DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14144#0280
THE SCULPTURES OF THE PARTHENON.
with brandished lance, on the highest point of the Acropolis, and yet
she is the patroness of all household and female work, in which she
herself excels. She loves the fiery Diomed, the headstrong, warlike
Achilles, but her greatest favourite is Odysseus, just because he gains
his ends by counsel rather than by force; because he is ' tvoikCKo^t^s'
(of various wiles): ' Thou art of all men far the first in counsel and
discourse, and I in the company of all the Gods win renown for
wit and wile.'1
The key to her character is found in the myth of her birth.
She springs from the brain of Zeus, not from his heart or blood ;
nor did any mother infuse into her being female desires or weak-
nesses.2
Her representation in art embodies this conception of the poets.
She is the prominent deity in the earliest periods, in which, as we
might expect, the warlike side of her character predominates. The
old Trojan Palladium,3 supposed to be in Athens, represented her
brandishing her lance in her right hand, and in an attitude of attack.
But even here she carries in her left the distaff and the spindle, and
the lamp of enlightenment. In so-called archaic art of a later period
—as in the central figure of the ^Eginetan group—she wears the
peplos in rigid folds over the chiton, and a large a;gis, which covers
her whole breast and falls halfway down her back ; and she stands,
helmet on head, with raised lance and shield ready for attack or defence.
The proportions of her limbs are rather male than female,'1 and the
face is stern and without a trace of womanly tenderness. In the
Attic art of Fheidias, the features of the old rude type are changed into
dignity and grandeur, without losing their stern seventy. In still later
periods the asgis is more and more contracted, the spear becomes
almost a sceptre, and the shield is rested on the ground ; and in the
decline of art the attempt is made to invest her with a soft and
lovely grace, in which her individuality is lost.
1 Odys. xiii. 297, Butcher and Lang. 3 Apollud. iii. 12: tiertris, Cunf. Paus.m
• Eurip. Ion, 453 :—
i. 265.
Orphic hymn, xxxi. :—
with brandished lance, on the highest point of the Acropolis, and yet
she is the patroness of all household and female work, in which she
herself excels. She loves the fiery Diomed, the headstrong, warlike
Achilles, but her greatest favourite is Odysseus, just because he gains
his ends by counsel rather than by force; because he is ' tvoikCKo^t^s'
(of various wiles): ' Thou art of all men far the first in counsel and
discourse, and I in the company of all the Gods win renown for
wit and wile.'1
The key to her character is found in the myth of her birth.
She springs from the brain of Zeus, not from his heart or blood ;
nor did any mother infuse into her being female desires or weak-
nesses.2
Her representation in art embodies this conception of the poets.
She is the prominent deity in the earliest periods, in which, as we
might expect, the warlike side of her character predominates. The
old Trojan Palladium,3 supposed to be in Athens, represented her
brandishing her lance in her right hand, and in an attitude of attack.
But even here she carries in her left the distaff and the spindle, and
the lamp of enlightenment. In so-called archaic art of a later period
—as in the central figure of the ^Eginetan group—she wears the
peplos in rigid folds over the chiton, and a large a;gis, which covers
her whole breast and falls halfway down her back ; and she stands,
helmet on head, with raised lance and shield ready for attack or defence.
The proportions of her limbs are rather male than female,'1 and the
face is stern and without a trace of womanly tenderness. In the
Attic art of Fheidias, the features of the old rude type are changed into
dignity and grandeur, without losing their stern seventy. In still later
periods the asgis is more and more contracted, the spear becomes
almost a sceptre, and the shield is rested on the ground ; and in the
decline of art the attempt is made to invest her with a soft and
lovely grace, in which her individuality is lost.
1 Odys. xiii. 297, Butcher and Lang. 3 Apollud. iii. 12: tiertris, Cunf. Paus.m
• Eurip. Ion, 453 :—
i. 265.
Orphic hymn, xxxi. :—