"Just look at pictures of the Amazons..." -Aristophanes, Lysistrata  

                       Architecture: Civic Art

        Unlike vase paintings, which were viewed mainly within the context of private domestic life, architecture was a visible entity in public affairs.  Through architecture and the sculptures which decorated buildings, the political figures who commissioned their constructions could convey the ideas they wanted to dominate their society.
        Three instances of this will be investigated.  First the program of the Athenian treasury at Delphi, then the Parthenon and Stoa Poikile followed by a look at the Temple of Apollo at Bassae. 


 The Athenian Treasury at Delphi:  To view image, click  here

         Figure A is a picture of the Athenian treasury at Delphi, it was constructed probably between 507 and 505 BCE by Cleisthenes, perhaps as a tribute for the liberation from tyranny and the onset of democracy.  It was originally constructed out of Parian marble, in a classical temple form.  At the anterior there are two main columns framed by three narrow ledges which echo the three steps of the crepidoma.  The dimensions of the edifice are relatively small; approximately 22 by 32 feet and 24 feet high.  Triglyph friezes decorate the area above the columns.  Originally these friezes consisted of a total of thirty metopes; nine on each of the long sides and six on each of the short sides.  Each side of the building had a specific frieze which set off the one on the opposite side while corresponding in some way to the other, adjacent friezes.  The frieze on the south side depicted the exploits of Theseus, an interesting contrast with the metopes of the north side which portrayed Heracles.  The west side showed the geryonomachy; the east side the amazonomachy, combining both Heracles and Theseus in the battles.  Now the friezes are poorly preserved; only a few ambiguous sculptures remain.
        Figure B shows an Amazon falling at the attack of a Greek warrior; further description of the scene is difficult due to the state of metope fragment.
        Similarly, the state of Figure C does not allow for detailed description.  It is the battle between Heracles and Cycnus.


the Parthenon and Stoa Poikile:  (unfortunately I could not find sufficient images to accompany the description, due to the high degree of ruination of these works)

          Designed supposedly by architects Callicrates and Ictinus, construction of the Parthenon started around 447 B.C.E. in commemoration of the city's patron goddess Athena, but today not much is well-preserved.  It was an unconventional temple for its time, deviating greatly from the traditional Doric architectural order.  For example, instead of having two columns in the antis (as in the treasury at Delphi); it possessed four.
         On the inside of the temple, a cella of the Panathenaic Procession decorated the walls.   Originally metopes encircled the outside of the whole shrine.  On one side; the centauromachy was portrayed, opposite was the amazonomachy.  On another side the sack of Troy, and opposite the battle between the gods and the giants.  The sculptor credited is Phidias.
          The friezes are thought to have had great symbolic significance.  In The Rise and Fall of Athens, Plutarch mentions:

                     ...in the relief of the battle of the Amazons, which is represented on the

                                    shield of the goddess, he carved a figure representing himself as a bald

                                    old man, lifting up a stone with both hands... he introduced a particularly

                                    fine likeness of Pericles fighting an Amazon.  The position of the hand,

                                     which holds a spear in front of Pericle's face, seems to have been

                                    ingeniously contrived to conceal the resemblance, but it can still be seen

                                    quite plainly from either side.


         Unfortunately, trying to make sense out of what is left seems an almost futile task, hardly anything remains.
            The Stoa Poikile (painted portico) of Athens was commissioned slightly earlier.  It was funded in 460 BCE, by Peisianax, the brother of Cimon (controversial leader of Athens at the time, constantly switching between leadership and exile) to help him reclaim power.  The painter, Polygnotus painted a mural consisting of four elements.  It depicted: the Battle of Marathon, led by Theseus but not excluding a significant representation of Miltiades, father of Cimon; a portrayal of the conquering of the Amazons by the Athenians again led by Theseus; the Greeks after capturing Troy; and the battle between the Athenians and the Spartans.  


Temple of Apollo at Bassae:  To view images, click  here .
      Figure D is a photograph of the remains of the temple.  This temple was probably started slightly later than the the Parthenon.  Although outside Attica, it is thought to have been part of the Athenian program.  It is attributed to the same Parthenon architects.
         The unique characteristic of the shrine was that the friezes, instead of being split up into opposing metopes on the outside of the building, encircled solely the inside chamber in an almost continuous progression.
         The alleged starting point for this movement was an image of Apollo and Artemis coming to the aid of the Lapiths during the centauromachy.  It continues into a portrayal of an amazonomachy with both Theseus and Heracles as the legendary Greek heroes.
            Figures E and F are both metopes of Amazons engaged in battles.  The sculptures are extremely stylistic representations of the human body.  The Greeks actively dominate the scenes and the Amazons are portrayed in submission and defeat.  Their bodies are highly eroticized; they wear transparent cloaks which reveal the details of their anatomies.

            The societal symbolism of these works is perhaps slightly easier to grasp than those of the vase painting.  These constructions were monumental displays of the dominant political ideology of the age; Athenian propaganda.
            In the first case, of the Athenian treasury at Delphi, Amazons were compared with the monster Geryon; both literal monsters that Heracles and Theseus had to overcome as well as political obstacles for the political leaders which ruled at the time.  They (the monsters) were offset, polarized and separated from the representations of the heroes; Theseus and Heracles.
            The same seems to be true in the Parthenon and Stoa Poikile mural, using slightly different mediums of artistic fable; a centauromachy instead of a battle with the geryon and the virtues of the Athenians represented by victorious battle against the Spartans.
            In both of these cases, the duty at hand seems to be the elimination of the perceived threat of foreigners.  The enemies are represented as monstrous barbarians in the Delphic Frieze.  They were marked off from the Greek heroes in terms of physical space occupied.  In the Parthenon friezes and Stoa Poikile, specific battles were differentiated and compared to those of myths, but all with sharp boundaries.
            The temple at Bassae, provides an interesting variation on these themes.  The enemies and heroes are perpetually engaged in combat with each other; there are no clear dividers.  Some scholars have suggested that this represents the transition of the concept of the enemy in Greek thought.  It started as the barbarian foreigner to be guarded against and gradually changed into the civic threats within the polis which required constant resistance in the interest of political maintenance.
            Wherever the meaning of the work lies, it is evident that Amazons were used as powerful symbolic tools in the type of media that existed in Classical Greece. 

NEXT