Page images
PDF
EPUB

had been lost before his time, but in that case the figure would obviously not have responded as she otherwise does to the Hermes, H, beside Athene's chariot. Nor can a Victory on the side of Poseidon be reconciled with the situation. He was defeated.

Great as has been the wreck of the central group, we can still in a measure realise the composition from Carrey's drawing, and the style from the torsos and fragments that remain (Pl. V.). The fragmentary body of Poseidon, M, which we possess is not only grand and true, but without it we have no means of judging how the sculptor of the Parthenon had treated the colossal figures in the very centre of his two pediments. The fragment of the breast of Athenè, L, is similarly grand and simple. The torso of the Hermes is much defaced in front, but the back has been fairly well preserved, and is, indeed, one of the best examples of the care bestowed on the invisible backs of the figures. Nature has prescribed that in man the front view shall display most fully the vital organs, and in that respect the sculptor of the Parthenon has taken her lead. He has, perhaps, gone a little further sometimes, though not in the Hermes. We have already noticed the existing torso of Poseidon's charioteer, and need only add that in Carrey's drawing there is a seamonster under her feet corresponding to the dolphins on the St. Petersburg vase. Creatures of that kind were, doubtless, impossible on the Acropolis, but how otherwise was the sculptor to indicate the pool of brackish water which Poseidon had just struck?

In our view the two contending deities were conceived as invisibly present on the Acropolis beside the actual olive tree

and pool which they had created.' Their charioteers were equally invisible and present on the Acropolis. But the figures in the two wings, consisting of interested spectators in the form of local heroes or local personifications, were not necessarily there also. To assume that they were present on the Acropolis seems a far too narrow and literal interpretation of a divine incident which affected the whole land of Attica. It is true that, according to a late version of the myth, Cecrops was present as judge, and gave his decision. in favour of Athenè. That, however, does not imply that he was on the Acropolis at the moment. As we have said, there is in the artistic composition of the pediment as a whole a strong demarcation between the great central group and the wings. No doubt this demarcation may only be meant to indicate a separation between the divine beings, by nature invisible, and the local beings. But it may mean also a separation in space.

It is now agreed that the figures B, C, D, E, F, in the left wing are Cecrops and his three daughters with the boy Erichthonios. We recognise Cecrops from the serpent, on whose coils his left hand rests. He was a being of a double nature—a man with the legs of a serpent. But the sculptor has here been content to indicate this by a serpent at his side. One of his daughters has rushed to him in alarm, casting herself on her knees, and throwing her arm round his

1 The olive tree was destroyed during the Persian sack of the Acropolis, but on the second day thereafter sent forth a shoot, says Herodotus viii. 55. Pausanias tells that on the same day a shoot two cubits long appeared (I. 26, 6, and I. 27, 2).

2 τὸν διφυῆ Κέκροπα. Anth. Gr. App. 14 (ed. Jacobs). This group of Cecrops and his daughters (B, C) remains on the Parthenon, except a fragment of the serpent which is in the British Museum.

neck. Her mantle, twisted among her feet, suggests that in her haste it had fallen and helped to throw her forward. The cause of her alarm is obvious. It was the violent contention of the two deities. Her sisters and the boy Erichthonios share her excitement, especially the sister nearest the centre, who in Carrey's drawing corresponds singularly with the so-called Iris, G, of the east pediment, both in the slightness of her figure and in her action of turning away from the centre. When we see on the east frieze a mortal standing with his back deliberately turned towards deities apparently close beside him, we know that he is unconscious of their presence, and similarly we may assume that this daughter of Cecrops was conscious only of some mysterious sound or sight. These daughters of Cecrops recall a passage of Euripides (Ion, 1163), where he mentions. a curtain at Delphi-the gift of an Athenian-on which was embroidered Cecrops and his daughters, he ending in the coils of a serpent, the whole scene apparently having been much the same as on a vase in the British Museum.1 It was a subject intimately associated with the rocks of the Acropolis.

Between this family group of Cecrops and the reclining figure in the angle, A, is a gap in the composition, but there is no proof of any figure ever having been there. Besides, there is a corresponding gap in the right wing, equally with no trace of any figure. In our judgment these two gaps are an essential part of the composition. So far as the left wing

1E 788, a vase in the form of a sphinx surmounted by a cup, on which the design is painted, Cecrops ending

in a serpent, his three daughters, and the boy Erichthonios (Hellenic Journal, viii. p. 1, pl. 73).

is concerned, we accept this gap as meant to separate the legendary family of Cecrops from A, the personification of the river Ilissos (or Cephisos) reclining in the angle; and if we could convince ourselves that the group of women and boys, P-U, in the right wing represent the family of Erechtheus, as Professor Furtwaengler has proposed, we would be content so far. The two remaining figures in the right angle, V-W, would then be, from our point of view, local personifications, possibly the Cephisos (or Ilissos) and the fountain Callirrhoè, as they have so often been called. There would thus be three orders of beings in the pediment—deities in the centre, legendary beings next them, and personifications in the immediate angles. In any case we insist on this artistic division of groups in the pediment.

From the family of Cecrops we now turn more particularly to the supposed family of Erechtheus in the right wing. In Carrey's drawing and partly also in the actual remains we recognise there a group of women and boys, P-U. One would have expected even more excitement among them since they were on the losing side. But it is hardly so. The woman Q next to Poseidon's charioteer is seated high to the front. She herself does not appear to share the same excitement as the corresponding figure F on Athenè's side, but the boy on her right side, P, has rushed impetuously to her, his right hand clasping her knee, and his mantle stretched between him and her. On her left was another boy, R, of whom we have no remains. Next comes an almost nude figure, S, sitting on the knees of a draped woman, T, who appears to be seated low on the ground, and in the act of raising her knees as if in some astonishment. Lastly, a woman, U,

[graphic][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][graphic][graphic]
« PreviousContinue »