DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5253#0400
366
THE AGE OF PHEIDIAS AND OF POLYCLEITOS.
represents his struggle with the ox-headed Minotaur, who yearly devoured in
the Cretan labyrinth Attic youths and maidens, sent as a propitiatory offering,
until Theseus destroyed the monster. On another the hero appears overpower-
ing the wild steer which had wasted the fields of Marathon, and was carried
off alive an offering to Apollo. In still another a close struggle takes place
between Theseus and Kerkyon, son of Poseidon, who lived at Eleusis, and,
by his new mode of wrestling, had overcome and put to death all passers-by,6So
In this relief Theseus, raising the evil-doer from the ground, strangles him
with powerful grasp. Kerkyon offers resistance by catching at Theseus' neck
with one hand, and at his ankle with the other. The compact, almost statu-
esque, grouping here has suggested to some what we know of Myron's statues,
Fig. 161. The Temple of Theseus- Athens
and is hardly in keeping with the usual system of Greek relief, a large portion
of the surface being left unpleasantly vacant. In still another metope, Theseus
is represented as wreaking just vengeance on Skiron, the highway robber, who
forced travellers to wash his feet on the brink of a fearful precipice near Me-
gara,- and, while they kneeled before him, pushed them over backwards into the
raging sea, where a huge tortoise devoured their mangled limbs. On this
metope we see the robber, who, pushed by Theseus, is falling backwards over
the brink, with his feet still in air, — a picture of helplessness, strongly con-
trasted to the stability of his conqueror.
Two friezes in high relief encircled the pronaos and opistJiodomos of this
temple, about 4.27 meters (fourteen feet) above the head of the spectator, the
one on the west end having only two-thirds of the length of that on the east.681
The subject of the western or shorter frieze is the fierce combat between the
centaurs and Lapithse at the wedding of Peirithoos. It opens at one end with
a centaur raising high a rock to bring it down upon his fallen enemy, who
THE AGE OF PHEIDIAS AND OF POLYCLEITOS.
represents his struggle with the ox-headed Minotaur, who yearly devoured in
the Cretan labyrinth Attic youths and maidens, sent as a propitiatory offering,
until Theseus destroyed the monster. On another the hero appears overpower-
ing the wild steer which had wasted the fields of Marathon, and was carried
off alive an offering to Apollo. In still another a close struggle takes place
between Theseus and Kerkyon, son of Poseidon, who lived at Eleusis, and,
by his new mode of wrestling, had overcome and put to death all passers-by,6So
In this relief Theseus, raising the evil-doer from the ground, strangles him
with powerful grasp. Kerkyon offers resistance by catching at Theseus' neck
with one hand, and at his ankle with the other. The compact, almost statu-
esque, grouping here has suggested to some what we know of Myron's statues,
Fig. 161. The Temple of Theseus- Athens
and is hardly in keeping with the usual system of Greek relief, a large portion
of the surface being left unpleasantly vacant. In still another metope, Theseus
is represented as wreaking just vengeance on Skiron, the highway robber, who
forced travellers to wash his feet on the brink of a fearful precipice near Me-
gara,- and, while they kneeled before him, pushed them over backwards into the
raging sea, where a huge tortoise devoured their mangled limbs. On this
metope we see the robber, who, pushed by Theseus, is falling backwards over
the brink, with his feet still in air, — a picture of helplessness, strongly con-
trasted to the stability of his conqueror.
Two friezes in high relief encircled the pronaos and opistJiodomos of this
temple, about 4.27 meters (fourteen feet) above the head of the spectator, the
one on the west end having only two-thirds of the length of that on the east.681
The subject of the western or shorter frieze is the fierce combat between the
centaurs and Lapithse at the wedding of Peirithoos. It opens at one end with
a centaur raising high a rock to bring it down upon his fallen enemy, who