Athena Promachos

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Idealized view of the Athenian Acropolis and the Athena Promachos, painted by Leo von Klenze in 1846. The painter imagined the Athena Promachos as a large statue with a raised spear in his right hand.

The statue of Athena Promachos , the "fighting in the forefront", was a colossal bronze statue by the hand of the sculptor Phidias . It stood between the entrance to the Athens Acropolis , the Propylaea , and the Erechtheion and thus to the left of the processional path to the Parthenon . Athena was the patron goddess of Athens, several of her statues were on the Acropolis, including two other works by Phidias: the Athena Parthenos in the Parthenon and the Athena Lemnia . The name Athena Promachos is first recorded in the 4th century AD. Even Pausanias called it simply the great bronze Athena on the Acropolis.

history

The Athena Promachos is one of the earliest surviving works of Phidias and was probably published 450 BC. Established, financed from the booty from the battle of Marathon , but possibly also from the booty from the battle of Eurymedon in 469 BC. This is supported by accounting documents for a monumental bronze statue that cover a period of nine years and, due to epigraphic features, to the time before 450 BC. Can be dated. Parts of the marble statue base measuring 5.50 × 5.60 meters have been preserved. If one follows a description of Byzantine times, which in all likelihood refers to the statue, it was a little over 9 meters high. The bronze sculpture showed Athena standing, her shield propped against her leg, a spear in her right hand. Coin images from the imperial era, which certainly depict the Athena Promachos des Phidias, cannot give any impression of the appearance of the statue, only the outstretched right arm can be seen. The statue was so high that the tip of its spear and the crest of the helmet could be seen from the sea as far as Cape Sounion .

The Athena Promachos stood on the Acropolis for over nine centuries until it was brought to Constantinople in 465 AD . In 1203 the image was destroyed by enraged Christians who were believed to attract the besieging crusaders . Among the various Roman copies associated with the statue, the Athena Elgin in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the torso of Athena Medici from the Louvre , with its various replicas, are considered the most faithful traditions.

Remarks

  1. ↑ Scholion to Demosthenes , Against Androtion 1, 3, 597
  2. ↑ Pausanias 1, 28, 2; compare also Ovid , ex Ponto 4, 1, 3 1; Scholion to Demosthenes, Against Androtion 1, 3, 597
  3. ↑ a b Pausanias 1, 28, 2.
  4. ↑ Volker Michael Strocka: Copies after Pheidias. Logical style development or Circulus Vitiosus? In: Volker Michael Strocka (Hrsg.): Masterpieces: International symposium on the occasion of the 150th birthday of Adolf Furtwängler. Freiburg im Breisgau, June 30th - July 3rd, 2003 . Hirmer, Munich 2005, p. 123.
  5. ↑ Inscriptiones Graecae I² 338; Inscriptiones Graecae P 435; on the inscription: Birte Lundgreen: A Methodological Inquiry: The Great Bronze Athena by Pheidias . In: Journal of Hellenic Studies . Vol. 117, 1997, pp. 191-192.
  6. ↑ Niketas Choniates : Historiae . ed. I. Bekker, 1835, 73 8-740
  7. ↑ Birte Lundgreen: A Methodological Inquiry: The Great Bronze Athena by Pheidias . In: Journal of Hellenic Studies . Vol. 117, 1997, p. 192.
  8. ^ Romilly James Heald Jenkins: The Bronze Athena at Byzantium . In: Journal of Hellenic Studies . Volume 67, 1974, pp. 31-33.
  9. ↑ for statuary tradition, see Volker Michael Strocka: Copies after Pheidias. Logical style development or Circulus Vitiosus? In: Volker Michael Strocka (Hrsg.): Masterpieces: International symposium on the occasion of the 150th birthday of Adolf Furtwängler. Freiburg im Breisgau, June 30th - July 3rd, 2003 . Hirmer, Munich 2005, pp. 122-131.

literature

  • Hans Georg Niemeyer : Athena Promachos . 1960.
  • Birte Lundgreen: A Methodological Inquiry: The Great Bronze Athena by Pheidias . In: Journal of Hellenic Studies . Vol. 117, 1997, pp. 190-197.
  • Volker Michael Strocka : Copies after Pheidias. Logical style development or Circulus Vitiosus? In: Volker Michael Strocka (Hrsg.): Masterpieces: International symposium on the occasion of the 150th birthday of Adolf Furtwängler. Freiburg im Breisgau, June 30th - July 3rd, 2003 . Hirmer, Munich 2005, pp. 122-131

Web links

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