Why they set up a bronze statue of Kylon in spite of his plotting a tyranny [turannis],1 I cannot say for certain; but I infer that it was because he was very beautiful to look upon, and of no undistinguished fame [doxa], having won an Olympian victory in the double-foot-race [diaulos], and he had married the daughter of Theagenes, tyrant of Megara.
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632 BCE.
Above and beyond the things that I have so far inventoried [katalegein], there are two tithes [dekatai] dedicated by the Athenians in the aftermath of wars. There is first a bronze statue [agalma] of Athena, tithe [dekatē] from the [victory over the] Persians who landed at Marathon. It is the work [tekhnē] of Pheidias, but the reliefs upon the shield, including the fight between Centaurs and Lapithai, are said to have been metalworked [toreuein] by someone named Mys, for whom they say Parrhasios son of Euenor designed [kata-graphein] this and the rest of his works [erga]. The point of the spear of this Athena and the crest of her helmet are already visible to those sailing to Athens as they pass by Cape Sounion. The other tithe [dekatē] is a bronze chariot, offered by the Boeotians and by the people of Khalkis in Euboea.1 There are two other offerings [anathēmata], (1) a statue of Pericles, the son of Xanthippos, and (2) the best of those works of Pheidias that are most worthy of viewing [théā], the statue [agalma] of Athena named ‘the one from Lemnos’, since those who dedicated [anatithenai] it were from there.
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circa 507 BCE.
All the Acropolis is surrounded by a wall; a part was constructed by Kimon, son of Miltiades, but all the rest is said to have been built round it by the Pelasgians, who once lived under the Acropolis. The builders, they say, were Agrolas and Hyperbios. On inquiring who they were I could discover nothing except that they were Sicilians originally who emigrated to Akarnania.
As one descends, not to the lower city, but to just beneath the Propylaia [‘Gateway’], there is a fountain [pēgē] and near it a sacred space [hieron] of Apollo in a cave [spēlaion]. It was here, according to customary-thinking [nomizein], that Apollo had sex [sun-genesthai] with Kreousa, daughter of Erekhtheus. [There seems to be a gap here in the text.] When the Persians [Medes] had landed in Attica, Philippides was sent as a messenger [from Marathon] to Sparta [Lacedaemon]. When he returned [to Marathon], he said that the Spartans [Lacedaemonians] had postponed sending out [any reinforcements], on the grounds that it was their custom not to go out to fight before the circle of the moon was full. Philippides went on to say that near Mount Parthenios he had been met by Pan, who told him that he is kindly-disposed [eu-nous] to the Athenians and would come as their ally [summakhos] to Marathon. This deity, then, gets honored [tīmâsthai] in return for this message [angeliā].
There is also the Peak of Ares [Areiopagos], so named because Ares was the first to be put on trial here; my narrative [logos] has already made it clear [dēloûn]1 that he killed Halirrhothios, and what were the grounds for this act of his. Afterwards, they say, Orestes was put on trial for killing his mother, and there is an altar [bōmos] to Athena Areia [‘Warlike’], which he dedicated [anathenai] after he was acquitted. The unhewn stones on which stand the defendants and the prosecutors, they call the stone of Hubris [‘Outrage’] and the stone of Anaideia [‘Shamelessness’].
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Pausanias 1.21.4.
Close by is a sanctuary [hieron] of the goddesses [theai] whom the Athenians call the Semnai [‘the august ones’], but Hesiod in the Theogony calls them Erinyes [‘Furies’].1 It was Aeschylus who first represented them with snakes in their hair. But on the statues [agalmata] neither of these nor of any of the under-earth [hupo-gaioi] deities [theoi] is there anything horrific. There are statues [agalmata] of Pluto [Ploutōn], Hermes, and Earth, in the name of whom sacrifices-are-made [thuein] by those who are acquitted of guilt [aitiā] on the Peak of Ares [Areiopagos]; sacrifices-are-made [thuein] also on other occasions by both city-folk and visitors [xenoi].
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Hesiod Theogony 185.
Within the enclosure [peribolos] is a tomb [mnēma] of Oedipus, whose bones, after diligent inquiry, I found were brought [komizein] from Thebes. I am prevented from thinking as trustworthy the things having to do with the death of Oedipus as composed-in-poetry [poieîn] by Sophocles. I am prevented by Homer, who says that, after the death of Oedipus, Mekisteus [of Athens] came to Thebes and participated-in-the-athletic contest [agōnizesthai] at the funeral-compensating-for-his-death [epitaphios].
The Athenians have other law courts [dikastēria] as well, which do not have so great a fame [doxa]. There is the so-called Parabuston and the Triangle [Trigōnon]; the first of the two is in an obscure part of the city, and in it the most trivial cases are tried; the second is named from its shape. The names of Frog Court [Batrakhioûn] and Red Court [Phoinikioûn], due to their colors, have lasted down to the present day. The largest court, to which the greatest numbers come, is called Hēliaiā. One of the other courts that deal with bloodshed is called […] Palladion, into which are brought cases of involuntary homicide. All are agreed that Demophon was the first to be put on trial there, but as to the nature of the charge accounts differ.
It is said that after the capture of Troy [Ilion] Diomedes was returning-home [komizesthai] with his ships when night overtook them as they sailed near Phaleron. The Argives went ashore, though they thought that they had landed in hostile territory, since the darkness prevented them from seeing that they were in Attica. At that point, they say that Demophon, he too being unaware of the facts and ignorant that those who had landed were Argives, responded-to-the-alarm-and-went-on-the-attack [ek-boētheîn]. He killed a number of the men, seized the Palladium, and rode off with it. An Athenian, however, not seeing in the dark that Demophon, riding his horse, was heading in that direction, was knocked over and trampled to death. So, Demophon was brought to trial, some say by the relatives of the man who was trampled, others say by the community [tò koinon] of the Argives.
At the Delphinion are tried those who claim that they have committed justifiable homicide, which was the plea put forward by Theseus on the occasion when he was acquitted, after having killed Pallas, who had risen in revolt against him, and his sons. Before Theseus was acquitted it was the established custom among all men for the one who sheds blood to go into exile, or, if he remained, to be put to a similar death. The Court in the Prytaneion [‘City Hall’], as it is called, where they try iron and all similar inanimate things, had its origin, I think [nomizō], in-response-to [epi + dative case] the following event. It was when Erekhtheus was king of Athens that the ox-slayer [bou-phonos] first killed an ox at the altar [bōmos] of Zeus Polieus. Leaving the axe [pelekus] where it lay he went out of the land into exile, and the axe [pelekus] was immediately put-on-trial [krinesthai] and acquitted, and the trial has been repeated year by year down to the present.
Furthermore, it is also said that inanimate objects have on occasion of their own accord inflicted righteous retribution upon men; of this the scimitar [akinakēs] of Cambyses affords the best and most famous instance.1 Near the sea at the Peiraieus is Phreattys. Here it is that men in exile, when a further charge has been brought against them in their absence, make their defense on a ship while the judges listen on land. The story [logos] is that Teukros first defended himself in this way before Telamon, claiming that he had not done anything that contributed to the death of Ajax. Let this account suffice for those who are interested to learn about the law courts [dikastēria].
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See Herodotus 3.64.
The visibility of the spear tip of Athena Promakhos, as noted here by Pausanias, is relevant to Pausanias 1.1.1, as argued at §1.7 of the comments there.
The ‘Pelasgian’ Wall as noted by Pausanias here corresponds to what archaeologists today call the ‘Cyclopean’ Wall, traces of which were visible even in the Classical period and beyond.
Pausanias does not specifically mention the cave of the Eumenides/Erinyes. Still, the reference here to these deities as *hupo-gaioi *‘under-earth’ conveys the idea that they dwell in caves. For references elsewhere in Greek texts, I recommend Henrichs 1994:39. See also H24H 17§§1–3.
Pausanias is referring here to Iliad 23.677–679.
A variation on the theme of Athena: The Palladium, as viewed by Pausanias on the Acropolis of Athens
§1.0. This excursus is a commentary on a passage in Pausanias, 1.28.9, where our traveler, while visiting the Acropolis of Athens, refers to a statue of the goddess Athena there. He is referring in this case not to Athena Parthénos, that is, to Athena the ‘Virgin’, who was housed in the Parthenon. Nor is he referring here to Athena Poliás, that is, to Athena as the Lady of the Citadel, who was housed in the old temple of the goddess. Rather, the referent here is an ancient wooden statue known as the Palládion, conventionally latinized as Palladium. There were many divergent myths about the Palladium, but there was general agreement on at least one convergent detail: originally, myth has it, the Palladium was housed in the temple of Athena, situated on top of the acropolis of ancient Troy. In the lead illustration for my comments, I show a picturing of a familiar scene involving what I think is this very same Palladium. In this picture—and I could show many other such pictures, some of which are considerably more ancient than the one I have chosen—we see the lesser Ajax, son of Oileus, in the act of violating Cassandra after the capture of Troy by the Achaeans. Seizing her by the arm, he is about to drag her away from a statue of Athena to which she is clinging as a suppliant. The goddess, fully armed, with spear in the right hand and with shield in the left hand, is just standing there, statue that she is. Now, it goes without saying here that the goddess will have her vengeance, since she will ultimately punish the sacrilegious violator. But that is another story. My concern here is different: the question for now is, how did the Palladium find its way from the citadel of Troy to the citadel of Athens? And the answer has to do with the power of the Palladium in the scene that we see pictured in the illustration that we are considering. The Palladium is so much more than a statue—if I am right in thinking that the statue that we see in this and other such pictures is in fact the Palladium. I have to say “if” for now, since I cannot simply assume that this statue, as represented in such pictures, can actually be identified with the Palladium. As I will argue, however, such an identification becomes most likely when we consider an Athenian myth, as reported by Pausanias, 1.28.9, about the appropriation of the Palladium by the Athenians.
§1.1. Before we can examine the Athenian myth, I need to say more about the Trojan myth of the Palladium. In a source dated to the second century CE, the Library of “Apollodorus” (3.12.3 p. 39 ed. Frazer 1921 II), we read that the Palladium was a wooden statue that fell from the sky, sent by Zeus (it was *diīpetés *‘sky-fallen’), and it landed on earth at Ilion or Troy, where it was received by Ilos, founder of Troy; this Palladium had been celestially hand-crafted as a *xoanon *‘wooden statue’ by the goddess Athena herself in expiation for her involuntary killing of her mortal body double, the girl Pallas (3.12.3 p. 41).
§1.2. Similarly, as we read in Pausanias, 1.26.6, there was an Athenian myth about a statue of Athena Poliás that descended from the heavens and landed on the acropolis of Athens. In this myth as well, the statue was made of wood—olive wood, as we read for example in the Library of “Apollodorus” (3.14.6 p. 93 ed. Frazer 1921 II; further sources surveyed by Frame 2009:348n13).
§1.3. But there is also a significant dissimilarity between the two statues: whereas the Palladium, in terms of my argument, was standing, the statue of Athena Poliás was seated (the relevant evidence has been assembled by Frame 2009:360–361, with bibliography). We find a striking point of comparison reported by Pausanias himself in another context: at 7.5.9, he speaks of another Athena Poliás, whose temple graced the citadel of Erythrai in Ionia, and, in this case, Pausanias says explicitly that this Athena Poliás was in a seated position.
§1.4. Also, in the Homeric Iliad, 6.92/273/303, the statue of Athena as worshipped at the acropolis of Troy is pictured as seated, not standing (that is why the offering of woven treasures can be placed on her knees). In Homer the Preclassic (Nagy 2009|2010:207–209), I trace this detail back to phases in the transmission of Homeric poetry where the statue of the goddess was pictured in terms of a tradition that contradicted an alternative tradition as exemplified by the statue of Athena housed in the citadel of New Ilion, built on the ruins of Old Troy: as we know from Strabo (13.1.41 C601), the statue of the goddess in the citadel of New Ilion was not seated but standing, and the same pose is reported about her statues in citadels elsewhere, as in Phocaea and Chios (Nagy 2009|2010:207–208).
§1.5. As I show in Homer the Preclassic (Nagy 2009|2010:270), the contrast between seated and standing statues of Athena can become politicized: a case in point is the choice of a seated Athena in Homeric poetry, which favors the city of Sigeion in its “Ionic” phase of existence and disfavors the city of New Ilion in its “neo-Aeolic” phase. The two cities were rival claimants to the status of being the “real” Troy, and their rivalry was expressed by way of a contrast between a seated statue of Athena in her temple at Sigeion and the standing statue in her temple at New Ilion. I should add that the non-Homeric standing statue of Athena at New Ilion was linked with rituals involving the so-called Locrian Maidens, who performed seasonally recurring expiation for the primordial sacrilege committed against this statue of the goddess by the lesser Ajax, native son of Locris (details about the Locrian Maidens in Nagy 2019).
§1.6. That said, I can resume my argument, that the non-Homeric standing statue of Athena in the citadel of Troy was the Palladium. As I indicated from the start, the traditions about the Palladium in Athens will prove to be decisive for the argumentation that follows. I start right away here with an essential fact about the visual experience of actually viewing the Palladium: as noted by Guy Hedreen (2001:28), Athenian iconographic traditions picture the goddesss of the Palladium as a look-alike of another statue. And that other statue is Athena Promakhos, the Warrior Goddess of the Athenians. She is standing in guard, forever protecting the acropolis of Athens, brandishing a spear in her right hand and a shield in her left hand.
§1.7. This Athena *Promakhos *made quite an impression on Pausanias, as I will now try to show. Picturing our traveler as he ascends to the heights of the Acropolis, I ask myself: what would be the very first thing he sees after he reaches the top? To prepare an answer, I am conjuring in my mind some happy memories of conversations I have had with my friend Gloria Ferrari Pinney about this question. The answer I am about to formulate owes much to my dear friend’s deeper insights. I start by imagining the moments that elapse right before that final moment when you get to the top of the Acropolis—if you were living in a time long gone, when Pausanias was making his own ascent. Before you finally get to the top, you pass through the Propylaia, that extravagantly palatial gateway that leads out into the open space of the sacred ground defined by Athena, goddess of Athens. So, what do you see when you emerge into that open space? Well, one thing you cannot see very well, not yet, is the Parthenon. There is a wall occluding a good view of the Parthenon up ahead. That palatial abode of Athena Parthenos, Athena the Virgin, which is so ostentatiously visible to all from down below, from almost any angle in metropolitan Athens down below at ground zero, would be temporarily blocked from your view up above, now that you have reached the heights of the Acropolis. This occlusion, which will last until you get past the wall, can help you focus on something else for now, something that is standing right in front of you, with the wall as its background. To my way of thinking, the very first sight to be seen by Pausanias at the top of the Acropolis would be Athena Promakhos. Our traveler looks up and sees this colossal bronze statue of the goddess, around thirty feet tall and armed as a mighty warrior. The epithet of the goddess, Promakhos, can be interpreted as ‘leading the battle’: Athena leads the battle in protecting her Acropolis. She is ever ready to fight in defense of her citadel overlooking her city, with a spear in her right hand and a shield in her left. While Pausanias is looking up at her, she is looking downward, down toward her approaching adorants. I show here a reconstruction of such a visual moment:
§1.8. Just as the sight of Athena Promakhos, protector of the Acropolis, can preoccupy the vision of Pausanias when he enters the Acropolis—now he only has eyes for the goddess—this same sight had preoccupied him retroactively, back when he rounded the headland of Sounion: already back then, he only had eyes for Athena—in that case, for Athena Souniás, the goddess who protects the headland just as Athena Promakhos protects the citadel. The visibility of the spear tip of Athena Promakhos, as highlighted by Pausanias when he was rounding the headland of Sounion, has already been noted at §1.7 of the commentary on Pausanias 1.1.1. Elsewhere too, as we read further in Pausanias, we find situations where Athena is worshipped as a protector presiding over headlands jutting out into the sea: at 2.34.8–9, for example, where he is describing headlands and nearby harbors while sailing along the coastline of the Peloponnesus, Pausanias draws attention to a *hieron *‘sanctuary’ of Athena, and the epithet of the goddess, presiding over the landscape and seascape, is in this case reported to be *Promakhormā *‘protector of anchorage’.
§1.9. With this background in place, I am ready to comment on Pausanias 1.28.9, where our traveler refers to a statue of Athena that is actually named the Palladion or Palladium, housed in a building that is likewise called the Palladium, situated on the Acropolis of Athens. In introducing my commentary, I start with an epitome of my relevant analysis in Homer the Classic (Nagy 2008|2009 I §§93–98):
{1§93} According to the local mythology of the city of Argos, as implied by the narrative of Pausanias 2.23.5, it was the hero Diomedes who captured the Palladium from the acropolis of Troy and ultimately brought the sacred object to the city of Argos as its final resting place. But Pausanias rejects the Argive version of the narrative. He has good reason for this rejection, since the Roman version of the narrative was dominant in his time. More later on the Roman version. For now, it is enough to note that Pausanias was faced with many variations in narratives about how, when, and why Diomedes took the Palladium from the acropolis of Troy, and many of the variant stories involve Odysseus as a partner of Diomedes in the quest to take it. [I summarize those variants at 1§§93–96.]
{1§94} According to the local mythology of the city of Athens, which rivaled the local mythology of the city of Argos, the final resting place of the Palladium was not Argos but Athens. Here is a summary of this Athenian mythology as reported by a variety of sources, including the narrative of Pausanias 1.28.8–9:
Diomedes, sailing home from Troy with the Palladium in his possession, happened to stop over at the Athenian seaport of Phaleron. Mistaken for an enemy, Diomedes was attacked by the Athenians, led by a hero called Demophon. The Palladium was taken by mistake from Diomedes, and thus it found its final resting place in Athens. It was housed in the ancient building used for trials involving involuntary homicide; by metonymy, the building itself was called Palladium. [Frazer 1929 IV 263 collects the sources, including Pausanias 1.28.8–9, Polyaenus 1.5, Harpocration (s.v. ἐπὶ Παλλαδίῳ), and the Suda (s.v. ἐπὶ Παλλαδίῳ).]
I should add here that the ritualized linking of the Palladium with cases of involuntary homicide can be matched with a myth, which I have already cited from the Library of “Apollodorus” (3.12.3 p. 41 ed. Frazer 1921 II), about the celestial crafting of the wooden statue of the Palladium—hand-crafted by the goddess Athena herself in expiation for her involuntary killing of her mortal body double, the girl Pallas.
{1§95} [What follows here is a comment on an argument that started in 1§89: that the Palladium is not absent but very much present in Homeric poetry—as an absent signifier—and that Virgil was aware of such an absent signification, weaving it into his Aeneid.] In Virgil’s time, the canonical final resting place of the Palladium was the circular temple or *aedes *of Vesta in Rome: Dionysius of Halicarnassus Roman Antiquities 1.69, 2.66.5; Plutarch Camillus 20; Pausanias 2.23.5. The question is, who brought the Palladium to Rome after the capture of Troy? A contemporary of Virgil, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, says it explicitly: according to Dionysius, Aeneas was the one who rushed up to the acropolis of Troy and snatched the Palladium from the fires of destruction at the very last moment, as the city was going up in flames; then he brought the Palladium with him to Italy, along with other sacred objects he rescued from the acropolis of Troy (Roman Antiquities 1.69.2).
{1§96} Such a version of the myth is perfectly suited to the ideology of the Roman empire in the age of Augustus. It links Augustus with the heroes of Troy, since his adoptive father Julius Caesar was a notional descendant of Aeneas by way of Ascanius, otherwise named Iulus, the son of Aeneas. Our source is Strabo (13.1.27 C594–595). [I go on to argue at 1§§97–98 that the actual rescuing of the Palladium by Aeneas is a theme that predates—and is thus originally independent of—any such Roman appropriation.]
§1.10. I regret that Pausanias rejected the myth of the Palladium as narrated by the people of Argos. But I see relevance in a detail mentioned elsewhere by Pausanias, 2.24.2, where he reports on an epithet given to Athena by her worshippers at a temple situated in the heights of Argos: she is invoked there by way of the epithet Oxuderkḗs, ‘she with the sharp vision’, because—as the story has it—she helped Diomedes see through the mist. To my way of thinking, her epithet indicates also her role as seeing far and wide from her vantage point as Mistress of the Heights. [[GN 2020.06.19]]