The Parthenon Enigma (67 page)

PROLOGUE

1.
See R. K. Sutton,
Americans Interpret the Parthenon: The Progression of Greek Revival Architecture from the East Coast to Oregon, 1800
–
1860
(Niwot: University Press of Colorado, 1992). William Strickland consciously modeled the Second Bank of the United States (1818–1824) in Philadelphia on the Parthenon, directly copying architectural details from Stuart and Revett’s
Antiquities of Athens
, 2: plates 1–9. Strickland painted palmettes on the underside of the entablature, rather than having them carved, because that is how they appear in Stuart and Revett’s plates;
Antiquities of Athens
, 2: plate 6. The Philadelphia Museum of Art is commonly called “the Parthenon on the Parkway” and its location “the Acropolis of Philadelphia”; indeed, it faithfully follows optical refinements used on the Parthenon itself. See L. Haselberger, “Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Curvatures in Europe and North America: A Preliminary List,” in
Appearance and Essence: Refinements of Classical Architecture: Curvature
, ed. L. Haselberger (Philadelphia: University Museum, University of Pennsylvania, 1999), 310–11. For an excellent overview, see P. Tournikiotis, “The Place of the Parthenon in the History and Theory of Modern Architecture,” in Tournikiotis,
Parthenon
, 202–29.

2.
Winckelmann,
Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums
, 26, 316. The book became an instant classic, directly influencing the views of Lessing, Herder, Goethe, Hölderlin, Heine, Nietzsche, and others. See E. Décultot,
Johann Joachim Winckelmann: Enquête sur la genèse de l’histoire de l’art
(Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2000); J. Morrison,
Winckelmann and the Notion of Aesthetic Education
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996); R. Herzog,
Von Winckelmann zu Schliemann: Eine Anthologie mit Beiträgen zur Geschichte der Archäologie
(Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 1994); A. Potts,
Flesh and the Ideal: Winckelmann and the Origins of Art History
(New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1994).

3.
Johann Hermann von Riedesel,
Remarques d’un voyageur moderne au Levant
(Amsterdam, 1773), 123 (reprint Charleston, S.C.: Nabu Press, 2012).

4.
Bastea,
Creation of Modern Athens
, 102.

5.
Ibid.; Beard,
Parthenon
, 99–100; Hamilakis,
Nation and Its Ruins
, 58–63; D. W. J. Gill and C. Gill, “HMS
Belvidera
and the Temple of Minerva,”
Notes and Queries
57 (2010): 209.

6.
Bastea,
Creation of Modern Athens
, 102–3, with reference to A. Meliarakes, “Ceremony on the Acropolis of Athens,”
Hestia
18, no. 447 (1884).

7.
Leo von Klenze,
Ideale Ansicht der Akropolis und des Areopag in Athen
(1846), purchased by Ludwig I (who had already resigned as king) in 1852; now in the Neue Pinakothek in Munich.

8.
Bastea,
Creation of Modern Athens
, 103; Yalouri,
Acropolis
, 34–38, 77–100; J. Tanner,
The Invention of Art History in Ancient Greece
(Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 31–96; Squire,
Art of the Body
, 1–68; Mallouchou-Toufano, “From Cyriacos to Boissonas,” 178–96.

9.
Society of Antiquaries of Scotland,
Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland XXII
(Edinburgh: Neill, 1888), 64. See also M. Lynch, ed.,
The Oxford Companion to Scottish History
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001); National Register of Archives (Scotland),
National Monument of Scotland
(Edinburgh: National Register of Archives [Scotland], 1997); W. Mitchell,
The National Monument to Be Completed for the Scottish National Gallery on the Model of the Parthenon at Athens: An Appeal to the Scottish People
(London: Adam and Charles Black, 1907).

10. For Walhalla, see H. Stellner and D. Hiley, trans.,
Walhalla: Official Guide
(Regensburg: Bernhard Bosse, 2002); H. Hanske and J. Traeger,
Walhalla: Ruhmestempel an der Donau
(Regensburg: Bernhard Bosse, 1998); A. Müller,
Donaustauf und Walhalla
(Ratisbon: G. J. Manz, 1846). For Nashville, see C. Kreyling, W. Paine, C. W. Warterfield Jr., and S. F. Wiltshire,
Classical Nashville: Athens of the South
(Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1996); C. K. Coleman, “From Monument to Museum: The Role of the Parthenon in the Culture of the New South,”
Tennessee Historical Quarterly
49 (1990): 139–51; Tsakirgis and Wiltshire,
Nashville Athena;
B. F. Wilson,
The Parthenon of Pericles and Its Reproduction in America
(Nashville: Parthenon Press, 1937).

11.
E. Gombrich,
The Story of Art
(London: Phaidon Press, 1950), 52. See Spivey,
Understanding Greek Sculpture
, 19–29; Squire,
Art of the Body
, 33–53.

12.
D. Buitron-Oliver,
The Greek Miracle
(Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1992). The phrase “the Greek miracle” was first used by the Swiss archaeologist Wildemar Deonna,
L’archéologie: Sa valeur, ses méthodes
(Paris: H. Laurens, 1912), 81. See also A. de Ridder and W. Deonna,
Art in Greece
(New York: Knopf, 1927), 350–54; W. Deonna, “Du ‘miracle grec’ au ‘miracle chrétien’: Classiques et primitifs dans l’art antique,”
L’Antiquité Classique
6 (1937): 181–230; W. Deonna,
Du miracle grec au miracle chrétien: Classiques et primitivistes dans l’art
, 3 vols. (Basel: Les Éditions Birkhæuser, 1945–1948).

13.
H. Baker,
Cecil Rhodes, by His Architect
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1934), 10.

14.
K. Marx,
Grundrisse
, trans. M. Nicolaus (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973), 110–11; Kondaratos, “Parthenon as Cultural Ideal,” 45–49.

15.
A. Scobie,
Hitler’s State Architecture: The Impact of Classical Antiquity
, Monographs on the Fine Arts 45 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1990); C. C. Graham,
A Historical and Aesthetic Analysis of Leni Riefen- stahl’s Olympia
(Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms, 1985); M. Mazower,
Inside Hitler’s Greece: The Experience of Occupation, 1941–44
; S. Marchand,
Down from Olympus: Archaeology and Philhellenism in Germany, 1750–1970.

16.
S. Freud, “A Disturbance of Memory on the Acropolis” (1936), published in an open letter to Romain Rolland on the occasion of Rolland’s seventieth birthday, 1936, especially line 247: “Our father had been in business, he had had no secondary education, and Athens could not have meant much to him.”

17.
B. Johnson, “Curator Afraid of Losing His Marbles,”
Daily Telegraph
, July 1, 1998, 34.

18.
Dodwell,
Classical and Topographical Tour Through Greece
, 1:321. For E. Dodwell, see J. McK. Camp, et al.,
In Search of Greece: Catalogue of an Exhibit of Drawings at the British Museum by Edward Dodwell and Simone Pomardi from the Collection of the Packard Humanities Institute
(Los Altos, Calif.: The Packard Humanities Institute, 2013).

19.
A. de Lamartine,
Voyage en Orient
, 2 vols. (Paris: Nizet, 1855; offset reprint, 1978), 1:95.

20.
E. E. Viollet-le-Duc,
Dictionnaire raisonné de l’architecture française
(Paris: Bance, 1854–1868); S. Kondaratos, “The Parthenon as Cultural Icon,” in Μαθήματα ιστορία της αρχιτεκτονικής [Lessons on the history of architecture] (Athens, 1975), 2:209.

21.
Le Corbusier,
Journey to the East
, ed. I. Žaknić (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1987), 166, 179, 216–17. For Le Corbusier, the Parthenon “marked the apogee of this pure creation of the mind”; see C. E. Jeanneret,
Vers une architecture
(Paris: G. Crès, 1923), especially 105–11, 166, 179–181.

22.
Kaldellis,
Christian Parthenon
, 26–27; Korres, “Parthenon from Antiquity to the 19th Century,” 140–43.

23.
Korres, “Parthenon from Antiquity to the 19th Century,” 143–44. By this
time, Pheidias’s statue of Athena Parthenos was long gone. In 295
B.C.
, the tyrant of Athens, Lachares, cut off parts of the statue’s gold robe to pay his army (when threatened by Demetrios of Macedon’s assault on Athens). See Plutarch,
Moralia
379c–d; Athenaios,
Deipnosophists
9.405; Pausanias,
Description of Greece
1.25.7, 1.29.16; Habicht,
Athens from Alexander to Antony
, 81–87; W. B. Dinsmoor, “The Repair of the Athena Parthenos,”
AJA
38 (1934): 93; Leipen,
Athena Parthenos
, 10.

24.
Korres, “Parthenon from Antiquity to the 19th Century,” 146–48; Kaldellis,
Christian Parthenon
, 27–29.

25.
T. E. Mommsen, “The Venetians in Athens and the Destruction of the Parthenon in 1687,”
AJA
45 (1941): 544–56; C. Hadziaslani,
Morosini, the Venetians, and the Acropolis
(Athens: American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 1987); C. Hadziaslani, “Morosini in Athens,” in
Archaeology of the City of Athens
,
http://www.eie.gr/archaeologia/En/chapter_more_8.aspx
.

26.
And all that the word “ruin” entails. Efforts to connect with the fragmentary structure, to transform it, and to even make it whole again, began immediately and continue to this day. See Hamilakis,
Nation and Its Ruins
, 243–301. I thank Yannis Hamilakis for helpful discussions of these issues.

27.
R. Ousterhout, “Bestride the Very Peak of Heaven: The Parthenon After Antiquity,” in Neils,
Parthenon
, 322–24, explains how the little mosque must have been built after 1699, when the French ambassador Comte de Ferriol visited the Acropolis. He suggests it might have been part of repairs made in 1708. The mosque appears for the first time in drawings made in 1755 by J. D. Le Roy. See also Korres, “Parthenon from Antiquity to the 19th Century,” 155–56; M. Korres, “The Pronaos,” in
Study for the Restoration of the Parthenon
(Athens: Ministry of Culture, Committee for the Preservation of the Acropolis Monuments, 1989), 2a:55–56.

28.
Aristotle,
Politics
3.1279b.

29.
For a history of the Acropolis Restoration Service (CCAM), see Toganidis, “Parthenon Restoration Project”; Mallouchou-Tufano, “Thirty Years of Anastelosis Works on the Athenian Acropolis”; Mallouchou-Tufano, Η Αναστύλωση των Αρχαίων Μνημείων; Mallouchou-Tufano, “History of Interventions on the Acropolis”; Mallouchou-Tufano, “Restoration Work on the Acropolis”; Korres,
Study for the Restoration of the Parthenon
.

30.
Korres, “Der Pronaos und die Fenster des Parthenon”; M. Korres, “Acropole,”
Chronique des Fouilles en 1985, BCH
110 (1986): 673–76; Korres, “Recent Discoveries on the Acropolis”; Korres, “Architecture of the Parthenon”; Korres, “History of the Acropolis Monuments”; Korres, “Parthenon from Antiquity to the 19th Century”; Korres, Panetsos, and Seki,
Parthenon
, 68–73; Korres, “Die klassische Architektur und der Parthenon”; Koutsadelis,
Dialogues on the Acropolis;
Korres,
From Pentelicon to the Parthenon;
Korres,
Stones of the Parthenon;
Ridgway, “Images of Athena on the Akropolis,” 125.

31.
See, among many others, I. Hodder,
Entangled: An Archaeology of the Relationships Between Humans and Things
(Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012); J. Assman,
Cultural Memory and Early Civilization: Writing, Remembrance, and Political Imagination
(Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2011); R. Hannah,
Time in Antiquity
(London: Routledge, 2009); L. Meskell and R. W. Preucel,
A Companion to Social Archaeology
(Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2006); Brown and Hamilakis,
The Usable Past
; A. Wylie,
Thinking from Things: Essays in the Philosophy of Archaeology
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002); Van Dyke and S. Alcock,
Archaeologies of Memory
; A. Gell,
Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998); A. Schnapp,
The Discovery of the Past
, 2nd ed. (London: British Museum Press, 1996); C. Renfrew and E. B. W. Zubrow,
The Ancient Mind: Elements of Cognitive Archaeology
(Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1994); Tilley,
Phenomenology of Landscape;
J. Gero and M. Conkey,
Engendering Archaeology: Women and Prehistory
(Oxford: Basil Blackwell,
1991); Connerton,
How Societies Remember
; C. Renfrew,
The Archaeology of Cult: The Sanctuary at Phylakopi
(London: British School of Archaeology at Athens, 1985); P. Vidal Naquet,
The Black Hunter: Forms of Thought and Forms of Society in the Greek World
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986); L. Gernet,
The Anthropology of Ancient Greece
, trans. J. Hamilton and B. Nagy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981); Vernant,
Myth and Thought
; Vernant,
Myth and Society;
M. M. Austin and P. Vidal-Naquet,
A Social and Economic History of Greece
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980).

32.
The bibliography on Greek religion is vast and ever growing. Essential reading includes A. Chaniotis, “Greek Religion,” in
Oxford Bibliographies Online: Clas- sics
,
http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195389661/obo-9780195389661-0058.xml
; R. Parker,
On Greek Religion
(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2011); Sourvinou-Inwood,
Athenian Myths and Festivals;
H. Bowden,
Mystery Cults of the Ancient World
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2010); J. N. Bremmer and A. Erskine, eds.,
The Gods of Ancient Greece: Identities and Transformations
(Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010); Kearns,
Ancient Greek Religion;
V. M. Warrior,
Greek Religion: A Sourcebook
(Newburyport, Mass.: Focus, 2009); S. I. Johnston,
Ancient Greek Divination
(Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008); J. N. Bremmer,
Greek Religion and Culture, the Bible, and the Ancient Near East
(Leiden: Brill, 2008); Ogden,
Companion to Greek Religion;
Connelly,
Portrait of a Priestess;
R. Parker,
Polytheism and Society at Athens
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); H. Bowden,
Classical Athens and the Delphic Oracles: Divination and Democracy
(Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2005); J. D. Mikalson,
Ancient Greek Religion
(Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2005); Sourvinou-Inwood,
Tragedy and Athenian Religion;
Buxton,
Oxford Readings in Greek Religion
; C. Sourvinou-Inwood, “What Is Polis Religion?,” in Buxton,
Oxford Readings in Greek Religion
, 13–37, originally published in
The Greek City: From Homer to Alexander
, ed. O. Murray and S. R. F. Price (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 295–322; S. R. F. Price,
Religions of the Ancient Greeks
(Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1999); Calame,
Choruses of Young Women;
Parker,
Athenian Religion;
Kearns, “Order, Interaction, Authority”; F. T. van Straten,
Hiera Kala: Images of Animal Sacrifice in Archaic and Classical Greece
(Leiden: Brill, 1995); Bremmer,
Greek Religion;
M. Detienne and J.-P. Vernant,
The Cuisine of Sacrifice
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989); L. B. Zaidman and P. S. Pantel,
Religion in the Ancient Greek City
, trans. P. Cartledge (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1992); H. S. Versnel,
Inconsistencies in Greek and Roman Religion
(Leiden: Brill, 1990); P. E. Easterling and J. V. Muir, eds.,
Greek Religion and Society
(Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1985); W. Burkert,
Greek Religion
, trans. J. Raffan (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985); P. Veyne,
Did the Greeks Believe in Their Myths?
, trans. P. Wissing (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988); Simon,
Festivals of Attica;
Vernant,
Myth and Thought;
Vernant,
Myth and Society;
D. G. Rice and J. E. Stambaugh,
Sources for the Study of Greek Religion
(Missoula, Mont.: Society of Biblical Literature, 1979).