Greece: Painted by John Fulleylove; described by J.A. McClymontM'Clymont, J. A. (James Alexander)
History
Greece: Painted by John Fulleylove; described by J.A. McClymont
M'Clymont, J. A. (James Alexander)
Athens (Greece); Greece -- Antiquities; Greece -- Description and travel
in later times, with an image of Athena which was destroyed in a riot at
Constantinople in 1203 A.D., and about which the Byzantine historian
Nicetas gives us the following particulars: “It was of bronze, thirty
feet high. The goddess was portrayed standing upright, clad in a tunic
which reached to her feet, and was drawn in by a girdle at the waist. On
her breast was a tight-fitting ægis with the Gorgon’s head. On her head
she wore a helmet with a nodding plume of horse-hair. Her tresses were
plaited and fastened at the back of her head, but some locks strayed
over her brow from beneath the rim of the helmet. With her left hand she
lifted the folds of her garment; her right hand was stretched out in
front of her, and her face was turned in the same direction, as if she
were beckoning to some one. There was a sweet look, as of love and
longing, in the eyes, and the lips seemed as if about to part in honeyed
speech. The ignorant and superstitious mob smashed the statue because,
after the first siege and capture of Constantinople by the Crusaders,
they fancied that the outstretched hand of the statue had summoned the
host of the invaders from out of the West.”[5]
There was on the Acropolis a third image of the goddess by the great
artist--known as the “Lemnian Athena”--in which she was represented in a
mild and peaceful aspect. Pausanias speaks of it as the best worth
seeing of the works of Pheidias; and with this harmonises a reference to
it in one of the Dialogues of Lucian, who is the only other ancient
writer that mentions it. Referring to a proposal that a perfect type of
feminine beauty should be formed by combining the best features of the
most famous statues, the Lemnian statue is mentioned as one that might
supply the outline of the face with soft cheeks and shapely nose.
Unfortunately no authentic copies of it have yet been discovered.
Pausanias also mentions a statue dedicated to Athena _Hygieia_
(“Health”) on the Acropolis, and Plutarch tells a story of its having
been set up by Pericles in gratitude for a revelation made to him by the
goddess in a dream regarding a medicinal herb which would cure a
favourite slave of his, who had been injured by a fall while engaged in
building operations. According to Pliny, the herb was known ever
afterwards by the name of _parthenium_, but he connects the story with a
statue of a slave. Another aspect in which Athena was worshipped was as
_Ergané_ the goddess of arts and industries; and no less than five
inscriptions have been found on the Acropolis in honour of Athena under
this title. Homer represents her as weaving her own robe, and according
to Pindar the ship _Argo_ was built under her direction. Close to the
Lemnian image there stood a statue of Pericles, the chief maker of
imperial Athens. It faced the Propylæa and was much admired, being
regarded as a proof how “art can add to the nobility of noble men.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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