THE EASTERN PEDIMENT OF THE

PARTHENON.

In the present paper it is attempted to prove that two of the three figures from the eastern pediment of the Parthenon, commonly called the Fates, are personifications of the sea and land, and that all the figures belonging to the angles of this pediment (in fact all the extant figures excepting one) are personifications of nature.

When we review the numerous interpretations of the eastern pediment of the Parthenon tabulated in Michaelis's Der Parthenon and in the Guide to the Sculptures of the Parthenon in the British Museum, we must hesitate before adding a twenty-second to the twenty-one already existing interpretations proffered by eminent archæologists since the year 1821.

Considering the importance of the sculptures of the Parthenon, and the fact that of all works of Greek art they are the most widely known among the public, we must fear lest the great difference of opinion which exists among archæologists as to the simple meaning of the figures may weaken the faith which the general public might have in the archæologist's exactness of knowledge and the soundness of the methods of his study.

Yet upon closer examination it will be seen that the paucity of information and data in the case of these very sculptures is proportionate to the importance which these remains of antiquity have in our eyes, and the attention which they have attracted. In every science, even the most exact, there are subjects resting upon hypotheses concerning which the authorities differ, and these subjects are often of the greatest importance and generally belong to the fundamental stages of the science.

The paucity of our information concerning these works is due to the fact (a fact never to be forgotten) that, though to us they are supreme works of Greek art, they were not to the Greeks the representative works of Pheidias, the real statues by the master; they were not temple-statues (ayáλuara) nor athlete statues, but works of architectural decoration. And accordingly, the ancient authors who devote page upon page to the description of the Olympian Zeus or the Athene

Parthenos, pass by the Metopes, the Frieze, and the Pediments of the Parthenon without a word of comment.

The two short passages in Pausanias referring to the pediments are the only written description concerning the decoration of the Parthenon which ancient writers have handed down to us.

Furthermore, the comparatively few figures and fragments from the pediments still extant (not forming in the case of the eastern pediment the central or important part of the scene represented) are deprived of the arms and hands and the attributes which they held. These attributes were, however, the plainest and most commonly understood language for indicating the special meaning of each figure. The absence of attributes in the case of pictures and statues of saints in mediæval or modern art would, I believe, make it as difficult, nay, more difficult, to recognise their individual nature, than in the case of Greek art.

As the simpler means of ascertaining the nature of the figures do not exist, we must turn to the less immediate indications with which the general progress of the study of archæology has furnished us and is rapidly supplying us in greater number, and must apply them to the existing data without overvaluing the convincing power of our conclusions, and yet with full faith in a correct method conscientiously applied.

The data concerning the eastern pediment of the Parthenon which may be considered to be definitely certain are the following: (1) There are five figures or fragments of figures belonging to the left or southern angle of the pediment, and four to the right or northern; and these are given in Carrey's drawings (1674). (2) Pausanias tells us that the front (or eastern) pediment contained a representation of the birth of Athene, as the western represented the strife between Athene and Poseidon for the Attic soil. (3) From analysis of other representations of Pheidias, such as that of the birth of Pandora on the base of the Athene Parthenos and the birth of Aphrodite on the base of the Olympian Zeus, as well as from the typical meaning of such representations in Greek art, it has been universally recognised that in the head, arms, and shoulder of the male figure rising at the left or southern angle and driving towards the centre the horses whose heads and necks appear before him, we have the sun-god Helios driving his horses; while in the descending female figure, driving the horses whose heads are just visible as they descend to the right or northern angle, we have Selene, the moon-goddess, driving her horses. (4) It is furthermore universally admitted that the centre of the composition, of which no complete figure is now extant, nor was at the time that Carrey made his drawings, contained the chief gods and goddesses, including Zeus, Athene, Hephaistos, Dionysos, Apollo, Artemis, Hermes.

Here the facts end, and what remains rests upon inference.

Of the whole of this composition but small portions remain, and these portions are the least important part. There are five figures (more or less fragmentary) of the left or southern angle of the pediment, and four figures of the right or northern angle. The whole of the centre of the pediment, containing the most important part of the composition, the action itself, is wanting, except one torso of a male figure. I do not desire to enter upon the hypothetical ground of a conjectural restoration, nor even shall I attempt a complete account and criticism of the conjectural restorations that have been made by several archæologists.

We may assume that in the centre was represented the moment immediately following the birth of Athene, in which Athene stands fully armed before her father and the admiring gods and goddesses.

Beginning at the left or south angle, the first figure is the upper part of Helios, his head, neck, arms and shoulders rising out of the water. The action as expressed in these limbs is that of energetic rising, fresh and vigorous. This powerful ascending impetus is most forcibly expressed in the upper part of this figure and in the necks and heads of the horses which he leads. As has been said, the interpretation of this figure as the sun-god Helios rising with his steeds has been disputed by no authority. The next figure towards the centre is that of a nude youthful male figure, generally called Theseus, half reclining, half-seated upon the skin of some animal spread over a rock. As we must dwell more specially upon the interpretation of this figure below, we will leave it for the present and turn to the other figures. We must, however, remain content to enumerate shortly the various names assigned to them. The two draped female figures seated side by side have been considered to be Demeter and Persephone, Peitho and Aphrodite, two daughters of Kekrops, and the two Hours guarding the gates of Olympos. The latter of these interpretations as put forward by Brunn seems to me to have most in its favour.

The next erect figure towards the centre with drapery flying in the wind, is considered by nearly all interpreters to be Iris, the fleet messenger of the gods.

Nothing more remains on this side of the pediment, though another female figure has been ascribed to it. I hold this figure, which was not found in situ, to belong to the western pediment. At all events its attribution is contested, and this is not the place to enter upon the discussion.

At the other angle we have, corresponding to Helios with his horses, the upper part of a female figure driving a horse of which but a head and neck are remaining. Here again there is no divergence of opinion that the female figure represents Selene.

The remaining three female figures have generally been supposed to form one group, and have been interpreted accordingly as either

the three Fates,' or as the three sisters, the daughters of Kekrops,2 personifying the morning dew, or finally, by Brunn, as personifications of clouds. But it appears to me beyond a doubt that the three figures do not form one group, but that the seated figure towards the centre is distinctly separated from the other two figures which belong together, and my opinion has not been altered by Mr. Watkiss Lloyd's paper on this subject which appeared in the Portfolio (April, 1883). Friedrichs was the first to recognise this separateness of the upper seated figure from the lower two; while Michaelis still holds the three figures to form one group.

In the first place, the whole action of the upper figure is directed away from the others, who, on their part, are not immediately affected by the action of the upper one, nor is their action (entirely centred within the two as it is) directed towards the upper one.

But above all, in endeavouring to recognise and appreciate such fragmentary remains of a great composition by the master sculptor, we must never lose sight of the chief features of the art of Pheidias in this case, of his composition of pedimental groups. One of these main features in the pedimental sculpture of Pheidias, is the manifest symmetry of composition obtaining between the two halves of the pediment. This symmetry, however, is not absolute, as in the purely conventional decoration of architecture; but is strongly modified by the life and variety which belongs to a work of sculpture as such. A pedimental composition is a plastic work which is to fit into and to contribute to the decoration of the architectural structure. Both these elements, the plastic as well as the constructive and decorative, have to be regarded and to receive due share in their claims to consideration, and neither must obtrude itself to the detriment of the other. The symmetrical correspondence of the two halves of the composition must not be so absolute as to rob the whole scene and the individual figures of the flow of actual life and movement, and the rhythmical variety of general distribution and grouping, as well as the attitudes and lines of single figures within the two halves of the pediment, must not be so pronounced as to suggest onesidedness in the front of an edifice in placing more figures, fuller lines, greater movement, or even deeper moral significance on either half of what is the very brow of the structure.

In studying Carrey's drawing of the western pediment this varied symmetry' shows itself clearly. We see there, for instance, how either extreme angle is symmetrical, in that it contains a river-god and a nymph, the reclining figures at either end; but this symmetry is varied and made rhythmical, in that in the one angle we have the

1 Visconti, Combe, Wilkins, Reuvens, Bröndsted, Cockerell, Millingen, Müller, Gerhard, Falkener, and Lloyd.

2 Welcker, Overbeck, Michaelis, who retains Pandrosos, but calls the two others Thallo and Karpo.

river-god first, followed by the nymph, while in the other the nymph is first, and the river-god is nearer the centre: in the one case the male figure is reclining; in the other, the female.

The same principles are clearly manifested in the remains of the eastern pediment. In perfect symmetry we here have in either angle four human figures together with horses, and the space they occupy in either half of the pediment is the same almost with mathematical accuracy. On each side we have a deity driving the horses which complete the composition at either end; then follow three figures on either side. Of these three figures, on both sides, one is reclining, and two are seated.

So far the symmetry. The same obtains in earlier compositions, such as the pediments of the temple of Athene at Ægina. But here it is that Pheidias makes a great step in advance of his predecessors, in that he breaks in upon the absolute correspondence which makes the Ægina pediments conventional, at least with regard to the composition, and introduces, within the symmetry, elements of variety and change in distribution, which give all the flow of artistic life to his symmetrical and reposeful compositions. In the left wing it is Helios who is in the extreme angle with his horses in front of him. In the right wing the horses are in the extreme angle with Selene behind them. In the one side, the figure is a man; in the other, a

woman.

The next stage after Helios and Selene, on both sides, consists of three figures. But here again is variety within symmetry. On the left side the reclining figure is male, and independent of the upper two female figures which are associated together, while on the right side the reclining figure is female and rests upon the lap of the nearest female figure above; and it is here the uppermost figure which is independent of the lower two. It may be noticed, too, that the very facts of the workmanship point to the same view. On the left, the reclining figure forms one block, and the two seated figures above are carved from another; while, on the left, it is the uppermost figure which forms one block, and the other seated figure with the one reclining in her lap are together carved from another.

Thus, from the general composition of the pediment we are driven, whichever way we look at it, to the natural conclusion that, on the right-hand side, with which we are at present concerned, the uppermost seated figure is independent, and that the lower seated figure and the one reclining in her lap are in close relationship to one another.

When once we conceive of these three female figures as not connected with each other in interest and attitude, but subdivided, so that the two towards the extremity are more closely and intimately connected with one another than they are with the third seated one, all those interpretations in which a mutual relation in meaning