Age shakes Athena's tower, but spares gray Marathon.
<xtifr> Athena Desktop Environment! In your hearts, you *know* it's the right choice! :) * Knghtbrd THWAPS xtifr
"Anything created must necessarily be inferior to the essence of the creator." -- Claude Shouse (shouse@macomw.ARPA) "Einstein's mother must have been one heck of a physicist." -- Joseph C. Wang (joe@athena.mit.edu)
Glaube nur, du hast viel gethan / Wenn dir Geduld gewohnest an=--Assure yourself you have accomplished no small feat if only you have learned patience. _Goethe._ [Greek: Glauk' Athenaze]--Owls to Athens.
After rounding the east end of the terrace wall, the Sacred Way turns northward, leaving the Great Altar, dedicated by the Chians, on the left. After passing the altar, it turns to the left again at right angles, and so enters the space in front of the temple. Remains of offerings found in this region include those dedicated by the Cyrenians and by the Corinthians. The site of the temple itself carries the remains of successive structures. Of that built by the Alcmaeonids in the 6th century B.C. considerable remains have been found, some in the foundations of the later temple and some lying where they were thrown by the earthquake. The sculptures found have been assigned to this building, probably to the gables, as they are archaic in character, and show a remarkable resemblance to the sculptures from the pediment of the early temple of Athena at Athens. The existing foundations are these of the temple built in the 4th century. They give no certain information as to the sacred cleft and other matters relating to the oracle. Though there are great hollow spaces in the structure of the foundations, these appear merely to have been intended to save material, and not to have been put to any religious or other use. Up in the north-eastern corner of the precinct, standing at the foot of the cliffs, are the remains of the interesting Cnidian Lesche or Clubhouse. It was a long narrow building accessible only from the south, and the famous paintings were probably disposed around the walls so as to meet in the middle of the north side. Some scanty fragments of the lower part of the frescoed walls have survived; but they are not enough to give any information as to the work of Polygnotus. Entry: A
The goddess of war develops into the goddess of peace and the pursuits connected with it. She is prominent as the promoter of agriculture in Attic legend. The Athenian hero Erechtheus (Erichthonius), originally an earth-god, is her foster-son, with whom she was honoured in the Erechtheum on the Acropolis. Her oldest priestesses, the dew-sisters--Aglauros, Herse, Pandrosos--signify the fertilization of the earth by the dew, and were probably at one time identified with Athena, as surnames of whom both Aglauros and Pandrosos are found. The story of the voluntary sacrifice of the Attic maiden Aglauros on behalf of her country in time of war (commemorated by the ephebi taking the oath of loyalty to their country in her temple), and of the leap of the three sisters over the Acropolis rock (see ERECHTHEUS), probably points to an old human sacrifice. Athena also gave the Athenians the olive-tree, which was supposed to have sprung from the bare soil of the Acropolis, when smitten by her spear, close to the horse (or spring of water) produced by the trident of Poseidon, to which he appealed in support of his claim to the lordship of Athens. She is also connected with Poseidon in the legend of Erechtheus, not as being in any way akin to the former in nature or character, but as indicating the contest between an old and a new religion. This god, whose worship was introduced into Athens at a later date by the Ionian immigrants, was identified with Erechtheus-Erichthonius (for whose birth Athena was in a certain sense responsible), and thus was brought into connexion with the goddess, in order to effect a reconciliation of the two cults. Athena was said to have invented the plough, and to have taught men to tame horses and yoke oxen. Various arts were attributed to her--shipbuilding, the goldsmith's craft, fulling, shoemaking and other branches of industry. As early as Homer she takes especial interest in the occupations of women; she makes Hera's robe and her own peplus, and spinning and weaving are often called "the works of Athena." The custom of offering a beautifully woven peplus at the Panathenaic festival is connected with her character as Ergane the goddess of industry.[2] As patroness of the arts, she is associated with Hephaestus (one of her titles is [Greek: Ephaistia]) and Prometheus, and in Boeotia she was regarded as the inventress of the flute. According to Pindar, she imitated on the flute the dismal wail of the two surviving Gorgons after the death of Medusa. The legend that Athena, observing in the water the distortion of her features caused by playing that instrument, flung it away, probably indicates that the Boeotians whom the Athenians regarded with contempt, used the flute in their worship of the Boeotian Athena. The story of the slaying of Medusa by Athena, in which there is no certain evidence that she played a direct part, explained by Roscher as the scattering of the storm-cloud, probably arose from the fact that she is represented as wearing the Gorgon's head as a badge. Entry: ATHENA
iii. _Greek Costume._--All articles of Greek costume belong either to the class of [Greek: endymata], more or less close-fitting, sewn garments, or of [Greek: periblêmata], loose pieces of stuff draped round the body in various ways and fastened with pins or brooches. For the former class the generic name is [Greek: chitôn], a word of Semitic origin, which denotes the Eastern origin of the garment; for the latter we find in Homer and early poetry [Greek: peplos], in later times [Greek: himation]. The [Greek: peplos] (also called [Greek: eanos] and [Greek: pharos] in Homer) was the sole indispensable article of dress in early Greece, and, as it was always retained as such by the women in Dorian states, is often called the "Doric dress" ([Greek: esthês Dôris]). It was a square piece of woollen stuff about a foot longer than the height of the wearer, and equal in breadth to twice the span of the arms measured from wrist to wrist. The upper edge was folded over for a distance equal to the space from neck to waist--this folded portion was called [Greek: apoptygma] or [Greek: diplois],--and the whole garment was then doubled and wrapped round the body below the armpits, the left side being closed and the right open. The back and front were then pulled up over the shoulders and fastened together with brooches like safety-pins ([Greek: peronai]). This was the Doric costume, which left the right side of the body exposed and provoked the censure of Euripides (_Andr_. 598). It was usual, however, to hold the front and back of the [Greek: peplos] together by a girdle ([Greek: zônê]), passed round the waist below the [Greek: apoptygma]; the superfluous length of the garment was pulled up through the girdle and allowed to fall over in a baggy fold ([Greek: kolpos]) (see GREEK ART, fig. 75). Sometimes the [Greek: apoptygma] was made long enough to fall below the waist, and the girdle passed outside it (cf. the figure of Artemis on the vase shown in GREEK ART, fig. 29); this was the fashion in which the Athena Parthenos of Pheidias was draped. The "Attic" or "Corinthian" [Greek: peplos] was sewn together on the right side from below the arm, and thus became an [Greek: endyma]. The [Greek: peplos] was worn in a variety of colours and often decorated with bands of ornament, both horizontal and vertical; Homer uses the epithets [Greek: krokopeplos] and [Greek: kyanopeplos], which show that yellow and dark blue [Greek: peploi] were worn, and speaks of embroidered [Greek: peploi] ([Greek: poikiloi]). Such embroideries are indicated by painting on the statues from the Acropolis and are often shown on vase paintings. Entry: FIG
Modern ethnology has arrived at the conviction that the Hellenic nation, like others that have played great parts in history, was the product of a blend of populations, the conquering tribes of Aryan descent coming from the north and settling among and upon certain pre-Hellenic Mediterranean stocks. The conclusion that is naturally drawn from this is that Hellenic religion is also the product of a blend of early Aryan or Indo-Germanic beliefs with the cult-ideas and practices of the Mediterranean area that were from of old indigenous in the lands which the later invaders conquered. But to disentangle these two component parts of the whole, which might seem to be the first problem for the history of the development of this religion, is by no means an easy task; we may advance further towards its solution, when the mysterious pre-Hellenic Mediterranean language or group of languages, of which traces remain in Hellenic place-names, and which may be lying uninterpreted on the brick-tablets of the palace of Cnossus, has found its interpreter. For the first question is naturally one of language. But the comparative study of the Indo-European speech-group, great as its philological triumphs have been, has been meagre in its contributions to our positive knowledge of the original belief of the primitive stock. It is not possible to reconstruct a common Indo-European religion. The greater part of the separate Aryan cult-systems may have developed after the diffusion and may have been the result of contact in prehistoric days with non-Aryan peoples. And many old religious etymological equations, such as [Greek: Ouranos] = Sanskrit Varuna, [Greek: Hermês] = Saramey[=a]s, Athena = Ahana, were uncritically made and have been abandoned. The chief fact that philology has revealed concerning the religious vocabulary of the Aryan peoples is that many of them are found to have designated a high god by a word derived from a root meaning "bright," and which appears in Zeus, Jupiter, Sanskrit _Dyaus_. This is important enough, but we should not exaggerate its importance, nor draw the unwarranted inference that therefore the primitive Indo-Europeans worshipped one supreme God, the Sky-Father. Besides the word "Zeus," the only other names of the Hellenic pantheon that can be explained wholly or partly as words of Aryan formation are Poseidon, Demeter, Hestia, Dionysus (whose name and cult were derived from the Aryan stock of the Thraco-Phrygians) and probably Pan. But other names, such as Athena, Ares, Apollo, Artemis, Hera, Hermes, have no discovered affinities with other Aryan speech-groups; and yet there is nothing suspiciously non-Aryan in the formation of these words, and they may all have belonged to the earliest Hellenic-Aryan vocabulary. In regard to others, such as Rhea, Hephaestus and Aphrodite, it is somewhat more probable that they belonged to an older pre-Hellenic stock that survived in Crete and other islands, and here and there on the mainland; while we know that Zeus derived certain unintelligible titles in Cretan cult from the indigenous Eteo-cretan speech. Entry: GREEK
The ancient Hecatompedon may in all probability be identified with an early temple, also 100 ft. long, the foundations of which were pointed out in 1885 by Dörpfeld on the ground immediately adjoining the south side of the Erechtheum. On this spot was apparently the primitive sanctuary of Athena, the rich temple [Greek: pion naeos] of Homer (_Il._ ii. 549), in which the cult of the goddess was associated with that of Erechtheus; the Homeric temple is identified by Furtwängler with the "compact house of Erechtheus" (_Od_. vii. 81), which, he holds, was not a royal palace, but a place of worship, and traces of it may perhaps be recognized in the fragments of prehistoric masonry enclosed by the existing foundations. The foundations seem to belong to the 7th century, except those of the colonnade, which was possibly added by Peisistratus. According to Dörpfeld, this was the "old temple" of Athena Polias, frequently mentioned in literature and inscriptions, in which was housed the most holy image [Greek: xoanon] of the goddess which fell from heaven; it was burnt, but not completely destroyed, during the Persian War, and some of its external decorations were afterwards built into the north wall of the Acropolis; it was subsequently restored, he thinks, with or without its colonnade--in the former case a portion of the peristyle must have been removed when the Erechtheum was built so as to make room for the porch of the maidens; the building was set on fire in 406 B.C. (Xen. _Hell._ i. 6. 1), and the conflagration is identical with that mentioned by Demosthenes (_In Timocr._ xxiv. 155); its "opisthodomos" served as the Athenian treasury in the 5th and 4th centuries; the temple is the [Greek: archaios neos taes Poliados] mentioned by Strabo (ix. 16), and it was still standing in the time of Pausanias, who applies to it the same name (i. 27. 3). The conclusion that the foundations are those of an old temple burnt by the Persians has been generally accepted, but other portions of Dörpfeld's theory--more especially his assumption that the temple was restored after the Persian War--have provoked much controversy. Thus J.G. Frazer maintains the hitherto current theory that the earlier temple of Athena and Erechtheus was on the site of the Erechtheum; that the Erechtheum inherited the name [Greek: archaios neos] from its predecessor, and that the "opisthodomos" in which the treasures were kept was the west chamber of the Parthenon; Furtwängler and Milchhöfer hold the strange view that the "opisthodomos" was a separate building at the east end of the Acropolis, while Penrose thinks the building discovered by Dörpfeld was possibly the Cecropeum. E. Curtius and J.W. White, on the other hand, accept Dörpfeld's identification, but believe that only the western portion of the temple or opisthodomos was rebuilt after the Persian War. Admitting the identification, we may perhaps conclude that the temple was repaired in order to provide a temporary home for the venerated image and other sacred objects; no traces of a restoration exist, but the walls probably remained standing after the Persian conflagration. The removal of the ancient temple was undoubtedly intended when the Erechtheum was built, but superstition and popular feeling may have prevented its demolition and the removal of the [Greek: xoanon] to the new edifice. The temple consisted of an eastern cella with pronaos; behind this was the opisthodomos, divided into three chambers--possibly treasuries--with a portico at the western end. The peristyle, if we compare the measurements of the stylobate with those of the drums built into the wall of the Acropolis, may be concluded to have consisted of six Doric columns at the ends and twelve at the sides. In one of the pediments was a gigantomachy, of which some fragments have been recovered. Entry: I
The accession of Alexander brought about a change in the monetary system of the kingdom. Philip's bimetallic system, which had attempted artificially to fix the value of silver in spite of the great depreciation of gold consequent upon the working of the Pangaean mines, was abandoned. Alexander's gold coinage, indeed (possibly not struck till after the invasion of Asia), follows in weight that of Philip's staters; but he seems at once to have adopted for his silver coins (of a smaller denomination than the tetradrachm) the Euboic-Attic standard, instead of the Phoenician, which had been Philip's. With the conquest of Asia, Alexander conceived the plan of issuing a uniform coinage for the empire. Gold had fallen still further from the diffusion of the Persian treasure, and Alexander struck in both metals on the Attic standard, leaving their relation to adjust itself by the state of the market. This imperial coinage was designed to break down the monetary predominance of Athens (Beloch, _Gr. Gesch._ iii. i, 42). None of the coins with Alexander's own image can be shown to have been issued during his reign; the traditional gods of the Greeks still admitted no living man to share their prerogative in this sphere. Athena and Nike alone figured upon Alexander's gold; Heracles and Zeus upon his silver. Entry: 9
The Parthenon (q.v.) at Athens represents the highest type of perfection, not only in its conception but in its realization. It is only necessary here to give a general description. It was designed by Ictinus in collaboration with Callicrates, and built on the south side of the Acropolis on a foundation carried down to the solid rock. The temple, commenced in 454 B.C. and completed in 438 B.C., was of the Doric order and raised on a stylobate of three steps; it had eight columns in front and rear and was surrounded by a peristyle, there being twenty columns on the flanks. It contained two divisions; the eastern chamber was originally known as the Hekatompedos (temple of 100 ft.), that being the dimension of the cella of the ancient temple which it was built to replace. The chamber on the western side was called the Parthenon (i.e. chamber of the virgin). All the principal lines of the building had delicate curves. The entablature rose about 3 in. in the middle to correct an optical illusion caused by the sloping lines of the pediment, which gave to the horizontal cornice the appearance of having sunk in the centre. The stylobate had therefore to be similarly curved so that the columns should be all of the same height. The columns are not all equidistant, those nearer the angle being closer together than the others, which gave a greater appearance of strength to the temple; this was increased by a slight inclination inwards of all the columns. In order to correct another optical illusion, which causes the shaft of a column, when it diminishes as it rises, and is formed with absolute straight lines, to appear hollow or concave, an increment known as the entasis was given to the column, about one-third up the shaft. The columns were not monoliths, like those of the earliest stone temples mentioned above; they were built in several drums, so closely fitted together that the joint would be imperceptible but for the slight discoloration of the marble. The setting of the lowest drum of these columns on the curved stylobate, with the slight inclination of the column, must have been a work of an extraordinary nature, only possible with such a material as Pentelic marble. The cella or naos was built to enshrine the chryselephantine statue of Athena by Pheidias. In order to carry the ceiling and roof there was a range of columns on each side of the cella returning round the end. These columns probably carried an upper range as in the temple of Poseidon at Paestum. The tympana of the two pediments and all the metopes were enriched with the finest sculpture, and were realized, designed, and executed by Pheidias and his pupils. On the upper part of the cella wall and under the peristyle was the Panathenaic frieze, of which, as also of the other sculptures, the British Museum possesses the finest examples. Entry: FIG
Ingenious as this is, there is really very slender ground for Kirchhoff's thesis. The passages in the second half of the _Odyssey_ which describe the appearance of Ulysses do not give _two_ well-marked representations of him. Sometimes Athena disguises him as a decrepit beggar, sometimes she bestows on him supernatural beauty and vigour. It must be admitted that we are not told exactly how long in each case the effect of these changes lasted. But neither answers to his natural appearance, or to the appearance which he is imagined to present in the earlier books. In the palace of Alcinous, for instance, it is noticed that he is vigorous but "marred by many ills" (_Od._ viii. 137); and this agrees with the scenes of recognition in the latter part of the poem. Entry: XXIV
Art, then, is defined by two broad distinctions: first, its popular distinction from Nature; and next, its practical and theoretic distinction from Science. Both of these distinctions are observed in the terms of our definition given above. Within the proper limits of this definition, the conception of Art, and the use of the word for it, have undergone sundry variations. These variations correspond to certain vicissitudes or developments in the order of historical facts and in society. The requirements of society, stimulating the ingenuity of its individual members, have led to the invention of arts and groups of arts, constantly progressing, with the progress of civilization, in number, in complexity, and in resource. The religious imagination of early societies, who find themselves in possession of such an art or group of arts, forgets the history of the invention, and assigns it to the inspiration or special grace of some god or hero. So the Greeks assigned the arts of agriculture to Triptolemus, those of spinning and navigation to Athena, and of music to Apollo. At one stage of civilization one art or group of arts is held in higher esteem, another at another. In societies, like most of those of the ancient world, where slaves were employed in domestic service, and upon the handicrafts supplying the immediate utilities of life--food, shelter and clothing--these constituted a group of servile arts. The arts of husbandry or agriculture, on the other hand, have alternately been regarded as servile and as honourable according as their exercise has been in the hands of a subject class, as under feudal institutions, or, as under the Roman republic, of free cultivators. Under feudal institutions, or in a society in a state of permanent war, the allied arts of war and of government have been held the only honourable class. In commercial states, like the republics of Italy, the arts of gain, or of production (other than agricultural) and distribution, have made good their title to equal estimation and greater power beside the art of captains. But among peaceful arts, industries or trades, some have always been held to be of higher and others of lower rank; the higher rank being assigned to those that required larger operations, higher training, or more thoughtful conduct, and yielded ampler returns--the lower rank to those which called for simple manual exercise, especially if such exercise was of a disagreeable or degrading kind. In the cities of Italy, where both commerce and manufactures were for the first time organized on a considerable scale, the name _arte_, Art, was retained to designate the gilds or corporations by which the several industries were exercised; and, according to the nature of the industry, the art was classed as higher or lower (_maggiore_ and _minore_). Entry: A
The temple of Apollo Didymaeus, near Miletus, was the largest temple in Asia Minor, and its erection followed that of the temple at Ephesus, Paeonius and Daphnis of Miletus being the architects. The temple was decastyle, dipteral, with pronaos and vestibule, but no opisthodomos. The cella was so wide (75 ft.) that it remained open to the sky. The bases of the columns were elaborately carved with ornament, as if in rivalry with the temple of Diana. Both these temples were of the Ionic order, as also were those of Athena Polias at Priene (340 B.C.), many of the capitals of which are in the British Museum, and the temples of Aphrodite at Aphrodisias and Cybele at Sardis. Entry: FIG
The protectress of cities was naturally also a goddess of war. As such she appears in Homer and Hesiod and in post-Homeric legend as the slayer of the Gorgon and taking part in the battle of the giants. On numerous monuments she is represented as [Greek: areia], "the warlike," [Greek: nikephoros], "bringer of victory," holding an image of Nike (q.v.) in her outstretched hand (for other similar epithets see Roscher's _Lexikon_). She was also the goddess of the arts of war in general; [Greek: stoicheia], she who draws up the ranks for battle, [Greek: zosteria], she who girds herself for the fray. Martial music (cp. [Greek: Athene salpinx], "trumpet") and the Pyrrhic dance, in which she herself is said to have taken part to commemorate the victory over the giants, and the building of war-ships were attributed to her. She instructed certain of her favourites in gymnastics and athletics, as a useful training for war. The epithets [Greek: ippia], [Greek: chalinitis], [Greek: damasippos], usually referred to her as goddess of war-horses, may perhaps be reminiscences of an older religion in which the horse was sacred to her. As a war-goddess, she is the embodiment of prudent and intelligent tactics, entirely different from Ares, the personification of brute force and rashness, who is fitly represented as suffering defeat at her hands. She is the patroness and protectress of those heroes who are distinguished for their prudence and caution, and in the Trojan War she sides with the more civilized Greeks. Entry: ATHENA