Meyer, Marion : Athena, Göttin von Athen. Kult und Mythos auf der Akropolis bis in klassische Zeit, (Wiener Forschungen zur Archäologie 16), 552 S., 100 Taf. mit 406 Farb- und S/W- Abb., 29,7 x 21 cm, ISBN : 978-3-85161-176-2, 99 €
(Phoibos Verlag, Wien 2017)
 
Compte rendu par Iphigeneia Leventi, University of Thessaly
 
Nombre de mots : 2448 mots
Publié en ligne le 2018-05-30
Citation: Histara les comptes rendus (ISSN 2100-0700).
Lien: http://histara.sorbonne.fr/cr.php?cr=3304
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          This book by Marion Meyer offers a comprehensive overview of the cult of Athena on the Athenian Acropolis from the early 8th to the 5th century BC. This study aims at examining the various factors that shaped this cult comprising eight temples built or planned on the main plateau in the course of three centuries, the images of the goddess, the festivals, as well as the pivotal myths of the birth of Athena’s foster child from the earth, and the defense of Athens from invaders. The latter’s constant change in specific historical periods offers the opportunity to reconstruct the altering perceptions of the Athenians regarding their most important polis cult on which their collective identity was based. The individual sections in the four chapters of the monograph are accompanied by summaries, while the concluding remarks of the study  are in German,  English and Greek. The analysis is supplemented by several Indices, but the attempt to include as many illustrations as possible at the end of the volume has resulted in them sometimes being very small.

 

         The first chapter (I) is a broad introduction on the cults and the sanctuary of Athena on the Acropolis. The second chapter (II) is devoted to the architecture of the Acropolis, primarily its North side (E 2/Erechtheion and E 1, The ancient Temple of Athena A II and A I) and secondarily South side (Parthenon, Vorparthenon I and II, Urparthenon). Chapter III deals with the statues of Athena and her images in votive offerings of various forms, the peplos offered to the goddess and her cult associates. These last two chapters once again function as a prelude to the main chapter of the book, the fourth (IV) one, which traces the chronological development of Athena’s cult in its various facets. The fact that the two previous chapters serve as a kind of introduction to the fourth one, unavoidably results to some repetitions. The author accepts the recent suggestions of architectural studies by M. Korres and E. Sioumpara and puts forth a new proposal regarding the continuous occupation of Athenian female personnel (arrhephoroi, parthenoi, Athena’s priestess and cult assistans) with the preparation and dedication of the peplos over a three-year period. I totally agree with Meyer’s suggestion that the peplos offered to the goddess in the Great Panathenaia was the one embroidered with Gigantomachy scenes, and was different from the undecorated peplos offered to the goddess during the annual celebration. At the very least however, a question deserves to be raised. Could the large piece of woven cloth of the Great  Panathenaia, as can be surmised by the fact that it was used as a sailcloth by the ship which transported it on the Acropolis and as is evident by its depiction in the middle of the Parthenon east frieze, actually be draped over the possibly under life-size primitive wooden statue of Athena Polias? Could the mythical battle depicted on it be still visible in this case? Or, as John Mansfield suggested in his 1985 dissertation, was this exceptional peplos indeed exhibited in the temple of Athena Polias as a kind of tapestry, while the statue was only dressed in the small peplos offered annually?[1].

                 

         The first votive offerings dedicated on the Athenian Acropolis in the early 8th century BC., possibly offered to Athena, and having increased in number from the mid-8th century onwards, provide sufficient evidence for the early existence of an altar where Athena was venerated before her first small temple was erected in ca. 700 BC on the Mycenean terrace III of the North section of the Acropolis (temple A 1), in order to house her primitive possibly standing statue made of olive wood. Erechtheus is thought to have been a regenerating god of vegetation, associated in cult with Athena as is first attested in the Homeric poems where he is referred to as an earth-born king. An old spot for libations in the bedrock later housed under the North porch of the Erechtheion marked the grave of Erechtheus. After the formation of the Attic phylai in the late 6th century, it was identified as the place where Poseidon’s trident struck Erechtheus into the soil. Another depression in the rock later incorporated in the West part of the Erechtheion and identified as Poseidon’s thalassa after having been artificially filled with salt water, may have been initially thought of as the birth place of Erechtheus. Both these spots as well as the altar for Erechtheus have been connected with Poseidon in the fifth-century, when the Olympian god was associated with Erechtheus in cult according to the youngest invasion myth. In the 6th century, a funerary monument in the form of a column stood near the tomb of the mythical king Kekrops, another early associate of Athena. The tomb was later situated under the South porch of the Erechtheion.

 

         In the pre-600 BC period cults for Pandrosos and Aglauros (I) had been established on the Acropolis.  Aglauros (I) is the first priestess of Athena, who sacrificed her life to save her city in the first invasion myth, at the time when Erechtheus was king in Athens, and was thereafter the exemplar for Athenian ephebes. Pandrosos, on the other hand, was connected with the weaving of the peplos and was worshipped by the two arrephoroi, therefore had a kourotrophic function in relation to the Athenian maidens. The primitive olive tree of Athena stood  in her precinct. Both heroines may have initially been alternative forms of the goddess Athena. Erechtheus was born from the earth but Athena was his trophos, his adoption by the goddess moulding the foundation myth of the Proto-Panathenaia festival, where Athena was venerated as a cultivation goddess through her connection with the primitive olive tree, but also as a goddess of culture, being a foster mother. As a result, Athena has been initially thought of as a goddess of the household (oikos).

                 

         The refurbishment of the Panathenaic festival in 566 BC was the turning point for a group of changes in the way Athena was conceived, stressing her relation to her father Zeus and the other Olympian deities. The festival itself resembled the Panhellenic festivals with athletic competitions. In contrast to them, however, valuable prizes in the form of Panathenaic amphorae full of olive oil were given to the victors in Athens. From 570-560 BC onwards, these vases depict the Athena Promachos, the warrior Athena par excellence. In the same period, the Gigantomachy dynamically penetrates the iconography of Athenian black-figured vases.  At least one group among these vase-paintings can be traced back to a lost Acropolis painting, while from that time onwards the same myth adorned the penteteric peplos of the Great Panathenaia. This Panhellenic image of Athena is thereafter propagated in Athens, and a new additional temple of the goddess was built on the South section. Nevertheless, the author does not accept that Athena’s cult statue in the Urparthenon was of the Promachos type; she rather suggests a seated and armed statue similar to the surviving marble statue of the Athena by Endoios. To the new temple, the first peripteral in Attica, can be assigned the H-architecture and the poros pedimental sculptures, the latter with a new reconstruction of the composition offered by the author. On the other hand, the building policy of the tyrants on the Acropolis is confined to the Archaios Naos (A II) on the North and possibly to one of the multi-function oikoi existing in the sanctuary, in their majority associated with the powerful aristocratic families. In the same period, Hephaistos is introduced into the Acropolis cult, appearing in the myth of the earth-born Erechtheus as his natural father, while Athena undertakes the role of his social father. The emphasis placed on the Panhellenic warlike Athena completes the manner in which she was conceived as a civic goddess.  In the late 6th and early 5th centuries an outburst of the votive offerings and images of Athena on the Athenian Acropolis occurs, in the period when both her temples in the North (A II) and South sections (Vorparthenon I and II) are renewed.

 

         The Kleisthenic reforms of 508/507 BC are argued to have had important ramifications for the cult on the Athenian Acropolis.  Erechtheus becomes one of the new Phylae heroes while Poseidon’s cult is founded and updated versions of the earlier Acropolis myths created.  Erechtheus was split into the king Erechtheus and Erichthonios. Erechtheus defends his country and sacrifices his anonymous daughters (therafter venerated as Hyakinthides or Erechtheids). Ultimately, he sacrifices himself being killed by Poseidon who thus avenged his son Eumolpos, previously killed by the king in the war with the Eleusinians or Thracians invading Attika in an attempt to establish the prevalence of Poseidon over Athena. In 5th century Attic vase-painting  the baby Erichthonios, born from the Earth- who is depicted emerging from the ground- is  received by his foster mother Athena to be given to the three daughters of the king Kekrops, Pandrosos, Aglauros (II) and Erse. The obedience or disobedience of these heroines to the instructions of Athena is rightly interpreted by M. as a metaphor of the appropriation by young women of their future role in the community and towards the city goddess. Erichthonios is represented bearing the talisman of the new-born Athenian children over his chest. Consequently, the social child of Athena is projected as a Proto-Athenian, thus making all Athenians the children of the goddess. At the time of its creation this myth characterizes all Athenians as equals, although they belonged to different phylai. The  birth of Erichthonios is a myth to be politically exploited in the fifth century when the ideology of Athenian autochthony was constructed. Now a new aitiological myth is invented for the Panathenaia, the aristeia of Athena in the Gigantomachy fighting the Giant Asterios, an alter ego of Erichthonios. Moreover, Erichthonios is  propagated as the founder of the chariot and apobates races and is thought to be the ideal adorant of Athena. He is portrayed in both aforementioned roles, as a charioteer and an apobates on the North Parthenon frieze, in the scene of the 7th chariot team.

 

         An accompanying  phenomenon is the combination of the new Athenian invasion myth with the mythical quarrel of Athena and Poseidon over Attica. The new invasion myth as transmitted by Thucydides and Euripides provides the foundation for the common cult of Erechtheus and Poseidon. According to M. however, the so-called martyria of the gods, the olive-tree and Poseidon’s salt spring (thalassa), are not involved in their dispute, but are rather ultimately associated with these deities’  internal character. Poseidon represents the strength of the untamed nature against the civilized world Athena stands for. The iconography of both myths appears in a handful of monuments of the late fifth and early fourth centuries BC, but they are only depicted together on the hydria from Pella. On a cult level, after the Persian wars, the old Athena statue is transferred from the Mycenean terrace III, where it traditionally belonged, to the lower Mycenean terrace II and was housed in a small new temple (E 1) later incorporated in the east part of the Erechtheion. To the west of this temple, a precinct enclosed the common altar of Erechtheus Poseidon, and the old depression in the rock was constructed as Poseidon’s thalassa. In this way Athena gained a reunification in cult with her old associate Erechtheus after his cult had been merged with that of the Olympian god. The innovations in the Acropolis cult are attributed by the author to the priestly genos of Eteoboutadai, as well as to officials of the Athenian democracy (tamiai). Concluding this book M. briefly refers to the Athena represented as Nikephoros  in the Pheidian statues of Athena Promachos and Athena Parthenos, as well as to the victorious iconography of the most celebrated monument of the Athenian Democracy, the Periclean Parthenon.   

 

         The inscription commemorating the decision of the Athenian demos to built a temple of Athena Nike and to hire a priestess for her,  IG I3 35 (p. 25 n. 132) is not currently considered by epigraphists as dating to 450-445 BC, as M. believes, but to the decade 430-420 BC.  I also doubt that after the city was sacked by the Persians, the Athenians would have chosen to rebuilt the small temple of Athena Nike before all other ruined temples on the Acropolis[2]. This inscription is also closely connected with IG I3 435, the account for the erection of the bronze statue of Athena Promachos, thus M. dates the Promachos statue between 462-447 BC and associates it with the first Peloponnesian war (pp. 188-193). I would rather agree with the lower date for the statue in 446-438 BC, thus contemporary with Athena Parthenos, as is recently proposed by Palagia[3], not  only  due to the date of the  inscription, but also because I am not persuaded by the idea that Athena Promachos was the first statue the Athenians erected after the Persian destruction of the Acropolis; the colossal statue holding Nike in her hand and allegedly standing in front of the ruined Athenian temples for a period of time (p. 437). Athena Promachos could have been better located outside the almost finished Periklean Parthenon, the prominent  Anti-Persian victory monument, as an echo of the Athena Parthenos colossal statue, also a Nikephoros in its interior. I also do not agree about the Centauromachy depicted on the Athena Promachos shield being a mythical parallel for the hybris of other Greeks towards the Athenians. This subject is always connected with Anti-Persian symbolism in fifth-century Athenian monumental art from the Kimonian period down to the Peloponnesian war.

 

         This book offers a panorama of all facets of the cult of Athena on the Acropolis of Athens focusing on its development down to the Periklean times and anchoring the transformations in the historical and political changes of the Athenian society. Though I do not agree with all the suggestions expressed by the author, I would fully recommend this study, which has collected and analyzed the overwhelming material referring to all aspects of the cult of Athena on the Acropolis, from her origins until the High Classical period, in an admirable way.

 


[1] Cf. recently, T.S.  Scheer in the Oxford Handbook on Ancient Greek Religion, Oxford 2016,  169 with bibliography.

[2] See, I. Leventi, Πόλη σε Κρίση. Αρχιτεκτονική Γλυπτική της Αθήνας στην περίοδο του Πελοποννησιακού πολέμου, Athens 2014, 57-64, especially 57-58. 

[3] O. Palagia  in K. Bouraselis- E. Koulakiotis, eds. Marathon. The Date After. Symposium Proceedings, Delphi 2-4 July 2010 , Athens  2013, 117-137.