DOI chapter:
Division A: The Agora and adjacent buildings lying to the west and north of the Acropolis, from the city gate to the Prytaneion
DOI chapter:Section VI
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61302#0292
120
MYTHOLOGY. AND MONUMENTS
DIV. A
and all artists. Hephaistos forged weapons, Athene wore them.
Both were patrons of the plough, both excelled in all manner of
skill and cunning, so from remote days legend linked them by
marriage or kinship. Plato says of their early worship—“ Outside
the Acropolis and on the sides of the hills there dwelt artisans
and such of the husbandmen as were tilling the ground near ; at
the summit the warrior class dwelt by themselves round the
temples of Athene and Hephaistos, in one enclosure, which was
like the garden of a single house.” No doubt this is a reminis-
cence of ancient fact, that before the joint temple to Hephaistos
and Athene was built overlooking the agora, the two had a com-
mon shrine in the Acropolis. But by and by Athene, in the
splendour of her moral strength and the glory of her aspect as
Nike, eclipsed her fellow-craftsman, and his memory faded more
or less from the cults of the Acropolis ; but a temple was built for
him in the potters’ quarter, among his own people, where, though
the goddess was his paredros, he himself was supreme. There
they had a common festival, the Chalkeia,221 a festival of craftsmen.
During its solemnisation the weaving of the peplos of Athene was
begun, the peplos afterwards to be offered to the goddess in her
ancient Acropolis temple. Had we only not lost the Chalkeia of
Menander we should no doubt have possessed many a curious
and valuable detail of the ceremonies.
The statue of Athene which stood within the temple would
naturally be subordinate to the temple statue of the god himself.
A famous statue of Hephaistos by Alcamenes 222 is known which
was noted for the ingenuity with which the artist expressed the
lameness of the god, rather as an attribute than a deformity. Of
course this is mere conjecture, but it seems highly probable that
the statue, as it is known to have been made for the Athenians,
stood in the Hephaisteion. Hephaistos appears on vase-paintings
sometimes as the ordinary Athenian citizen, or, again, as the
workman with the conical cap and tongs or mallet ; as such, he
often wears the short tunic of the slave. On coins also his head
appears with the conical cap.223 The legend of his connection
with the return of Dionysos to Olympus, one of the most popular
tales about him, will be told later. At Athens, where volcanic
irruptions are unknown, his cult was in the main distinctly sub-
servient to Athene.
The Hephaisteion seems to have served as a place for the
examination and even torture of suspected persons—possibly the
implements of the fire-god were ready to hand.
MYTHOLOGY. AND MONUMENTS
DIV. A
and all artists. Hephaistos forged weapons, Athene wore them.
Both were patrons of the plough, both excelled in all manner of
skill and cunning, so from remote days legend linked them by
marriage or kinship. Plato says of their early worship—“ Outside
the Acropolis and on the sides of the hills there dwelt artisans
and such of the husbandmen as were tilling the ground near ; at
the summit the warrior class dwelt by themselves round the
temples of Athene and Hephaistos, in one enclosure, which was
like the garden of a single house.” No doubt this is a reminis-
cence of ancient fact, that before the joint temple to Hephaistos
and Athene was built overlooking the agora, the two had a com-
mon shrine in the Acropolis. But by and by Athene, in the
splendour of her moral strength and the glory of her aspect as
Nike, eclipsed her fellow-craftsman, and his memory faded more
or less from the cults of the Acropolis ; but a temple was built for
him in the potters’ quarter, among his own people, where, though
the goddess was his paredros, he himself was supreme. There
they had a common festival, the Chalkeia,221 a festival of craftsmen.
During its solemnisation the weaving of the peplos of Athene was
begun, the peplos afterwards to be offered to the goddess in her
ancient Acropolis temple. Had we only not lost the Chalkeia of
Menander we should no doubt have possessed many a curious
and valuable detail of the ceremonies.
The statue of Athene which stood within the temple would
naturally be subordinate to the temple statue of the god himself.
A famous statue of Hephaistos by Alcamenes 222 is known which
was noted for the ingenuity with which the artist expressed the
lameness of the god, rather as an attribute than a deformity. Of
course this is mere conjecture, but it seems highly probable that
the statue, as it is known to have been made for the Athenians,
stood in the Hephaisteion. Hephaistos appears on vase-paintings
sometimes as the ordinary Athenian citizen, or, again, as the
workman with the conical cap and tongs or mallet ; as such, he
often wears the short tunic of the slave. On coins also his head
appears with the conical cap.223 The legend of his connection
with the return of Dionysos to Olympus, one of the most popular
tales about him, will be told later. At Athens, where volcanic
irruptions are unknown, his cult was in the main distinctly sub-
servient to Athene.
The Hephaisteion seems to have served as a place for the
examination and even torture of suspected persons—possibly the
implements of the fire-god were ready to hand.