The Ancients - The Parthenon

Episode Date: January 19, 2023

The unofficial 8th wonder the Ancient World, the Parthenon is still standing today. Located on the Acropolis in Athens, towering above a busy, modern metropolis - it's a symbol of the city's long standing ancient past. But why was this monumental structure built? And what do we really know about it?In this episode of The Ancients, Tristan is joined by Dr Maeve McHugh from the University of Birmingham to take us through the Parthenon's remarkable history. Looking at the mastermind behind it's construction, the iconography of the building, and it's role across history - just what happened within the walls of the Parthenon?For more Ancients content, subscribe to our Ancients newsletter here. If you'd like to learn even more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today!

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like the Ancient ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. It's the Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and in today's podcast, well, we are talking about another of these incredible ancient structures from the Mediterranean world. Not one of the official wonders of the ancient world, but one that you'll definitely know the name of. And one that is also always on the cusp, on the edge of the seven wonders.

Sometimes they were the eighth wonder of the world alongside the Colosseum. of the seven wonders. Sometimes they were the eighth wonder of the world alongside the Colosseum. We're talking of course about this central bastion, this great ancient light of Athens, that is the Parthenon. This massive temple mixture of Doric and Ionic orders with incredible friezes and metopes and just an amazing structure of marble that people visit in their tens, in their hundreds of thousands down to the present day atop the Acropolis. Now, I remember going to the Parthenon as part of a school trip many, many years ago with classics teachers such as Mr. Presley, Miss Kawika. It was an incredible trip. six teachers such as Mr Presley, Miskel Wicca. It was an incredible trip and in a year, one of the last years I was at RGS, that we did study art and architecture from the ancient Mediterranean world, part of the classical civilization and part of the course was looking at temples such

as the Parthenon. So thank you Miskel Wicca for those interesting, very fun classes that have now resulted in this podcast episode. We're talking all about the Parthenon with Dr. Maeve McHugh from the University of Birmingham. This was a fun chat. We go from the construction of the Parthenon itself, why it was built, how it was built, the materials used in its construction, all the way down to its use by other figures in antiquity, such as my favourite, Demetrius the Besieger. Oh, Demetrius, an interesting character, let's say. Let's leave it as that. You're going to enjoy this episode, especially when we get to Demetrius, but that's enough rambling on from me about all things from my childhood school years to visiting

the Parthenon to the very colourful character of Demetrius the Besieger. Without further ado, to talk all about the Parthenon, here's Maeve. Maeve, it is wonderful to have you on the podcast. Thank you for the invite. I'm delighted to be here. You're more than welcome. And actually, a huge thanks must go to one of our producers, Annie, who I know you've taught in the past up at the University of Birmingham. It's always a pleasure to have people who've influenced, who've taught people on the Ancients podcast before and for a great topic nonetheless, because we're talking all about the Parthenon. Maybe for me as well, this is a trip down memory

lane. I'm thinking about A-levels, classical civilization, going over the art and architecture of the Parthenon with Miskel Wicca and the rest of the class, because it is such an incredible and iconic building when looking at classical Greece art and architecture, isn't it? Absolutely. It is the canonical monument for antiquity. I think the Parthenon, along with the Roman Colosseum, I think they are recognisable to the majority of the global population. I don't think you necessarily have to have done a classics degree or any kind of classics study to recognise the Parthenon. It is one of those monuments that is eternal and immortal, I think. It's quite fun, isn't it?

That neither of them are in the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, but they both battle to be the eighth wonder of the ancient world, don't they? Exactly. Well, it's interesting because Pausanias, which is our primary source for what the Parthenon looked like in antiquity, he pays very little attention. He just talks about it very, very briefly. He says, oh yeah, there's a temple over there.

There's a really great statue in it. And that's about it. Well, we're going to do more than Pausanias today because we're going to fill in the whole 40 minutes of this episode. And let's start with the whole context. Let's go back to 5th century BC Athens, around 450 BC. So Maeve, set the scene. What's happening in Athens at this time? Well, the Parthenon doesn't exist in a vacuum. It is a temple, a structure that sits on top of a

big rock in the city of Athens called the Acropolis. And the Acropolis is a Greek word, which means essentially high city or high place. And for centuries, this had been one of the main focal points in the city because of the topography of the city is quite flat. And then you have this giant rock sticking out of it. The 450s BC is a really important period of time in Athenian history. But to understand it, I think we have to kind of rewind the clock a little bit and think about the Persian Wars, which were happening in the 480s. Because the Persian Wars were a really seminal moment in defining Athenian identity and also changing the course of Athenian history. Obviously, this isn't a discussion on the Persian Wars, but with the Persian Wars, Athens was sacked by the Persians and the whole of the city was destroyed and burned. And then once the Greeks and the Athenians were successful, they decided

to have an oath, the oath of Plataea, where they were going to leave everything in ruins. All of the monuments that were destroyed by the Persians, and not only in Athens, but everywhere, for the whole purpose of this was to show Persian barbarity, to show how the Persians were disrespectful to the gods. So for decades, people were living within the ruins of the ancient city. Then this politician comes along called Pericles, who becomes very, very successful in Athens. One of the reasons why he becomes so successful is because Athens is experiencing a bit of a heyday. After the Persian Wars, there was a league set up by Athens and its allies called the Delian League. And the reason for this league was because they

were planning to launch an assault on Persia and everyone that was a member of this league agreed to put some money into this joint kitty with the ultimate aim that this kitty would then pay for this assault on Persia. Pericles however has other ideas and Pericles is in a position where he is gaining a lot of political power in Athens. And Athens has maneuvered itself to the leader of this league. So he has this great idea of moving the treasury, which amounts to about 5,000 talents, which is a huge amount of money. To give you a sense, the revenue of Athens in the Archaic period

before the Persian Wars was about 400 talents, the annual income. So 5,000 talents is a mind-boggling amount of money. He says, you know what? The Delian League's revenue would be much better suited in Athens where we could protect it. So the League's money was moved to Athens. So Athens all of a sudden gets this huge injection of cash and Pericles then and his cohort,

not just him, decide well we're sitting on all of this money and we are becoming very quickly the leader of this league which is very very quickly becoming the Athenian empire because if you want to leave the league you will wake up one morning and find your city or your island surrounded with Athenian ships and spears pointed at you saying are you quite sure you would like to leave? Perhaps that's not the best idea. So Naxos tries to leave the league very early on and that's what happens to them. Pericles says to himself, well, we have this city in ruins, but it doesn't match our political power and status. We have this big wad of cash and we can use this. So what he decides to do is use that money to fund what's termed in scholarship as the

Periclean Building Program. And essentially what that's going to do is remodel the Acropolis and remodel the Agora. And you're going to get all of these very beautiful buildings built that are going to match the power and status that Athens has. And so I'm presuming that one of these buildings that's constructed on the Acropolis is the Parthenon itself, Maeve. Exactly right. Now, the Acropolis itself, when the Persians invaded Athens and sacked the city,

there was a temple being built which is referred to as the older Parthenon and it was in the process of being built on the footprint of where the Parthenon now stands and that was burned and destroyed and it's actually really cool if you stand in Athens if you stand in the Roman Agora and look up at the Acropolis, you will see column drums built into the walls of the Acropolis. And these are the column drums of the older Parthenon that were destroyed during the Persian sacking. So Pericles says, okay, we are going to build a Acropolis and fortify it and monumentalize it to match our status and the Parthenon is part of this building program as you rightly said but the Parthenon that we currently have is a monument

that has been turned up to 11. It is a monument that is built entirely out of marble. Now, temples before that were usually built with limestone, other kinds of stone, and then they would have facings of marble because marble is a very expensive material. And then it would have terracotta fixtures and it would have other types of materials around it to decorate it. But this thing is made entirely from marble. Even the roof tiles are marble. It's going to an extreme. It is also a very, very large temple for its day. It's that and the Temple of Olympian Zeus at Olympia are pretty much the largest temples in mainland Greece. And then we have this giant temple sitting on the Acropolis, which then at this time becomes a sanctuary to Athena

and to the Sisi. And we have this really interesting monument that has lots of different meanings and interpretations. I mean, I'd love to ask a bit more, therefore, about the marble. I mean I'd love to ask a bit more therefore about the marble. I love this little bit of the story Maeve. Whereabouts does the marble come from for the building of the Parthenon? So it comes from a mountain called Mount Penteli which is about 16 kilometres outside of the city and I wandered up Mount Penteli one day a couple of years ago and I actually went to the quarry wandered up Mount Penteli one day a couple of years ago and I actually went to the quarry where the marble was extracted from and you can see the marks in the rock from these huge blocks of marble being hewn from the mountain see that is cool that is very cool right absolutely Pentelic marble has some unique qualities to us it is very pure in the sense that it doesn't have a lot of veining through it,

so it's very white. And if you have a particular piece of it, it almost becomes translucent and the sun will shine through it, which will make it look as if it is glowing. So it is a very, very impressive stone to choose. And of course, choosing a local stone for this temple is again saying about the power of the Athenians and their status. I mean, well, fair enough, fair enough. And okay, then, so if the Parthenon is just one of these buildings that is constructed on the Acropolis, I'd love to delve into the architecture of it

itself. And first off, I've got on my list, these seem to be two important words or phrases of words to clarify straight away, Ionic order versus Doric order. Now, what are these two orders? Yes, well, again, these are phrases and terms that we use to categorise different architectural styles from different periods of time. So the Doric order is an order that is earlier than the date of the Parthenon. It is an order associated with the Archaic period and it is characterized by column capitals which are plain and cushion-like so that you have this just a plain unadorned capital

and that's how I always tell my students to identify the Doric temple is by the plain capital and then also metopes and triglyphs which are an architectural design around and above the capital and you have a metope which is a blank space of stones, often decorated with mythological theme. And then triglyphs are three lines that break up that mythological narrative on the metopes. That's how you identify a Doric temple. Now, the Parthenon is interesting because it has elements of the Doric temple, but then also Ionic temples.

Now, Ionic temples are contemporary to the building of the Parthenon. Ionic temples will have column capitals with volutes, which looks like the ram horns, the kind of curved ram horn shape. And they're often their columns are much thinner. And instead of metopes and triglyphs, you will have a continuous freeze. So the narrative isn't broken up by triglyphs. What's interesting about the Parthenon is that it has Doric columns and the outer facade has Doric metopes and triglyphs. But then the interior has a continuous freeze, which is ionic. So the architects, when they're planning this temple, they're making a conscious choice to make the temple look older

than it is. And there's lots of scholarly debates as to why that's the case. Some say that the temple is trying to look older than it is because they're trying to kind of root this empire into an older past that it's not a new thing that the Athenians have and one way to do that is to have these older forms however they also like the new fashion of the Ionic temples which have these continuous phrases so why not throw one of those in well it's quite nice that there's that combining of orders therefore on the Parthenon and let's kind of let's say we're someone in 5th century Athens once the Parthenon is completed but actually no first of all how long does it take to actually finish building the Parthenon do we have any idea how much time and effort it actually takes to

complete it well we do because the Athenians were fastidious record keepers. So we know who built it. We know how much things cost because they were to have inscriptions set up for the building of it. So this building began in 447 and finished in 432 BCE. there of time where the Parthenon was under construction. And one thing that is really interesting about the Parthenon is that there are no straight lines on the Parthenon. And that's not because it was shoddy building. It was intentional because it's an optical illusion. When you're standing far away, lines look wavy and they look a straight line parallel lines will look like they are coming and touching one another it's just how our eyes work so what they did is they actually built the Parthenon on a bulge so that the center of the Parthenon bulges and then exactly and then the outer edges are dipped down so almost the Parthenon in reality looks like a balloon model of the Parthenon because it's bulging and fat in different places so subtle that our eye can't pick it up but further away the Parthenon looks perfect and

corrected because of that and if you think about it, the difference, we're talking about point of a centimeter difference, but every single aspect of that has to be built into the entire structure. So everything is slightly off, but we're talking about fingernail thickness difference it's quite incredible when you think about it i haven't got a clue of how you would even start thinking about doing that but that's why i am not an architect it's so incredible that they also like that sophistication was there as well that you know architectural prowess to therefore approach building this Parthenon with the bulges in the columns and so on and so forth I mean okay let's say that we're a 5th century BC Athenian citizen right outside the front of the Parthenon you've got the Doric

columns in front of you but let's work our way up the outside the exterior of the building what was therefore above the Doric columns? Well, you have the triangular spaces on either side, the east and west side, which are the short sides of the temple, and they are referred to as pediments. And inside those pediments, you had these greater than life size statues of gods and goddesses. On one side, you had the mythological birth of Athena, when Hephaestus comes along and splits Zeus's head open and outbursts a fully grown and fully armored Athena. And then on the other side, you had the contest of Athena and Poseidon for patron of the city of Athens. And the story goes that Poseidon wanted the patronage

of Athens and so did Athena. Poseidon granted them control of the sea and Athena gave them the control of the olive oil and also of wisdom and they chose Athena because of that. So that's the two narratives on either side in the pediments. But then you also have mythological narratives running around in the meadow piece. On either side, on the short and long sides, you have four mythological narratives. You have the Greeks versus the Trojans, the sacking of Troy. You have the Amazons versus the Greeks. You have the gods versus the giants, and then you have the story of the centaurs behaving very badly at a wedding of the Lapiths as well. These are so called the Gigantomachy, the Amazonomachy, yeah, the fighting, exactly, that's it. And I mean,

so if we focus on these metopes, these scenes, as you say, they're divided by these triglyphs all around the parthenon so how are these mythological scenes therefore told within each of these metopes does each metope have a particular clash or a particular part of the story that it tells yes they show it i often say to students it's a bit like a comic strip so you will have kind of one box showing one scene of the event so you will have for example a Greek bashing a centaur over the head with a club and because that iconography of that myth is quite common the Greek person looking at the temple will be able to identify it fairly immediately and so you will have these particular scenes being repeated in different types of media. So you'll have it depicted on vase pottery, for example.

Absolutely fair enough. I mean, if I remember correctly from my memory, isn't it on other temples, sometimes they have like the 12 labours of Hercules and so on and so forth. And so they show one labour in each of the metopes to kind of tell that story there. Exactly right. Yeah. And you'll have key scenes happening in one of the metopes to kind of tell that story there. Exactly right, yeah. And you'll have key scenes happening in one of these metopes and then you'll be able to identify it because that scene is so recognisable. I mean, Maeve, it's also really remarkable, isn't it,

about when they are creating these metopes, these Greek sculptors, is it all about trying to get as much visual, well, stuff into the metope as possible, as much into that small square, that small rectangle as possible in the limited space that you have to tell that part of a story. They use all the space available to them. They aren't static figures on these metopes. They're full of action, full of movement. They're vibrant and they're alive and they're in the middle of the

action. You're drawn into it as the viewer. One thing that we don't really realize because we think of this, the Parthenon, as this very starkly white monument, but it was full of color. All of these figures would have been painted and they would have had armor attached to them real bronze armor which would have glinted in the sunlight so these things would have looked really dynamic and almost cartoon-like to us but especially with these primary colors that they would have used and And then again, that would also have helped. Sometimes in other temples, you will actually have labels, the names of the figures written beside them

to make sure that no one is in any doubt of what they're looking at. But in the Parthenon, you don't have that. Hi there, I'm Kate Lister, sex historian and author, and I am the host of Betwixt the Sheets, the history of sex, scandal and society, a new podcast from History Hit. Join me as I root around the topics which have been skipped over in your school history lessons. Everything from the history of swearing to pubic hair, satanic panic, cults, there is nothing off limits. We'll be bed hopping around different time periods from ancient civilizations to the Middle Ages to Renaissance and early modern right up to now. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

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Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. I mean, surely someone trying to look up, they wouldn't be able to make out any written words because it's so far up in the temple anyway. Exactly, yes. So that's one of the reasons why they have these types of narratives because you're so far away from it,

you have to be able to visually recognise it. So that's why it's kind of amplified. And keeping on that a bit longer, but focusing on the pediments, you mentioned how you got the birth of Athena and then Athena being chosen as the patron deity of Athens. What does the choice of these two stories, what does it tell us about how the Athenians valued these myths above all others, about Athenian values?

Well, this ties in with the whole name of the temple. Athenians valued these myths above all others, about Athenian values? Well, this ties in with the whole name of the temple. So we call it the Parthenon, and they would have called it the Temple of Athena Parthenos. So Parthenon is the maiden. So this is a temple dedicated to Athena as the maiden. There are other temples or older temples on the Acropolis Athena Palaeus, which was the Temple of Athena, the protector of the maiden. There are other temples or older temples on the Acropolis Athenae Palaeus, which was the temple of Athena, the protector of the city. So the Parthenon had a very clear role in portraying Athena as the patron goddess of the city. And the birth of Athena, the origin of Athena, you could link that to the origin of the Athenians as a people. Because the Athenians were very proud of the fact that they consider themselves also chthonic, which means that they were born of the earth. And Athena plays a very important role

in the story of the Athenian birth, that they actually fundamentally believe that they came from the soil of Athens, that they had a right to be there. So it makes sense that they would depict Athena and her birth almost as if marking the birth of Athens and the birth of the Athenian people. Right, that autochthony thing, that sounds so bizarre to think of today. But as you said there, Maeve, these Athenians, they truly believed that that was their origin story, did they? Exactly right. Well, let's keep going. Therefore, we've had a look at the outside with the Doric and the Metopes and the Pediment. So making your way inside the Parthenon and you get to those Ionic columns. Now, what was above the Ionic

columns? So that had a continuous phrase, but if we were everyday Athenians, we wouldn't be allowed in the temple. Ah, okay. So who would actually be allowed to go into the temple itself back then? Well, this is the question because we have no records saying that there were any priest or priestess assigned to the temple and there is no altar outside of the temple as well so it's very unclear and also there were no festivals associated with the temple so it's very unclear what cult role the temple had but we know that there were an awful lot of very very expensive votive offerings within the temple and we also know the acropolis itself was heavily guarded so just for security reasons I'm afraid we would not be allowed inside but yes there was a continuous freeze that ran around

the external side of the internal wall of a Parthenon. And that is an ionic element, and that depicted a procession. And there is much, much debate about the interpretation and the meaning of this procession. A lot of ink has been spilled. Essentially, what you have is a procession. It's a religious procession. You have riders, you have offerings, you have women carrying jars, you have animals being processed to be sacrificed and all of it is culminating in this scene where you have the gods sitting on thrones with Zeus, the head of the gods, sitting on a better throne, watching this procession. And you have beside them these women and maidens folding this large piece of cloth.

And there are two main interpretations of this scene. One of them is that the gods are actually there physically watching this processionion which then means that the whole scene is mythological. So obviously I'm afraid to break this to you the gods aren't real. So this means then that this is a mythological scene and that the women folding this garment are mythological characters and there's lots of debate as to who they could be. And there's lots of debate as to who they could be. Alternatively, the gods are watching this procession from Olympus, that they're not actually there physically,

which then may mean that the scene is a depiction of a real event, which is very unusual in Greek art. In Greek art, they will often use myth as an analogy. If it is a real event, then more than likely what's depicted is the great Panathenaic festival which happened every four years and during this festival in preparation for the maidens of the city would weave this beautiful peplos which is essentially a cloak for the goddess Athena and then it would be processed up to the Acropolis then given to the goddess. So maybe that might be what that big piece of cloth is that these women and girls are folding. There's no consensus in scholarship as to what the actual scene depicts

whether it is actually a scene of the Panathenaic procession or is it a mythological procession with the gods present. I mean yes because did actually the Panathenaic procession or is it a mythological procession with the gods present i mean yes because did actually the panathenaic procession did that end at the parthenon or did it just end somewhere else in the acropolis it ended at the parthenon but the peplos wasn't for the statue in the parthenon to make things confusing it That Petlos was going to another statue which sat in another temple called the Erechtheion and that was the most sacred statue for Athena and the Athenians. It wasn't the statue that sat or stood, should I say, in the Parthenon. Yeah, sizes and everything with these statues because as you've hinted at there if we go into the right interior the center of the temple

well of the Parthenon temple slash treasury well let's say you've just broken in because I know you say it's difficult who can actually get in let's say broken in and you can now see this in front of you what would you see you would see a massive gold and ivory statue of Athena. Her helmet would almost touch the interior roof. So a giant statue of Athena. Incredibly impressive. And Pausanias, the author who writes about the Parthenon, doesn't talk really about the Parthenon itself, the Parthenon doesn't talk really about the Parthenon itself but gives a detailed description of this statue and the statue she it's a very imposing statue she's standing in her full armor holding this shield which depicts mythological events around it wearing this very fantastical helmet with these plumes all of her clothing is gold and all of her skin that's showing is ivory.

So the technical term for that is chryselephantine. So she is a chryselephantine statue. Chryselephantine statue. And do we know of any, was there any influence on the creation of this statue for those, well, for whoever oversaw the building of this great Athena? those sculptors, well, for whoever oversaw the building of this great Athena? Well, we know that the sculptor was Phidias, who was a very well-known sculptor. He also created another Chrysalophantine statue in Olympia. Now, the statue itself wasn't solid gold, we think. More than likely, it had some sort of wooden frame. And then the gold was actually sheets of gold, molded gold that was fitted onto this wooden frame. And same with the ivory. So you kind of had a wooden skeleton and then it was surrounded by this golden ivory.

It would be unimaginable how you would find solid gold of that amount. is it would be unimaginable how you would find solid gold of that amount. But the key thing is, because going back to the start of this conversation, and you might have been thinking, where are all of these 5,000 talents being stored? One of the arguments is that it was actually being stored on Athena, that this money was on the goddess itself in the form of these golden fabric folds that made up her dress. And that's a really interesting point that I'd like to bring on to now, because when you say the word temple, which is often associated with the Parthenon, you think religious function for the building.

But does it therefore seem, if there doesn't seem to be a priesthood that we know of, that was there more to the whole function of the Parthenon than just being a religious place, therefore? Well, John Camp, who is a very well-respected archaeologist who's worked on Athens for several decades, he wrote a book on the archaeology of Athens. And when he describes the Parthenon, he says that it's a glorified treasury for the city, that it's not a temple, that it serves no religious function. I don't have an answer for you because we have incomplete evidence on the topic. Pausanias calls it a temple. There were other structures that were treasuries that stored valuable objects.

But the fact that it is called a temple suggests that it wasn't a treasury. But we can fight about this till the cows come home because there is no definitive answer. There's a lot of debate surrounding that, therefore. I mean, you mentioned that there are other buildings on the Acropolis. So I'd like to ask a bit about these other buildings now. You've already mentioned the Erechtheion, but were there other structures as well that were completed, constructed on the Acropolis at the time that the Parthenon was built? Yes, there were. So the entranceway to the Acropolis got a monumentalized entranceway called the Propylaia, which you'd be forgiven

for thinking it looks like a temple because it has these massiveoric columns, but it's just really about creating a sense of space with this huge gateway. Then you have the Erechtheion, which is a very impressive temple in its own right. You've probably seen the portico or the porch with the female columns. That belongs to the Erechtheion. And then you have the Parthenon,

and these were the two larger temples and structures. There were other structures in the front of the Parthenon and these were the two larger temples and structures. There were other structures in the front of the Parthenon. There was a small sanctuary to Artemis Bryronia which had a bronze statue of Artemis in it but at this time it really was the Parthenon which was the showstopper of the 5th century Athenian Acropolis. And did the Athenians also, I mean, do we know from like numismatic evidence or anything like that at the time? For instance, I've just had a chat about the Colosseum and they mentioned how the Colosseum was then shown on Roman coins not long after it was constructed. Do we have a similar thing with Athenian coins where the Parthenon is shown on Athenian coins or nothing similar in that case?

No, which is very frustrating because we have no documentation of what the temple... It's strange because it suggests that they didn't really care because Pausanias mentions it in a couple of lines what the temple looked like. However, there are some depictions potentially of the statue of athena on coinage which suggests that perhaps the the statue itself was more important but this is all very tentative so no the temple did not feature on coinage the head of athena did but not the temple itself well there, there we go. There we go. Well, thank you for clarifying that straight away anyhow. In regards, therefore, you mentioned how the Parthenon is made in the late 5th century BC, this time Athens in the wake of the Persian War. It seems

to be this golden age in the story of classical Athens. I mean, once again, this might be a very much a highly debated question, but do you think that the Parthenon it represented it came to be a symbol of Athenian imperialism at the time? I think it did I think it became a symbol of Athenian imperialism and the reason for that was remember this was potentially funded if not all of it a large part of it by the Delian League and during the great panathenaia which every four years the Athenians insisted that their allies in adverted commas were present at the panathenaia so if you imagine you're paying into this kitty you're forced to pay into it and then you have to come to Athens and you see the money that you've paid into this being used to beautify and

monumentalize the city including the Parthenon you know it's a very clear statement of the imperial outlook of the Athenians and how they view themselves. It's so interesting therefore to ask about its immediate legacy because of course roughly 100 years after the Parthenon is built you have the arrival of the Macedonians then you have the start of the Hellenistic period I mean there's a big Athenian revolt against the Macedonians and the Acropolis is mentioned in that but does the Parthenon retain its significance its importance to Athenians even down into the Hellenistic period when I think it's very much fair to say that this age of Athenian imperial, well, this age of the Athenian empire has long and gone. Absolutely. You're exactly right. Athens has lost its power in the Hellenistic period.

It's living on its past glory, and it's now become a bit of a university town. It's living on its past glory and it's now become a bit of a university town. It's more known for its philosophical schools. The greatly named Demetrius Polyarchetes, Demetrius the Besieger. The Besieger, love him, yes. I know, Demetrius the Besieger sets himself up in the Parthenon and he says that he should be in the Parthenon because Athena is his sister, because he thinks he's half God. This doesn't go down well with the Athenians, obviously, but the Athenians have no power. And Plutarch even says that the Parthenon becomes a bordello,

that all of the great kind of prostitutes of the day are living with Demetrius in the Parthenon. So I have a lecture on this called When the Parthenon was a bordello for a horny warlord. And essentially that's what it became. And then you also have the question of what's happening with the gold that's on Athena's statue. It more than likely isn't there anymore. More than likely these warlords, these Hellenistic kings that are moving through Athens are helping themselves to this gold. And more than likely she's now covered in bronze, if anything. So it therefore sounds, I love that now we can talk more and more about Demetrius Polyarchetes, the besieger, because he's such an extraordinary figure with at least his legacy is everywhere he's infamous in so many ways

but it does therefore sound what you're saying there Maeve he is of course just one of these successors in the decades immediate decades following Alexander's death you've got Poly Perchin another Alexander and so on and so forth who take control of Athens Ptolemy as well do you therefore think it's during that chaotic period that we see, as these people want to get money so that they can fund more and more of their armies, that you do see the wealth of the Parthenon really being attacked? Absolutely. If the Athenians had recovered her in gold, we know because of the throwaway comment that Cicero makes in one of his law court

speeches that a Roman general moving through Athens had stripped the Athena Parthenos statue of its gold. So more than likely by the Roman period at least, and we know that Sulla sacks Athens as well, and it's a very, very ripe fruit for the picking that more than likely that gold that was the highlight of the Athenian power in the fifth century is no longer there, that it has been looted. The Romans pay very little attention to Athens. One of the reasons why is because Athens is continually backing the losing side. It backs Mark Anthony. It backs Brutus. It backs all of the people that lose.

It's not a good record. Exactly. No, no. So what happens then is that the Romans don't really care much. Augustus builds a very small temple of Roma and Augustus on the Acropolis, right side of the Parthenon. Nero puts an inscription up on the Parthenon, but it seems to not be the focus of anyone's attention. And we know that Cicero and other Roman elites lose their mind going to Athens because they say, oh, that's where Demosthenes was. Oh, that's where Socrates was. So even back then, there were Roman tourists going to Athens and looking at its glorious past.

And then unfortunately, in 267 CE, the Herulians raid Athens and the whole of the city is sacked. And the whole of the city is sacked. And more than likely, there was a catastrophic fire in the Parthenon. Because we have evidence of some of the columns being cracked by the heat of fire. More than likely, the substructure of the roof that was wood caught fire. And then the whole of the Parthenon was gutted. So definitely by that stage, the statue is gone. And then the whole of the Parthenon by 267 is a shell. And then I guess many, many centuries, centuries later, is there a story of gunpowder and explosion and a lot of parts of the Parthenon being

blown up as well? Absolutely. The Parthenon was a church for much longer than it was a temple. In around 600 CE, it's converted into a church. A roof is put back on it and the whole of the interior is remodeled. It's a church for nearly a thousand years. And then it becomes a mosque in 1460. It's converted into a mosque. And it becomes, you have an Ottoman writer who says that the mosque in Athens rivals Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. It is an incredibly impressive building. But as you said, there was a Venetian bombardment of the city of Athens and they used the Parthenon, then a mosque, as target practice and that they were actually holding gunpowder within the mosque at that time. And the whole of the Parthenon exploded. The roof exploded off and the whole of one long side of it was just totally demolished. So then at that point, they don't rebuild it. And instead, what you have is a smaller mosque built within the interior of the ruins. And then the whole of the Acropolis is built up with a

settlement. And people are just living cheek by jowl with the ruins of this temple, which has no cultural value to them. It has a value to them in terms of it being a building material. But it's not necessarily has the significance that we associate with the Parthenon. Well, there you go. Well, we could do a completely separate podcast all about the legacy of the Parthenon. But let's wrap up this episode here. Maeve, this has been absolutely brilliant. And it just goes for me to say, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast today. Thank you very much for having me. Well, there you go. There was Dr. Maeve McHugh, lecturer in classical archaeology at the University of Birmingham, talking all about the Parthenon. I hope you enjoyed the episode.

Thank you to Maeve and thank you also to our assistant producer Annie Colo who reached out to Maeve for this episode to talk all about the Parthenon. Annie went to the University of Birmingham, she knows Maeve very well, a former lecturer of hers and was a great choice for a guest as I no doubt you'll agree having listened to this episode now last thing from me you know what I'm gonna say if you enjoyed today's episode and you enjoy the other episodes of the ancients and you want to help us out as we continue on our overarching mission to share these incredible stories from our distant past with you and with as many people as possible well you know what you can do you can leave us a

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