations of a new temple were
laid after the Persian War, probably in the time of Cimon. This temple was never completed; on
the same site there was built a temple of less length, but greater breadth, which is usually
called the Parthenon. It was built at the command of Pericles by the architects Ictinus and
Callicrates. It took about five years in building, and was finished in B.C. 438. Its further
adornment with sculptures in the pediments, and with metopes and frieze was completed under
the direction of Phidias, who himself took part in the work. The temple, built wholly of
Pentelic marble, is 65 feet high. The
στυλοβάτης, or
platform, on which the columns stand, is 228 feet in length, and 101 feet in breadth (=225 X
100 in Attic feet, giving 9:4 as the ratio of length to breadth). Under the stylobate is the
κρηπίδωμα, or basis proper, formed of three steps resting on
a massive substructure, 250 feet long and 105 feet broad, and founded on the rock at the
highest part of the plateau of the Acropolis. The temple is peripteral, its walls being
entirely surrounded by a colonnade of forty-six Doric columns, about 35 feet high, eight at
each end, and fifteen on each side. The architrave from the first was adorned with ninety-two
metopes sculptured in high relief. Shields and votive inscriptions were subsequently placed
there by Alexander the Great, in B.C. 338 (
Plut. Alex.
16). The subjects were: on the east,
 |
|
The Parthenon in 1892. (From a Photograph.)
|
the battle of the gods and giants; on the south, that of the Centaurs and Lapithae;
on the west, the victory of the Athenians over the Amazons; and on the north, the destruction
of Troy. The sculptures of the eastern pediment represented the birth of the goddess, those of
the western the strife of Athené with Poseidon for the possession of Attica. These
pediments are 93 feet long, and 11 feet 4 inches high. The
cella, or
temple proper, is 194 feet long, and 69 1/2 feet wide, with six columns at each end, 33 feet
in height. Opposite the outermost columns at each end are
antae, formed
by the prolongation of the side walls of the
cella (see plan under
Acropolis). Along the top of the outer wall of the
cella ran a continuous frieze, 524 feet in length, with representations
of the Panathenaic procession carved in very low relief. At the east end of the
cella, the
pronaos, or portico, led into the eastern chamber,
which was 100 Greek feet in length, and was therefore called the
ἑκατόμπεδος. It was divided longitudinally into three parts by
 |
|
From the Frieze of the Parthenon.
|
two rows of nine columns each, and above these was a second row of columns forming an
upper story. The central space was open to the sky (hypaethral). At its western end, under a
protecting canopy, stood the statue of the goddess, wrought in gold and ivory, the masterpiece
of Phidias (see
Athené, near the end). The
western chamber of the
cella was fronted by a portico, and was called by
the special name of the Parthenon. Within this smaller chamber were kept vessels for use in
the sacred processions, with various small articles of gold or silver. Modern writers have
hitherto generally identified this small chamber with the
ὀπισθόδομος (lit. back-chamber), which was used as the treasury, or State bank,
of Athens; but it is held by Dörpfeld that this term should be confined to the
corresponding chamber of the early temple south of the Erechtheum.
In the Middle Ages the temple was converted into a church, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and
then into a mosque, and remained in good preservation till 1687. In that
year, during the siege of Athens by the Venetians, the building was blown up by a bomb which
fell into a powder magazine that the Turks had stored there, and, with the exception of the
two pediments, it was almost completely destroyed. Most of the sculptures preserved from the
pediments and metopes, and from the frieze of the temple chamber, are now among the
Elgin Marbles (q.v.) in the British Museum. See
Michaelis,
Der Parthenon, with plates
(1875); and the Dilettanti
Society's
Athenian Architecture (2d ed. 1889). See
Athenae.
