DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61301#0339
THE ALTAR OF EUMENES AT PERGAMOS. 301
were, like the Centaurs, the impersonation of rude
physical forces, like the Amazons transgressors against
social order and appointed rule, and further in addition,
the types and symbols of overbearing insolence. Against
them in this triple aspect, a war of extermination must
be waged. Against them the whole phalanx of the
gods goes forth to battle. We find, of course, that the
gods most conspicuous in the fight vary at different
epochs and in different localities. Zeus and Athene
are almost always present ; the god Dionysos is added
later ; the hero Herakles often appears. On the Perga-
mene frieze we find a throng of familiar figures, and many
yet remain to be identified. Among those clearly made
out, either by their attributes or by inscribed names, are
Zeus and Athene, Leto, Artemis, Apollo, Ares, Helios,
Eos and Selene, Dionysos and his satyrs, Aphrodite,
Poseidon, and Amphitrite. Among the inscriptions we
find many names wholly unknown to our mythology.
The order of the frieze we shall not attempt to make
out. When the altar is re-constructed, as is intended at
Berlin, so far as possible the slabs will be placed in their
ascertained position ; for the present it must content us
to know that the one slab we figure, depicting as it does
the triumph of Athene, must have occupied a prominent
position. It probably corresponds to, and was balanced
by, a slab with the triumph of Zeus.
In the Athene slab we have perhaps the culminating
were, like the Centaurs, the impersonation of rude
physical forces, like the Amazons transgressors against
social order and appointed rule, and further in addition,
the types and symbols of overbearing insolence. Against
them in this triple aspect, a war of extermination must
be waged. Against them the whole phalanx of the
gods goes forth to battle. We find, of course, that the
gods most conspicuous in the fight vary at different
epochs and in different localities. Zeus and Athene
are almost always present ; the god Dionysos is added
later ; the hero Herakles often appears. On the Perga-
mene frieze we find a throng of familiar figures, and many
yet remain to be identified. Among those clearly made
out, either by their attributes or by inscribed names, are
Zeus and Athene, Leto, Artemis, Apollo, Ares, Helios,
Eos and Selene, Dionysos and his satyrs, Aphrodite,
Poseidon, and Amphitrite. Among the inscriptions we
find many names wholly unknown to our mythology.
The order of the frieze we shall not attempt to make
out. When the altar is re-constructed, as is intended at
Berlin, so far as possible the slabs will be placed in their
ascertained position ; for the present it must content us
to know that the one slab we figure, depicting as it does
the triumph of Athene, must have occupied a prominent
position. It probably corresponds to, and was balanced
by, a slab with the triumph of Zeus.
In the Athene slab we have perhaps the culminating