Parthenon Frieze

Judging by the existence of regulae and guttae below the frieze on the east wall this was an innovation introduced late in the building process and replaced the ten metopes and triglyphs that might otherwise have been placed there.

[12] Just below the moulding and above the tenia there is a channel 17 mm high that would have served to give access to the sculptor's chisel when finishing the heads or feet on the relief; this scamillus or guide strip is the best evidence there is that the blocks were carved on the wall.

[17] The system of numbering the frieze blocks dates back to Adolf Michaelis's 1871 work Der Parthenon, and since then Ian Jenkins has revised this scheme in the light of recent discoveries.

[21] W24 is an ambiguous figure who might be either the protesting owner of a rejected horse or a keryx (herald) whose hand held part of an otherwise lost salpinx (trumpet), but either way this point marks the beginning of the procession proper.

[23] All figures are beardless youths with the exception of two, W8 and W15, who along with S2–7 wear Thracian dress of fur cap, a patterned cloak, and high boots; these have been identified by Martin Robertson as hipparchs.

[25] By N42 and S89 the equestrian parade is at an end, and the following 16 figures on the north and 18 on the south are taken to be the elders of Athens judging by their braided hair, an attribute of distinguished age in Classical art.

Four of these figures raise their right hand in a clenched fist gesture suggestive of a pose associated with the thallophoroi (olive branch bearers) who were older men chosen in competition for their good looks alone.

Their proximity to the deities indicates their importance, but selecting differently, then nine of them may be the archons of the polis or athlothetai officials who managed the procession; there is insufficient iconographic evidence to determine which interpretation is correct.

The twelve seated deities are taken to be the Olympians, they are one third taller than any other figure on the frieze and are arranged in two groups of six on diphroi (backless) stools, common forms of ancient furniture, with the exception of Zeus who is enthroned.

What sources the designer of the frieze drew upon is difficult to gauge, certainly large scale narrative art was familiar to 5th-century Athenians as in the Stoa poikile painting by Polygnotos of Thasos.

This artistic period is one of discovery of the expressive possibilities of the human body; there is a greater freedom in the poses and gestures, and an increased attention to anatomical verisimilitude, as may be observed in the ponderated stances of figures W9 and W4, who partially anticipate the Doryphoros of Polykleitos.

Variation in the manes of the horses has been of particular interest to some scholars attempting to discern the artistic personalities of sculptors who laboured on the frieze or perhaps, indicating deliberate representation of different regional traditions,[35] so far this Morellian analysis has been without conclusion.

As no description of the frieze survives from antiquity and many religious rituals involved secret symbolism and traditions left unspoken, the question of the meaning of the sculpture has been a persistent and unresolved one.

[36] What is now the more accepted view of the piece, however, namely that it depicts the Greater Panathenaic procession from the Leokoreion by the Dipylon Gate,[37] to the Acropolis, was mooted by Stuart and Revett in the second volume of their Antiquities of Athens, 1787.

John Boardman has suggested that the cavalry portray the heroization of the Marathonomachoi, the hoplites who fell at Marathon in 490, and that, therefore these riders were the Athenians who took part in the last pre-war Greater Panathenaia.

[42] Further to this zeitgeist argument there is J.J. Politt's contention that the frieze embodies a Periclean manifesto, which favours the cultural institutions of agones (or contests, as witnessed by the apobatai), sacrifices, and military training as well as a number of other democratic virtues.

[43] More recent scholarship pursuing this vein has made the frieze a site of ideological tension between the elite and the demos with perhaps, only the aristocracy present, and merely veiled reference to the ten tribes.

[46] A recent interpretation by Joan Breton Connelly identifies the central scene on the east frieze (hence above the door to the cella and focal point of the procession) not as the handing over of Athena's peplos by the arrhephoroi, but the donning of sacrificial garb by the daughter of King Erechtheus in preparation for the sacrifice of her life.

[51] The earliest surviving works of art that exhibit traces of the influence of the Parthenon frieze belong to the media of vase painting and grave stelae where we may find some echo not just of motifs, themes, poses, but tenor, as well.

[57] Later classicizing art of the Hellenistic and Roman eras also looked to the frieze for inspiration as attested by the Lycian Sarcophagus of Sidon, Phoenicia, the Ara Pacis Augustae, the Gemma Augustea, and many pieces of the Hadrianic generation.