Perry, Walter Copland: Greek and Roman sculpture: a popular introduction to the history of Greek and Roman sculpture (London, 1882)

ATHENA NIKE.

3i9

We gather from the bill of works that the persons employed were
for the most part mere artisans, who received about sixty drachmas
(£2 8s.) for each figure ; and here again we see how deeply the Attic
handicraft of the period we are speaking of was penetrated by the
spirit of the noblest art.

Sculptures from the Temple of Nike Apteros
(london and athens).

This ' pearl of Ionic architecture' is of surprisingly small dimension,
measuring not more than twenty-seven by eighteen feet. It is atnphi-
prostylos tetrastylos, i.e. having four columns at the eastern and western
facades respectively (fig. 135). It stood, and once more (since 1835)
stands, on a buttress of the S. wall of the Acropolis, the very eminence
from which the unhappy /Egeus is said to have thrown himself in
despair at seeing the black sails still hoisted on the ship of Theseus
when he returned from the slaughter of the Minotaur. Pausanias
clearly indicates its position by saying that it stood on the right hand
of the grand flight of steps leading up to the Propyla^a, and that
the statue of the triple Hecate Epipyrgidia 1 (on the tower) was
near the temple of Nike Apteros. It was seen in its original state by
Spon and Wheler in 1675, but was soon afterwards destroyed by the
Turks, with the fortunate exception of the Kpy7rlSco/jLa (basement).
1 hey used the precious materials of this beautiful little sanctuary to
construct a battery when they were besieged by the Venetian army in
1687. Happily, however, nearly all the fragments were discovered and
collected by Ross, Schaubert and Hansen in the year 1835, by whom
the building was restored to nearly its original condition.

The temple was generally called by the name of Nike Apteros
(wingless victory), but it was really dedicated to Athena Nike. The
Goddess of Victory is here regarded not as an independent deity, but
as an emanation from, as a numen or phase of, that Goddess of hoar
antiquity, the awful Athene Polias,- whom the Athenians regarded not

1 Pausan. ii. 3. 2. rfoAms, % grtffci /x' at/. On which the Scholia:

Sjphocles, Philocl. 135: Ni'kij t' 'ASomi remarks, outws r> voKiovxos 'K6r]va. N'm