"Oh You, gleaming and violet-crowned glorious Athens,
famous in songs, bulwark of Hellas, city divine!"

If the Acropolis was the voilet crown of Athens, then the Parthenon (Παρθενών), which stands on the highest point on the rock, was to become the jewel in the crown, although the Theban poet Pindar did not live to see it completed. It is the largest and finest building ever built on the Acropolis, the most important surviving Classical building in Greece, one of the most famous buildings in the world, and the main reason most visitors come to Athens.

"The temple of Minerva Parthenos is on the right after passing the propylaea, and is, without exception, the most magnificent ruin in the world, both for execution and design. Though an entire museum has been transported to England from the spoils of this temple, it remains without rival."

"Let him who denies the sublimity of Grecian architecture travel to Athens, view the ruins of the Parthenon, and be silent."

Two other large temples are thought to have previously stood on this part of the Acropolis, the identification, location and history of which are still being debated. The first may have been the temple referred to by ancient authors as the Hekatompedon (ἑκατόμπεδος, Hekatompedos, hundred-footer), although the length of the building may not have been exactly 100 Attic feet (32.8 metres). It has been also referred to by modern historians as the "Parthenon 1", "UrParthenon" (Primal Parthenon), "Bluebeard temple" or, less romantically, "Building H".

It is thought to have been built of limestone around 570-550 BC (later according to some theories), and has been associated with the establishment of the Great Panathenaia festival in 566/565 BC, during the archonship of the aristocrat Hippokleides. Several sculptures believed to be from this temple are now in the Acropolis Museum (see below).

The German archaeologist Wilhelm Dörpfeld believed that the foundations to the south of the Erechtheion belong to the Hekatompedon (see the site marked "Early temple of Athena" on the plan of the Acropolis on gallery page 2 and the photo at the top of gallery page 18), although the prevailing theory is that they belong to the Archaic Temple of Athena Polias which was later replaced by the Erechtheion.

The first temple was replaced by a larger temple, named the "Pre-Parthenon" or "Parthenon 2" by archaeologists. It stood on the same spot as the Parthenon, and part of its foundations can still be seen beneath the south side of the Classical temple. Construction was begun shortly after the Battle of Marathon (490 BC), but had not been completed by the time of the Persian invasion of Xerxes in 480-479 BC, when the buildings on the Acropolis were burnt down (see the model of the Acropolis as it may have appeared in 480 BC on gallery page 2).

After the Persians had been defeated at the Battle of Salamis (480 BC) and the Battle of Plataea (479 BC), and finally driven out of Greece, the Athenians vowed not to rebuild the destroyed buildings on the Acropolis. The city economy recovered and grew, partly due to sources of revenue such as the silver mines at Lavrion in southern Attica, as well as the tribute money Athens received as leader of the Delian League from other Greek member states. In 454 BC the Athenians transferred the treasury of the league from Delos to Athens.

The statesman Pericles (Περικλῆς, circa 495-429 BC), the most influential politician in democratic Athens around 461-429 BC, persuaded the Athenians to use a great deal of their new wealth for an ambitious building programme on the Acropolis, including the construction of the Erechtheion, the Propylaia, the Temple of Athena Nike and the Parthenon, as well as a large number of statues and other sculptures.

A marble akroterion statue of a panther (or leopard) sits above the relief-decorated sima (gutter), which ends with a spiral akroterion (see photo below). Fragments of two such panthers have been restored and are now in the Acropolis Museum (Inv. Nos. 552 and 554). The cats' spots are made up of two incised concentric circles around a central dot, similar to the eyes of the lion's head above. Schrader was also responsible for the reconstruction of the fragments of a Gorgon statue as the central akroterion of the pediment (see photo above).

Source: Hans Schrader, Archaische Marmor-Skulpturen im Akropolis-Museum zu Athen,
Fig. 13. Österreichisches Archäologisches Institut. A. Hölder, Wien, 1909. At the Internet Archive.

Pronaos (before the temple), the front porch at the east end of the Parthenon, from which a large doorway led into the cella.

Hekatampedos Naos, the cella or main chamber, in which stood the colossal statue of Athena Parthenos (see below). In the Classical period it was still referred to as the Hekatampedos (ἑκατόμπεδος, hundred-footer) after the Archaic temple (see above).

Parthenon (Παρθενών, Apartment of the Virgin), the smaller western chamber, used as a treasury in which sacred objects and the financial contributions of the Delian League were stored. The roof was supported by four tall Ionic columns. There was no doorway connecting the two chambers.

The colossal chryselephantine (gold and ivory) statue of Athena Parthenos (Ἀθηνᾶ Παρθένος, Athena the Virgin) was made by Pheidias [4] between around 447 and 438 BC. Pieces of ivory were formed into sheets [5] and sculpted, then fitted like pieces of a three-dimensional puzzle over a wooden framework, possibly made of cypress purchased from Karpathos. Other parts of the statue were covered with gold sheets. The finished work, which stood on a rectangular base, is estimated to have been 11.5 metres tall.

The Greek travel writer Pausanias, who visited Athens in the mid 2nd century AD, gave the most extensive description of the statue of Athena Parthenos in the Parthenon:

"The statue itself is made of ivory and gold. On the middle of her helmet is placed a likeness of the Sphinx... and on either side of the helmet are griffins in relief...

The statue of Athena is upright, with a tunic reaching to the feet, and on her breast the head of Medusa is worked in ivory. She holds a statue of Victory about four cubits high, and in the other hand a spear; at her feet lies a shield and near the spear is a serpent. This serpent would be Erichthonius.

On the pedestal is the birth of Pandora in relief. Hesiod and others have sung how this Pandora was the first woman; before Pandora was born there was as yet no womankind."

Pausanias, Description of Greece, Book 1, chapter 24, sections 5-7. At Perseus Digital Library.

Strangely, Pausanias did not mention the name of the sculptor who made the statue, although elsewhere he mentioned other statues in Athens which he related were made by Pheidias. Although he described the goddess as a holding a spear in her left hand, the Varvakeion and Lenormant replicas (see below) show her holding a shield which shelters the large serpent. Modern attempts at reconstructing the statue show the spear standing between her and the shield, with the top resting on her left shoulder.

Around the beginning of the 3rd century BC, the Athenian demagogue Lachares (Λαχάρης, died around 294 BC), an ally of King Cassander of Macedonia, became the tyrant at Athens and is said to have plundered the statue of its gold and precious ornaments. He was deposed with the help of Demetrios Poliorketes, one of Cassander's successors, but fled to Koroneia (Κορώνεια), Boeotia where he was murdered.

"Lachares took golden shields from the Acropolis, and stripped even the statue of Athena of its removable ornament; he was accordingly suspected of being a very wealthy man, and was murdered by some men of Coronea for the sake of this wealth."

Pausanias, Description of Greece, Book 1, chapter 25, sections 7-8. At Perseus Digital Library.

The "Athena Lenormant" (or Lenormant Athena) statuette has been dated by some scholars to the 1st century AD, while others believe it was made in the 2nd or 3rd century. It is named after the French archaeologist Charles Lenormant (1802-1859), who first identified it as a replica of the Athena Parthenos statue by Pheidias in 1859.

After its discovery, the statuette had been deposited in the Temple of Hephaistos (the Hephaisteion), which was then still known as the Theseion and used as a provisional museum 1834-1934 for the rapidly growing number of archaeological finds. Lenormant noticed it while visiting the temple with his son François Lenormant (1837-1883), who had accompanied him to Greece, and is said to have immediately recognized its importance. He informed the Greek government of his discovery, and Kyriakos Pittakis, Ephor of antiquities (see gallery page 12), arranged to have the sculpture photographed by the Athenian photographer Calphas.

Charles Lenormant caught a fever and died in Athens in November of the same year, and his son wrote the first description of the statuette in his article La Minerve du Parthenon, published in the Gazette de Beaux Arts in 1860.

François Lenormant, La Minerve du Parthenon. Reprint of the article in French, published by L'Imprimerie de Jules Clave, Paris, 1860. At Google Books.

The "Varvakeion statuette" of Athena Parthenos, a miniature replica of the Parthenon statue.

First half of the 3rd century AD. Found in 1880 near the Varvakeion School,
in the suburb of Psychiko, Athens. Pentelic marble. Height with base 104.5 cm.

National Archaeological Museum, Athens. Inv. No. 129.

Much more finely sculpted than the Lenormant statuette, this work was highly polished and painted with bright colours such as red and yellow, traces of which have survived. The sculptor concentrated more on the details of the figures of Athena, Nike and the snake, and did not concern himself with the narrative reliefs on the shield or base.

Athena's face appears rather masculine, with a broad, flat nose, and large, square chin. Her neck and arms are also quite thick. She wears an Attic helmet with three crests, the largest central crest is supported by a sphinx, and each of the two side crests is supported by a pegasus (winged horse). The cheek pieces of the helmet are raised. Hair tresses fall from behind the head onto the front of the shoulders, over which she wears the aegis, decorated around the edges with curled snakes, and fastened at the front by a Gorgoneion fibula. Her peplos is girted at the waist by a belt of two snakes knotted together. Her weight is on the right leg, and her left leg is bent so that her knee presses against the pleated peplos. Her toes and thick-soled sandals peep out from below the peplos.

The fragment was acquired in Athens by the British politican Percy Clinton Sydney Smythe, 6th Viscount Strangford (1780-1855), one of the antiquities he collected while British ambassador to Ottoman Turkey, 1820-1824. It was purchased by the British Museum in 1864 from Percy Smythe, the 8th Viscount Strangford.

During the Roman period many copies were made of Pheidias' colossal chryselephantine (gold and ivory) statue of Athena Parthenos. The "Strangford Shield" is the only surviving part of one of these replicas. Traces of the original paint have survived. In the centre is a Gorgoneion, the head of the Gorgon Medusa. Only the front of this shield has a relief, the back is blank. Ancient authors indicate that the outside of the original shield showed an Amazonomachy (battle between Greeks and Amazons), and the inside a Gigantomachy (battle between gods and the Giants). A handful of similar fragments of such shields have also survived [6].

The head, right shoulder, arms and part of the statuette's right foot are now missing. To the right of the figure stands the shield, inside which can be seen the remains of the Erechthonian serpent. On the front of the surviving fragments of the shield itself are part of the relief of the Amazonomachy and the Gorgoneion in the centre (see photo below).

Athena springs "fully armed", with spear and shield, from the head of Zeus. Present to assist and cheer on with music are (left - right): Hermes, Apollo, Eileithyia (goddess of birth) and Ares. Beneath Zeus' throne is a winged figure, perhaps Nike.

Apollo plays his lyre and Zeus clutches his thunderbolt. Ares carries a shield decorated with a Gorgoneion (the head of the Gorgon Medusa, a symbol which was also to become associated with Athena, and which she is often shown wearing on her breast.

Source: lithograph made by A. Ray for Kaeppelin & Co. Published in Elite des monuments céramographiques: matériaux pour l'histoire des religions et des moeurs de l'antiquité by Charles Lenormant (1802-1859). Leleux, Paris, 1844-1861.

Zeus, enthroned with sceptre and thunderbolt, recovers from having his head split open with a double-headed axe by Hephaistos (left), so that Athena could spring out. Nike Flies to crown the newly-born, fully-armed Athena. To the right are the three Fates: Klotho, Lachesis and Atropos.

"When by the craft of Hephaistos, by the blow of the bronze axe, Athena sprang forth from the crown of her father's head and cried aloud with a mighty shout, and Ouranos (Heaven) and Mother Gaia (Earth) shuddered before her."

Pindar, Olympian Ode 7, lines 36-38.

"I begin to sing of Pallas Athena, the glorious goddess, bright-eyed, inventive, unbending of heart, pure virgin, saviour of cities, courageous, Tritogeneia.

Wise Zeus himself bare her from his awful head, arrayed in warlike arms of flashing gold, and awe seized all the gods as they gazed. But Athena sprang quickly from the immortal head and stood before Zeus who holds the aegis, shaking a sharp spear.

Great Olympus began to reel horribly at the might of the bright-eyed goddess, and earth round about cried fearfully, and the sea was moved and tossed with dark waves, while foam burst forth suddenly.

The bright Son of Hyperion stopped his swift-footed horses a long while, until the maiden Pallas Athena had stripped the heavenly armour from her immortal shoulders. And wise Zeus was glad.

And so hail to you, daughter of Zeus who holds the aegis! Now I will remember you and another song as well."

Homeric Hymn 28. To Athena.