The Acropolis of Athens is a limestone monolith hill measuring about 300 x 170 m at the base; its height is 156 m above sea level, but it rises only 50 m above the surrounding area. This hill with steep, almost steep slopes with many springs and deep grottoes gave a safe and comfortable refuge to the first people who settled there in the Neolithic era. about 3,500 BC e.
Excavations, which have been carried out since the 30s of the last century, have restored the history of the rock from the time when its most ancient inhabitants settled on it, and up to the 5th century BC. e., when there were erected monuments of architecture that have survived to our time.
The first buildings were built here in 1050-700 BC. e. In the VI century BC. e. two large temples were dedicated to the goddess Athena: Hecatompedon ("Hundred-foot" because it was 100 Attic feet), erected on the site where the Parthenon is now located, and an ancient sanctuary, the foundations of which are preserved south of the Erechtheion. Other structures, smaller in size, appeared here and there on the top, surrounded by a "cyclopean" wall dating back to the Mycenaean era (XII century BC).
In 556 BC. e. the upper part of the Mycenaean tower, which protected the entrance to the citadel, was demolished and in its place the first sanctuary of Athena-Nike was erected. After the victory of the Athenians in the Battle of Marathon (490 BC), Hecatompedon was demolished and the first marble Parthenon grew on this place. At the same time, a monumental portico with many gates was built, later replaced by the present Propylaea.
Such an impressive sight was the Athenian Acropolis in 480 BC. e., when it was captured and destroyed by the Persians. After the victories at Salamis and at Plataea (479 BC), the Athenians first of all began to strengthen the city's defenses and rebuild the destroyed temples. These works were completed in the second half of the 5th century by Pericles.
The authors of the project of the new temple, erected in honor of Athena-Parthenos (Athena-Virgin) and therefore named the Parthenon (447-432 BC), were Iktinus and Callicrates, and the sculptures for the sanctuary in it were created by the great Phidias. Later, but still in accordance with the original layout, the elegant Erechtheion (421–406 BC) was built on the site of the old temple of Athena.
Although this modest building was dedicated to Pallas Athena, the patroness of the city, the Athenians did the impossible - this temple became a common Greek shrine. The graceful loggia, where six caryatids support the ceiling of the portico, has gained particular fame, without losing its grace. According to ancient legend, they were doomed to carry forever the shame of the inhabitants of Caria, the only city of the Peloponnese, which completely went over to the side of the Persians. Hence the name of such female statues.
On the western side of the Parthenon, in place of the archaic portico, the architect Mnesicles built the new Propylaea (437–432 BC), but decorated them differently. Conceived in austere Doric style, the Propylaea serves as the façade and main entrance of the great sanctuary of the Acropolis.
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Then, in 424, Callicrates completed the construction of the temple of Athena-Nike, later enclosed by a balustrade decorated with statues of Victory.
Inside the Acropolis, behind the Propylaea, a large area opens, on the sides of which are various religious buildings: in the south - the sanctuary of Artemis Bravronia and Calcotek (a rectangular building that served as an arsenal); in the north is the bastion and the house of the arrefor (girls who were settled in the Acropolis to weave peplos for Athena). In the east, the platform reached the supporting wall of the terrace of the former temple of Athena, where the colossal statue of Athena Promachos (Athena the Warrior) towered.
According to Pausanias, a Greek traveler and writer, this monument was so high that sailors, skirting Cape Sounion, from a distance of 50 km, could distinguish the crest of the helmet and the tip of the goddess's spear.
This was the appearance of the Athenian Acropolis at the end of the antique period. Some of the art critics claim today that there are no ensembles on earth equal to the Parthenon. The Greek archaeologist Manolis Andronikos, the one who found the tomb of Philip the Great, wrote that “the three large structures that make up the Acropolis - the Parthenon, the Propylaea and the Erechtheion - combine their functions and the boldness of their architectural decisions, testifying to the innovative spirit of Pericles' democracy.
According to Andronikos, the famous sculptor Phidias had a decisive influence on the development of the Parthenon project by architects Iktin and Kallikrates. For the first time in Greek architecture, the temple was built based on the need to provide a certain internal space, which determined its external form. The fact is that such a condition was set by Phidias, who wanted to show in all its splendor his statue of Athena made of gold and ivory.
The proportions of the ensemble, bends of horizontal lines and slopes of vertical ones are unusual. Therefore, the stylobate (the base of the temple) here is not a flat surface, as the statics of the building would require: in the middle of each of its length and width there is a concavity. The walls and columns are not vertical, but slightly tilted inward: 7 cm perimeter columns and 10 cm corner columns. If the inner surface of the walls is vertical, then the outer is tilted inward.
Thus, the volume of the temple fits into the pyramid, and not into the parallelepiped. As Andronikos notes, the realization of these architectural subtleties is "an incredible miracle." It is enough to imagine that each stone is not rectangular, but trapezoidal and has its own special shape, determined by the place for which it was intended.
Phidias complemented this incomparable architectural creation with decorations carved in stone. Some of them have survived to this day, being evidence of his creative genius. Phidias made the sculptures of the pediment himself with the help of the closest pupils of Alkamen and Agorakritus. They capture the birth of Athena and the dispute between Athena and Poseidon (god of the sea) over the possession of Attica. Outside the temple, along its perimeter, the struggle of the gods and titans (eastern frieze), the battle of Athenian heroes with the Amazons (western), the fall of Troy (northern) and the battle of the Greeks with centaurs and Attic myths (southern) are depicted.
However, a more impressive decoration was inside the temple: the walls of the cella were decorated with a bas-relief frieze depicting the Panathenes. These large religious festivals were annually celebrated on the 24th, 26th and 28th days of the month of Hecatombeon (July - August), and more solemnly - every 4 years, in the third year of the Olympics, and were then called the Great Panathenes (from the 21st to the 29th day). Established, according to tradition, by Erechtheus, they were turned by Theseus into the festivities of all Attica.
Subsequently, Pisistratus and Pericles gave them even greater solemnity. The essence of the ceremony was that on the last day the statue of Pallas Athena was presented with a new peplos, which was prepared by her priestesses. The procession began in Ceramica and climbed the Acropolis, stopping at all the sacred sites of Athens.
Before this ceremony, which concluded the festivities, there were musical, gymnastic, equestrian competitions and other games. The winners received a gift of oil poured into Panathenaic amphorae, which were masterpieces of Attic ceramics. On the night before the procession, there was a torch race; the next day there was a regatta.
Depicting Panafinea inside the Parthenon, Phidias wanted to glorify Athenian democracy, which at that time reached its apogee, and to immortalize his fellow citizens. A friend of Pericles and Anaxagoras, the greatest sculptor of antiquity, intended to capture new deeds of democracy alongside the ancient Attic legends, and because this required a space that the metopes and pediment could not give, Phidias conceived a continuous frieze. With the boldness characteristic of geniuses, he encircled the walls of the temple with a strip 160 meters long and 1.6 meters high.
After 5 centuries, describing the glory of Athens during the time of Pericles, Plutarch noted: “All the more surprise… the creations of Pericles deserve that they were created in a short time, but for a long-term existence. By their beauty they were originally ancient, but by their brilliant preservation they are still fresh, as if not so long ago finished. They so shine with novelty, as if imbued with the breath of eternal youth and have an ageless soul!"
The Acropolis of Athens was beautiful. But we will never see him like that. Many generations of enlightened and illiterate, fanatical and indifferent, warlike and peace-loving barbarians destroyed the great creation of Phidias. After in the IV century AD. e. Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire, the monuments of the Acropolis lost their cult significance, but for a long time they were well preserved. The Romans and Byzantines took out statues from Athens, the city was plundered by the Goths of Alaric, but no one touched the temples.
The ancient capital of Attica experienced the first blow at the beginning of the 6th century AD. e. They decided to make a Christian temple out of the Parthenon, and for the construction of the apse, the eastern facade was seriously damaged, and windows were punched in the side walls. In the Erechtheion, all "entrails" were gutted to turn it into a church.
The harm that was caused by these restructuring was great in itself, but then even greater troubles followed: many sculptures were disfigured in an indomitable outburst of religious iconoclasm. Then, for almost 1000 years, the temples were no longer encroached on. In Greece, Byzantines and Franks, Catalans and Navarrians, Florentines and Venetians replaced each other, but the buildings miraculously survived. They were even spared by the Ottoman invasion in the 15th century, although the Turks turned the Parthenon into a mosque, building on a minaret on top, and the Erechtheion was adapted for the seraglio and the harem of the military governor.
XVII century - the first serious destruction appeared, this happened for the reason that the impregnable rock was the center of the city's defense. In the Pinakothek, located next to the Propylaea, a powder magazine was built. 1654 - he was struck by lightning and an explosion occurred. 1686 - The Turks demolished the small temple of Athena Nike to clear the bastion and install cannons on it. The next year, September 26, was the turn of the Parthenon.
The Venetians under the command of Francesco Morosini laid siege to the Athenian Acropolis, where the Turks were hiding. Firing at the fortress, the Venetians hit the Parthenon, which was turned into a powder store after the destruction of the Propylaea, and the explosion destroyed the entire building. The roof flew into the air; a large breach was made in the long side colonnades, and most of the sculptures perished. The explosion also seriously damaged the Erechtheion.
Not satisfied with this "feat", Morosini went to other extremes. When the Turkish garrison surrendered and the Venetians took possession of the Acropolis, he wanted to take back some surviving sculptures of the western pediment to his homeland as a war trophy. But when his sappers were loading huge blocks of marble, the ropes broke and the sculptures were shattered into pieces. The following year, the Venetians retreated from Athens and left the Acropolis in ruins.
The Turks collected the fragments of temples and sculptures and put them on lime. In the 18th century, in Athens alone, at least three monuments fell into the furnace: the ancient bridge on the Ilissa River, Hadrian's aqueduct and the Ionian temple. Then the destruction of antiquities swept the whole of Greece. For a short time, the number of surviving columns on Sounion and Corinth was reduced, and the last remains of the temple of Zeus disappeared in Olympia. Travelers who visited Athens in the early 20th century described the Athenian Acropolis as a heap of ruins.
At the end of the 19th century, an interest in classical archeology emerged in Europe. On the one hand, the passion inspired by the Greek and Roman antiquities, which had been in desolation for more than 1000 years, helped to preserve a large number of material remains of the ancient world, and on the other, it brought terrible losses to the famous Athenian values. 1802 - Many sculptures of the Athenian Acropolis, including one of the famous caryatids of the Erechtheion, were taken to London by Thomas Bruce, Count Elgin and Kankardin, British Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Sublime Port of Selim III, Sultan of Turkey.
This diplomat, seized by an indomitable passion for collecting valuable works of marble, was not the first among the robbers of the monumental heritage of ancient Greece. Many Western European travelers headed to Greece inspired by their interest in classical art. These travelers were willing to pay well for the original sculptures, and the Turks could not resist the temptation. They happily allowed themselves to be "seduced" and allowed the fragments of sculptures to be removed, pretending to be fighting illegal actions of foreigners.
The precious booty brought only misfortune to Lord Elgin. She not only brought him to poverty, but also turned against him many leaders of those times, in particular Byron. The lord spent three years in prison, where he was sent by Napoleon Bonaparte, who wanted to take possession of a collection of marble objects in order to transfer it to the Louvre. And when in 1816 the treasures of Lord Elgin were acquired by the state at the insistence of parliament, he was not paid even half of the money spent on them.
A. Ermanovskaya
