Department of the Classics, Harvard University

The Ilioupersis in Athens

Author(s): Gloria Ferrari
Source: Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Vol. 100 (2000), pp. 119-150
Published by: Department of the Classics, Harvard University
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3185212
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 THE ILIOUPERSISIN ATHENS*

GLORIAFERRARI

F the role of the Atheniansat Troy was marginalat best, to judge by

the epic tradition,'two monumentsattest to the fact that, in the fifth
centuryB.C.E.,the Atheniansfound it a source of pride. Aroundthe year
420 one Chairedemus,son of Euangelus, dedicated on the Acropolis a
colossal bronze statue of the Wooden Horse,2 which Pausanias
described (1.23.8), identifying the men emerging from its belly. These
are not the "best of the Argives"mentionedin the Odyssey(4.271-289)
but local heroes: Menestheus, Teucer (the half-brotherof Salaminian
Aias), and the sons of Theseus, Acamas and Demophon. Earlierin the
century,the verses inscribed on three herms, commemoratingKimon's
victorious siege of the Persian fortress of Eion in 476/5, explicitly
claimed the heroes who fought at Troy as the antecedentsof contempo-
raryheroes. The epigrambegan by comparingthe men, who had fought
against "the sons of the Mede," to king Menestheus who had lead his
army to war "at the side of the Atridaeupon the sacred plain of Troy."3
As in Simonides' elegy for the dead at Plataea,4the Eion epigram thus
cast the war against the Persians in the model of the expedition against

*The Author thanks Brunilde S. Ridgway for sharingher profoundknowledge of the

Parthenonsculptures,and MaryEbbott,for rewardingdiscussions of the Persians.
1 Homer
only mentions the Athenian contingent in the Catalogue of Ships (Iliad
2.546-556); the surviving fragments of Lesches' Little Iliad and Arctinus' Ilioupersis
record that Demophon and Acamas found their grandmotherAethra, on the night that
Troy fell, and brought her back home; A. Bemabe, Poetae Epici Graeci: Testimoniaet
FragmentaI (Leipzig 1987) IP arg. 21-22; MI fr. 20.
2 The statue itself has perished,but its inscribedbase remainsin situ in the precinctof
Artemis Brauronia,IG I3 895; Jeffrey M. Hurwit, The Athenian Acropolis (Cambridge
1999) 195, fig. 168.
3 D. L.
Page, Further GreekEpigrams(Cambridge1981) 255-259 no. xl.
4 M. L. West, Iambi et
Elegi Graeci II2 (Oxford 1992) 118-120 no. 11; Deborah
Boedeker,"TheNew Simonides and Heroizationat Plataea,"in Nick Fisher and Hans van
Wees eds., Archaic Greece: New Approachesand New Evidence (London 1998) 231-249.
120 Gloria Ferrari

Troy. It is easy to understandthese monumentsin an entirely positive

sense, as celebrationsof the city's glorious past and of the power of its
patrongoddess. Athena herself had actively pursuedthe destructionof
the city and had even taken a hand in the constructionof the horse that
broughtdown its walls.5 The actual sack of Troy carriedratherdarker
connotations.Nevertheless,this too became a dominanttheme in Athe-
nian art and tragedy in the decades following the Persian wars.
Schefold and Jung noted that the representationsof the subject on
Athenianvases are on the increase from the 490s B.C.E.6What is more,
the Ilioupersis was chosen for large-scale public projects, namely, the
wall paintings of the Stoa Poikile, dated to about 460-450 B.C.E.7 and
the metope series on the north side of the Parthenon,which was com-
pleted in 432.
The significance of the ParthenonIlioupersis has long been under-
stood by referenceto the subjectschosen for the otherthree sides. Each
representsan episode of Athenian myth-history.The battle of the gods
against the giants is the occasion of Athena's aristeia over the giant
Asterius, which is the foundation legend of the Panathenaea.8The
Amazonomachyof the west metopes probablycelebratesthe defense of
the Acropolis by Athens' nationalhero.9The heroic friendshipof The-
seus and Pirithousis at center stage in the Centauromachy,which is the
main theme of the south metopes.10Each of these themes also functions
5
Odyssey 8.493; on the making of the Wooden Horse, see Michael J. Anderson, The
Fall of Troyin Early GreekPoetry and Art (Oxford 1997) 18-26. Athena may be repre-
sented sculpting a model for Epeios on a classical red-figureoinochoe, Berlin, Staatliche
Musen F 2415, ARV2776, 1; LIMCs.v. "Athene"no. 48.
6 Karl Schefold and Franz Jung, Die Sagen von den Argonauten, von Theben und
Troiain der klassischen und hellenistischenKunst(Munich 1989) 283-285.
7 Pausanias1.15.1-4; John.M.
Camp, TheAthenianAgora (London 1986) 66-71.
8 Gloria Ferrari
Pinney, "Pallasand Panathenaea,"in J. Christiansenand T. Melander
eds., Proceedings of the ThirdSymposiumon Ancient Greekand Related Pottery(Copen-
hagen 1988) 465-477. On the east metopes see Ernst Berger, Der Parthenon in Basel.
Dokumentationzu den Metopen (Basel 1986) 55-76; K. A. Schwab, "ParthenonEast
Metope XI: Heraklesand the Gigantomachy,"AJA 100 (1996) 81-90.
9 The battered state of the west
metopes (Berger [above, n. 8] 99-107) makes it
impossible to determineif this is the battle for the Acropolis of Athens or anotherAma-
zonomachy. On the possible relevance of the theme to that of the west pediment, see
David Castriota,Myth, Ethos, and Actuality: Official Art in Fifth-centuryB.C. Athens
(Madison,WI 1992) 143-151.
10Berger (above, n. 8) 77-98; A. Mantis, "Neue Fragmentevon ParthenonMetopen,"
Jdl 102 (1987) 163-181; "ParthenonCentral South Metopes," in Diana Buitron-Oliver
ed., The Interpretationof ArchitecturalSculpturein Greece and Rome (Washington1997
 TheIlioupersis in Athens 121

by analogy with the next to develop a sustained allegory of the ulti-

mately victorious struggle of the forces of justice over transgressive
violence and freakish twists of nature. It is reasonable, therefore, to
expect that the Ilioupersis of the north metopes likewise contained ele-
ments that were particularlyrelevantto the history of Athens and that it
provideda fourthexample of hubris-drivenassault againstthe gods and
human society. With few exceptions,"l scholars have identified the
offenders in the Trojans,for their perverse refusal to surrenderHelen
and so remedy Paris' offense against Zeus Xenios. The subject of the
north metopes, therefore, would be the punishment of Priam and his
city, in accordancewith the will of Zeus.12This traditionalview feeds
into a more radical formulationof the opposition of Greeks to Trojans.
The sack of Troy is read as a transparentmetaphorfor the struggle of
Hellenes against Persians, Greeks against barbarians, East versus
West.13In this light, the Ilioupersis becomes the key to understanding
the entire metopalprogramas an allegory of the Persianwars.
The currentreading rests on the sound premise that myths provide
exempla, which reveal constant, overarching patterns that structure
human experience.'4 By the fifth century, however, the sack of Troy

[Centerfor Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, SymposiumPapers 39. Studies in the His-
tory of Art 49.]) 67-81.
l Namely, Schefold and Jung (above, n. 6) 280-283, quoted below. Brunilde S. Ridg-
way, Fifth Century Styles in Greek sculpture (Princeton 1981) 18-19, questioned the
interpretationof the Ilioupersison the northmetopes as an allegory of the victory over the
Persians,pointing to the fact that in literaryand visual imagery the Trojansare not char-
acterized as barbarians.She restatedher skepticism in Prayers in Stone: GreekArchitec-
tural Sculptureca. 600-100 B.C.E.(Berkeley 1999) 164. Anderson (above, n. 5) 246-247
passes over the ParthenonIlioupersis, puttingforwardthe idea that its message may be a
warningabout the rewardsof greed and excess. See also below.
12Berger (above, n. 8) 14-15 offers a tabulationof scholarly hypotheses concerning
the subject of metopes 30-32, which hold the key to the meaning of the representation.
Although he retainsthe traditionalview that the metopes representthe punishmentof the
Trojans,Berger also notes both the limited role of the Atheniansin the Trojanwar and the
murky connotations that make the sack of Troy a less than ideal metaphorfor the Hel-
lenic struggle againstPersia.
13T. Holscher, Griechische Historienbilder des 5. und 4. Jahrhunderts v. Chr.
(Wiirzburg1973) 72-73; E. Thomas, Mythos und Geschichte (Koln 1976) 66-67; Hurwit
(above, n. 2) 232; Deborah Boedeker, "Presentingthe Past in fifth-centuryAthens," in
Deborah Boedeker and KurtRaaflaub,Democracy, Empire,and the Arts in Fifth-century
Athens (Cambridge,Mass. 1998) 185-202 and passim.
14For an introductionto the vast literatureon the subject from the specific perspective
of the use of myth in fifth centuryAthens, see Castriota(above, n. 9) 3-16.
122 GloriaFerrari

was establishedas a mythic paradigmindeed, but the paradigmof sacri-

lege and excess. This point has been made often and well, so that a
brief analysis of the iconographyof the Ilioupersis on Athenian vases
may suffice here. The majorfeaturesof its imagery are well established
by the middle of the sixth century B.C.E.and extend without radical
changes into the classical period.15The two events most often repre-
sented are the rape of Cassandraand the murderof Priam.The standard
iconographyof the rape places Cassandrain Athena's temple clinging
to the statueof the goddess; Aias, son of Oileus, armedand threatening,
pulls her away (fig. 1).16 As in Arctinus' Ilioupersis, Priam dies on the
altar of Zeus Herkeios, where he had sought refuge.17To mark further
the holiness of the place and the gravity of the offense, Onesimos
inscribes Dios hieron and Herkeio, respectively, upon the altar in his
two paintings of the subject (fig. 2).18 In a significant departurefrom
the literaryversions of the story,the vases show Neoptolemus throwing
the corpse of Priam'sgrandson,Astyanax, at the old king.19Three vase
paintings-the two cups by Onesimos and one by the Brygos Painter-
include Polyxena in the picture,uniting in a single frame the three most
egregious victims of the hero's rage.20Polyxena will die later, when
Neoptolemus sacrifices her to the vengeful ghost of Achilles, on
Odysseus' advice (EuripidesHecuba 107-139). The implicationsof the
juxtaposition were caught by Anderson, who writes: "the allusion to
that abhorrenthuman sacrifice adds an even darkerdimension to the
sacrilegious murderof Priam, as it suggests that Priam's death at the
15Sources
grouping two or more episodes of the sack are analyzed by Maria Pipili in
LIMCs.v. "Ilioupersis."
16LIMCs.v. "Cassandra";J. B.
Connelly, "Narrativeand Image in Attic Vase Painting:
Ajax and Cassandraat the TrojanPalladion,"in P. J. Holliday ed., Narrativeand Event in
AncientArt (Cambridge1993) 88-129.
17IP arg. 13-14; Apollodorus Epitome 5.21. On the iconography of Priam see Mar-
garet C. Miller, "Priam,King of Troy,"in J. B. Carterand S. P. Morris eds., The Ages of
Homer:A Tributeto Emily TowsendVermeule(Austin, TX 1995) 449-465.
18Remains of the tondo of a cup composed of fragments once in Berlin, Staatliche
Museen 2280-2281 and in the Vatican,ARV2 19,1 and 2; kylix in Rome, Museo Etrusco
di Villa Giulia (once in Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum 83.AE.362, 84.AE.80,
85.AE.385), D. Williams, "Onesimosand the Getty Iliupersis,"GreekVases in the J. Paul
GettyMuseum5. Occasional Papers on Antiquities7 (1991) 50-56.
19In the Iliou Persis, Odysseus kills Astyanax (IP arg. 20-21); the Mikra Ilias fr.
21.1-5 has Neoptolemus hurlthe child from the walls of Troy.
20For the cups by Onesimos, see above, n. 18. The Brygos Painterpairs the murderof
Priamwith Polyxena as she is led away by Acamas on Louvre G 152, ARV2369,1.
 TheIlioupersis in Athens 123

altar be understoodnot only as violation of a suppliant,but also as a

corruptform of sacrifice.21
Both the rape of Cassandra and the murder of Priam normally
appearin depictions of multiple episodes of the sack. Particularlyrich
treatmentsof the subject include less violent events: the recovery of
Helen, the escape of Aeneas, and the rescue of Aethra.On the Vivenzio
hydria of 480-470 B.C.E.(fig. 1), the central scene of murderand may-
hem is framed by the departureof Aeneas, at the extreme left of the
picture field, and the rescue of Aethra, at the other end. The fragmen-
tary large cup by Onesimos in Rome, dated to about 490, presents the
most detailed composition (fig. 3).22 The centralmedallion contains the
death of Priam. The inner wall of the cup shows on one side the attack
on Cassandra,flankedby fighting groups; at the far left Aethrareaches
out to Demophon and Acamas, while on the far right is Odysseus with
Theano and Antenor. On the opposite side, of which little remains, is
Menelaos in pursuitof Helen, caught at the moment at which he is won
over by her beauty once more, and lets his sword drop. A contrastof
impious violence and humanebehavioris suggested also by the contra-
position of the departureof Aeneas with Anchises to a scene combining
the rape of Cassandrawith the murderof Priam, respectively depicted
on the reverse and the obverse of a calyx-kraterof the 460s B.C.E.23
In analogous fashion, a volute-kraterby the Niobid Painterjuxtaposes
the rape of Cassandraand the rescue of Aethraon one side to the death
of Priamon the other.24The spotlightremainson sacrilege. By privileg-
ing the deaths of Priamand Cassandra,the imagery places emphasis on
the defilementof the shrinesand the violation of suppliants.
Polygnotus' paintingsof the Ilioupersisdepicted the aftermathof the
sack. Pausanias 1.15.2 confines his description of the tableaux in the
Stoa Poikile to the group of kings gathered to consider the crime of
Aias, son of Oileus, but he describes in great detail the Ilioupersisin the

21Anderson (above, n. 5) 238 and 59-61 (on the sources for the death of
Polyxena);
the point is made again by Peter Blome, "Das Schreckliche im Bild," in Fritz Graf ed.,
Ansichtengriechischer Rituale (Stuttgart1998) 72-78, 93-95. On the sacrificialconnota-
tions of the sacrifice of Polyxena, see also J.-L. Durand and F. Lissarrague,"Mourira
l'autel,"Archivfiir Religionsgeschichte 1 (1999) 91-102; I owe the last two referencesto
Albert Henrichs.
22Above, n. 18.
23
Kalyx-kraterBoston, Museum of Fine Arts 59.176, ARV2590,11.
24
Bologna, Museo Archeologico 268, ARV2598,1.
124 Gloria Ferrari

Lesche of the Cnidians at Delphi.25Aias stands by an altar;Cassandra

is near, holding on to the statue of Athena, which Aias uprootedfrom
its base when he dragged her from the temple. The ground is strewn
with corpses, Priam'samong them. For this variantof his death, Pausa-
nias 10.27.2 cites Lesches' Little Iliad, accordingto which Priam "was
dragged away from the altar and fell an easy prey to Neoptolemus at
the gate of his own palace." Helen sits among her handmaids;Eury-
bates seeks her consent to the release of Aethra,who has Demophon at
her side. The killing has stopped, except for Neoptolemus, and the
Achaeansprepareto decamp.The scene, in fact, begins with the ship of
Menelaus being readied for departure.The painting probably bore no
resemblance to the vase-paintingsthat are used to reconstructit. The
principal features of the myth are nevertheless in evidence: the viola-
tion of Cassandraand, in addition, the failure of the Achaean kings to
punish the offender; Neoptolemus' insatiable bloodlust. As Pausanias
did, the ancient viewer would have supplied from his store of epic
knowledge the story of how Priam was dragged away from the altarof
Zeus and had been left to the mercy of Neoptolemus. Togetherwith the
literary representations(to be considered shortly), the visual images
establish that, in the years preceding and following the planning and
carving of the Parthenonmetopes, the sack of Troy was deployed as a
model of savagery.With Castriota,one may well ask: "how and why
would the plannersof these works have utilized what had always been a
canonic image of Greek atrocityand failed characteras the centerpiece
of a largerprogramdesigned to praise the Atheniansand their allies as
punishersof hubris, ratherthan the perpetratorsof it?"26
Castriota's study of the use of the Ilioupersis theme in post-war
Athens forcefully exposed the contradictionimplicit in the traditional
interpretationof the north metopes of the Parthenon.The answer he
gave to his own question, however, reaffirmedthat interpretationin
strongerterms. If it was juxtaposed to the struggle of the gods against
the Giants, of the Athenians against the Amazons, and of Lapiths with
Theseus against the centaurson the Parthenonand in the Stoa Poikile,
then "the Ilioupersis must somehow have functioned in these monu-
ments as the accompanyingthemes did-in positive, heroic terms."27A
25Pausanias 10.25-27. D. Stansbury-O'Donnell, "Polygnotus' Iliupersis: A New
reconstruction,"AJA93 (1989) 203-215.
26Castriota(above, n. 9) 100.
27Ibid. 100.
 The Ilioupersis in Athens 125

common denominatoris identified in the triumphof good over evil, of

Greeks over non-Greeks, and of Hellenic sophrosune over barbarian
hubris. In an atmospherechargedwith nationalpride, the patrioticring
of "this classic mythic paradigm of panhellenic triumph against the
power and arroganceof Asia" would overridethe damningconnotations
that the myth traditionally held.28 Post-war representations of the
Ilioupersisthen would offer a radicalreinterpretationof the mythicaltra-
dition, one thatcast the Trojansinto the role of quintessentialbarbarians,
and made of the fall of Troy the mythical paradigmof victory against
Persia.29In practice, the transformationof the Achaean sack of Troy
from a paradigmof hubrisinto a model of sophrosunewould have been
accomplishedby Polygnotusand Phidias,each in his own way. Polygno-
tus is imagined to have painted the Trojansin oriental dress,30and to
have turnedAias, son of Oileus, and Neoptolemusinto "negativefoils to
illustratethe overwhelmingexcellence of the Greeks."By choosing to
representits aftermath,he was able to eliminate virtuallyall the violent
aspects of the sack and leave the viewer with the impressionof "a noble,
restrained,andjust conqueror."31 By omitting the crucial scenes of rape
and murderand choosing episodes that reflected well upon the Greeks,
Phidiaslikewise is imaginedto have made over the Achaeansinto exem-
plarsof Greekarete and agents of thejustice of Zeus.32
Some may reflect that in the Ilioupersispower and arrogancequalify
the Atridae better than Priam. And, as Castriotaadmits, the revisionist
versions of the myth he envisions find no echo in Atheniantragedyand
vase-painting.33The real difficultywith the argument,however,is struc-
28Ibid. 86.
29Ibid. 17-28, 96-133, 165-183. This thesis is
complementaryto that of Edith Hall,
Inventingthe Barbarian (Oxford 1989) 1-19, 102, and passim, accordingto which a shift
of attitudestook place, in the wake of the Persian invasion, which transformedthe Per-
sians and their ancestors, the Trojans,from foreign peoples into models of alterity with
respect to Hellenic identity.
30Castriota(above, n. 9) 106-109.
31 Ibid. 115-117, the quotes from pp. 115 and 118.
32 Ibid. 165-174.
33 As others have done, Castriotaibid. 96-100, 175-179 argues that later, near the end
of the fifth centuryand in the fourth,the image of the Trojansundergoesthe ethnic meta-
morphosis that turns them into barbarians.Proof of this is found in the oriental costume
that Priam wears on the often-cited krater from Valle Pega (FerraraMuseo Nazionale
1637, LIMCs.v. "Aias II" no. 910), one other Attic vase (Agora P 18849, Miller [above,
n. 17] 459, fig. 28.16), and on several Apulian vases of the fourth century, which are
inspired by tragedy. What may be provisionally called the "orientalization"of myth in
Athenian drama is too large a topic to be tackled here. It may be enough to say with
126 Gloria Ferrari

tural in nature. In order to convey a sense of righteous victory, the

theme would have to be imbuedwith a radicallydifferentmeaningthan
it normallyhad, not simply recast in more optimisticterms. This opera-
tion would throw the mythical frameworkto which it belongs into utter
disarray, for, as Nagy has argued, "the outer narrative that frames
mythological exempla is itself a mythological exemplum, on a large
scale."34In the case at hand, a sanitized,laudatoryrenditionof the sack
of Troy would remove the causes of the anger of the gods and make
nonsense of the whole epic sequel of the tragic nostoi of the Achaeans.
Moreover,sudden,radicalchange fundamentallyimpairsthe capacity a
myth has to function as exemplum:

Exceptionalas it is, the model as model is traditional.The model is

a precedent, and that precedent would lose its rhetoric, its very
power, if it were to be changed for the sake of change. It is one
thing for us to recognize changes in the developmentof myth over
time. It is quite anotherto assume that changes are arbitrarilymade
by those who use myth as exemplum within their own society. As
precedent, mythological exempla demand a mentality of the
unchanging,of adherenceto the model, even if myth is changeable
over time.35

The question then may be recast in rhetoricalterms: would a subject

that came trailing so heavy a baggage of pejorative connotations be
chosen, unless that baggage was crucial to its charge?The thesis of this
paper is that the Ilioupersis was deployed on the Parthenonprecisely
because it was the paradigmof wrongful conquest. The images invited
comparison with the Persian invasion of Greece, not, however, in the
sense that the Trojansprefigurethe Persians.Rather,the recent sack of
Athens is seen throughthe image of the epic sack of Troy.The compar-
ison is reinforcedand acquiresspecial poignancyby the position of this

Miller 459 that "by the end of the fifth century a 'tragic costume' which featured some
components of Orientaldress was widely used in the Attic theaterfor foreign mythical
kings as well as for Greek."This is what in ArthurPickard-Cambridge,The Dramatic
Festivals of Athens, 2nd ed. rev. by John Gould and D. M. Lewis (Oxford 1968) 198-202,
is called "typicaltragic dress"(199).
34
GregoryNagy, "Mythas Exemplumin Homer,"in Homeric Questions(Austin 1996)
113-146, the quote from p. 137.
35Ibid. 146.
 TheIlioupersisinAthens 127

subject on the north side of the temple, overlooking the site of the old
temple of Athena thathad been burnedby the Persians.
To say that a "Greek"fifth-centuryviewer would have made his own
the cause of the thirteenth-century"Greek"sackersof Troy is to reduce
to a slogan a rathermore complex set of notions about the Mycenaean
past, particularlyabout the war at Troy, which changed that world for-
ever. The word "Greek"glosses over one importantfact: the partici-
pants in the expedition against Troy were a nation of Achaioi,36which
perished long before the emergence of the polis and the forging of a
new nation, whose inhabitantscalled themselves Hellenes. As the first
joint venture of the cities, which would later constitute Hellas, the
expedition against Troy established a collective identity, to which each
polis acknowledgedancestralties. But Hellenic identity dependedupon
markingthe differencesin ideology, social practices,and ethnic compo-
sition that separatedthe world of the Achaeansfrom that of the polis, as
well as differences that set the polis apart from all barbariannations.
The sense in which the Hellenes are in a sense, although not truly,
Achaeans is played upon in the story of the prophecy given to king
Cleomenes of Sparta, who intended to seize the Acropolis of Athens
(Herodotus5.72). When he attemptedto enter the cella of the temple of
Athena Polias, the priestess rose from her seat, saying: "Strangerfrom
Sparta,go back and do not enter the shrine. Dorians are not allowed in
here." To which the king replied: "Woman, I am not Dorian, but
Achaean."His claim was false, however,as the fact that he and his men
were drivenout demonstrated.
If the Achaeans are not altogetherHellenes, neither are the Trojans
barbarians,in the fifth-centurysense of the word. The ancestors of the
moder barbariansand the ancestors of the Hellenes were imagined to
inhabit a world in which the divide separatingAchaioi from Dardanoi
and other Easternnations was differentlyand unevenly marked.Thucy-
dides 1.3.2-3 makes this point briefly in his archaiologia, where he
notes that Homer, althoughcomposing long after the Trojanwar, refers
to the Hellenes-to-be not by the name Hellenes but as Danaoi, Argeioi,
andAchaioi: "Nor did he use the term barbaroi,for the reason, it seems
to me, that the Hellenes on their part had not yet been separatedoff so
as to acquire one common name by way of contrast."Accordingly, in
36 For the
understandingthatAchaioi refers to a people and not simply to an "epic col-
lective," I depend upon G. Nagy, The Best of the Achaeans (Baltimore 1979) 83-84. See
also HilaryMackie, TalkingTrojan(Lanham1996) 18-21.
128 Gloria Ferrari

literary and visual representations,Trojans and Achaeans share the

same code of ethics, worshipthe same gods, speak to one anotherwith-
out interpreters, and are indistinguishable from one another in
appearance.37A degree of savagery is an integral part of the heroic
character,38but in the Trojan epic it is exhibited primarily by the
Achaeans, in the forms of humansacrificeand the slaughterof children,
Troilos first, then Astyanax. Two versions of the murderof Priam are
particularlyrelevant here, in which Neoptolemus has decapitatedthe
boy and holds the head out to his grandfather.39 In the same manner
Achilles may be representedas he hurls the head of Troilus at the Tro-
jan contingent,which comes too late to the boy's rescue.40As much as
the murder of Troilus, that of Astyanax was an act of Scythian
savagery.41The words Andromache speaks in Euripides Troades
764-765, when the child is taken away from her, are an apt commen-
tary here: "Oh Hellenes who have learned the cruelties of barbarians/
why kill this helpless child?"
The narrativeframe of the Ilioupersisobliges us to see in the events
of that night not the triumphof good over evil but a tragic example of
the use of violence as the means to justice. The actions by which a
wrong is vindicatedare themselves crimes, which in turndemandto be
avenged. Aeschylus (Agamemnon764-771) cast the vicious spiral of

37RobertZahn, Die Darstellung der Barbarenin griechischerLiteraturund Kunstder

vorhellenistischen Zeit (Heidelberg 1896) 9-42; Hall (above, n. 29) 19-47. Mackie
(above, n. 36) identifies in the Iliad modes of speech that are specifically Trojanand dif-
ferent from the Achaean, amounting to a form of ethnic characterization.She rejects,
however,the notion that notationsof "ethnicdifference"amountto a representationof the
Trojansas barbarians,in a position of "alterity"with respect to the Achaeans (p. 9).
38Nagy (above, n. 36) 62-63, 135-137, 151-160.
39Black-figure amphora in Bonn, Kunstmuseum 45, ABV 299, 16; white-ground
lekythos in Athens, National Museum 11050, LIMCs.v. "Astyanax"no. 14.
40TyrrhenianamphorasMunich, Museum antiker Kleinkunst 1426, ABV 95, 5; Flo-
rence, Museo Archeologico 70993, ABV 95, 6; band cup, Basle, privatecollection, LIMC
s.v. "Achilleus"no. 359a; black-figurehydria, British Museum B 326, ABV 362, 28. On
the "contamination"of the iconographyof the deathof Troilus and the deathof Astyanax,
see A. Pomari, "Le massacre des innocents," in C. Bron and E. Kassaplogou eds.,
L'image en jeu (Yens-sur-Morges1992) 103-125, particularlypp. 113-115; Anderson
(above, n. 5) 192-199.
41On the particularlybrutalconnotationsof the decapitationof the enemy, see Charles
Segal, The Themeof the Mutilationof the Corpse in the Iliad (Leiden 1971) 20-21. For
an analysis of the characterizationof Achilles' behavioras Scythianin vase-paintings,see
my "Mythand Genre on AthenianVases,"ClAnt(forthcoming).
 The llioupersis
inAthens 129

killings that had characterizedthe heroic age in the metaphor of the

generative capacity of hubris, one giving birth to another, which
unleashes a new gale of ate, "unconquerable,invincible, unholy" vio-
lence. Hubris on the partof Paris, who violated the law of Zeus Xenios
by taking Helen away, and of the Trojans,who refused to surrenderher
to Menelaus, called for war. Zeus granted the destructionof the city.
But the bloodless hubris of the Trojanspales in comparisonwith that of
the Achaeans. The sack of Troy is the point at which the gods withdraw
their supportand destroy them. With Hera, Athena had been the major
instigator of the annihilation of Troy and unwavering in her pro-
Achaean stance. She becomes now the Achaeans' deadliest enemy.
Alcaeus made of Aias an example of the fact that an unpunishedcrimi-
nal is a threatto society, and painteda vivid pictureof the crime.42Aias
burstsinto the shrine of Athena, a 0ecov/ [0vadot]oa 0eoo3XatoIt ncdv-
'Tov/ [aivo](x'ra gaKdapov i(P'uicK,"of all the blessed gods, the most
[dreadful] to temple plundering mortals" (17-19). He seizes the
princess as she clings to the statue,with reckless disregardfor the wrath
of the goddess who is nIo4goL86'r?[pp]av(23), "the dispenserof war."
The fragmentarypoem breaks off with the image of Athena dashing
across the wine-colored sea, stirring sudden storms in her path. The
sequence of events, to which Alcaeus' poem alludes, is fully explained
in the prologue of Euripides' Troades,1-97. The play was performedin
415 B.C.E.,less than a generation after the sculpturesof the Parthenon
were completed. In the bleak dawn following the onslaught, Poseidon
contemplateswhat remains of the great city he and Apollo once helped
build: desertedgroves, the seats of the gods awash in blood, the corpse
of Priam lying on the steps of the altarof Zeus Herkeios. Athena inter-
rupts his musings to request his help to deal the Achaeans a grim
voyage home, nostonpikron (66). This is what they deserve for the out-
rages to herself and her temple, the violation of Cassandra,and their
failure to punish Aias, son of Oileus:43

When they take ship from Ilium and set sail for home
Zeus will shower down his rainstormsand the weariless beat
Of hail, to make black the brightair with roaringwinds.
He has promisedmy hand the gift of the blazing thunderbolt
42 D.
Page, SupplementumLyricis Graecis (Oxford 1974) 81 S 262.
43 Troades 77-86 and 95-97; translation by Richmond Lattimore in D. Grene and
RichmondLattimore,EuripidesII (Chicago 1956).
130 GloriaFerrari

To dash and overwhelmwith fire the Achaean ships.

Yoursis your own domain,the Aegean crossing. Make
The sea thunderto the tripledwave and spinningsurf,
Cramthick the hollow Euboeanfold with floatingdead;
So afterthis Greeksmay learnto know to use with fear my
Sacredplaces, and respect all gods beside.

Poseidon agrees to her requestand offers the following reflection:

That mortalwho sacks fallen cities is a fool,

Who gives the temples and the tombs, the hallowed places
Of the dead to desolation.His own turnmust come.

This passage contains a numberof points that have a bearing upon the
visual representations of the Ilioupersis in general, and the north
metopes of the Parthenonin particular.There is emphasis on Athena's
sudden about-face, and on the provocations that brought it about.
Athena reveals that Zeus himself will rage againstthe Achaeans and, in
addition, has grantedher the use of his thunderbolt,implying that she
has consulted her father before seeking Poseidon's help. This requires
us to envision an episode in which Zeus sanctions the punishmentof
the Achaeans. In fact, Quintus of Smyrna'sPosthomerica 14. 422-472
gives a detailed account of that Dios boule, including Athena's appeal
to her father,his verdict, and the dispatchof Iris to Aeolus.
With the plot of the Ilioupersis firmly in mind, let us turn to what
remainsof the northmetopes of the Parthenon(fig. 4).44On this side, as
on the east and west, the sculptureswere effaced deliberately,leaving
only a few figures and traces of others, but enough remains to be sure
of the subject and of the structureof the representation,in a broad
sense. With few exceptions (metope D, "Iris"in 31, and "Hera"in 32)
all figures face or advancetowardsthe right, establishing a strong east-
west direction for the viewer and a startingpoint at the east end. The
frieze is divided into two unequal sections. The sack of the city is
framed by the figures of Helios rising on metope 1 and Selene setting
on metope 29.45The first scene (metope 2) contains the prow of a ship,
44
Berger (above, n. 8) 11-53. On the fragments,see C. Praschniker,Parthenonstudien
(Vienna 1928) 68-86; Mantis, "Neue Fragmente"(above, n. 10) 181-184.
45 That the
figure in 29 is Selene is made certain by the remains of the moon-sickle at
the upperright;the position of the legs of her horse clearly indicatethat she is setting, not
simply shining upon the sack. The identificationof the charioteerin no. 1 is disputed(see
 The Ilioupersis in Athens 131

from which two nude men disembark, carrying objects. In metope 3

Praschnikersaw an archerand a warrior.46Of the next twenty metopes
only fragmentssurvive, for the most part small and unreadable,whose
place in the sequence is uncertain.One (metope A) probably held the
representationof a bull led to sacrifice.47Metope D shows a man, nude
except for a mantle, leading away a female figure in peplos, perhaps
Polyxena.48The scene of the recovery of Helen by Menelaus stretches
over metopes 24 and 25. Helen runs to a shrine, toward an ancient
statue,while Aphrodite-a small Eros perchedon her shoulder-stands
between her and her vengeful former husband. Number 26 is lost.
Dorig suggested that it was partof a two-metope sequence of the rescue
of Aethra and Clymene, whom he identifiedwith the woman following
a hero in chlamis on metope 27.49 Aeneas's escape with Ascanius is
recognizable in metope 28. The hero is in "Greek"dress, nude except
for a chlamis fastened aroundhis shoulder,and carries a round shield.
Situatedbeyond and outside the depiction of the events at Troy,the last
three metopes form a self-containedwhole, in which Praschnikeriden-
tified the schema of the council of the gods, with Zeus and Iris at its
center (31).50Although the identity of the goddesses in metope 32 is far
from secure, it is possible that the seated one is Hera and that the one
standingAthena.
If the loss of all the central metopes allows some freedom in recon-
structingthe content of the frieze, what remains and the mythic tradi-
tion impose some constraints.One may choose to interpretthe astral
figure on metope 1 and Selene on 29 in an allegorical sense. This opens
the possibility that episodes of the Trojanepic that are distantin time or
space may here be representedsequentially.51Or one may choose, as I
have done,52to take rising Helios and setting Selene to establish the
time of the action. The sack, which had begun in the middle of the

the summaryof interpretationsby Berger [above, n. 8] 14, 19); again, the position of the
horses' legs shows that,if this is an astralfigure, it is rising.
46Praschniker(above, n. 44) 13-17, 119-122.
47
Berger(above, n. 8) 26-28.
48 Jos6
Dorig, "Les m6topes nord du Parthenon,"in Ernst Berger ed., Parthenon-
KongressBasel (Mainz 1984) 204.
49J. Dorig, "To programma tes glyptes diakosmeseos tou Parthenona,"AE 1982,
196-197.
50Praschniker(above, n. 44) 132-138.
51 See
Berger (above, n. 8) 14-15 for a summaryof interpretations.
52
Following Praschniker(above, n. 44) 93-98.
132 Gloria Ferrari

night under a radiant moon,53 is nearing the end. We confront the

denouement of the pillage and the killing at daybreak.The vessel in
metope 2 may then be the ship of Menelaus made ready for departure,
as in Polygnotus' painting in the Lesche of the Cnidians at Delphi. In
metope A, the scene of sacrifice (if Berger's identificationis correct)
calls to mind the statement of Nestor at Odyssey 3.143-146 that
Agamemnon intended to offer hecatombs to Athena, to appease her
anger.54There is no way to establish how Phidias dealt with the out-
rages of Priam, Astyanax, and Cassandra,but they must be included,
because the narrativeframeworkof the myth requires it. As in other
representationsthat illustratemultiple episodes of the sack, the metopes
will have included the scene of the sons of Theseus, Demophon, and
Acamas rescuing their grandmotherAethra. The scene provided that
element of particularrelevance to the myth-historyof Athens that is
present also in the other metope-cycles on the Parthenon.As to the
council of the gods, its placement after the scene of the destructionof
Troy, indicates that it takes place in direct connection with the sack,
either contemporaneouslyor soon afterwards.If this is a Dios boule,
the logic of the narrativesuggests that it is the one in which Zeus sealed
the fate of the Achaeans and promised his thunderboltto an enraged
Athena-the occasion to which Athena refers in Euripides' Troades
80-81, and which Quintus of Smyrna describes in the Posthomerica
14.422-472.55 In this fashion, the promise of bitter nostoi for the
Argives follows on the heels of the persis that is their cause.56It is
worth noting that, as in the case of the Gigantomachy,Amazonomachy,
and Centauromachy,the north metopes representnot the victory of the
just, but the conflict as it unfolds. The assembled gods plan to avenge
the assault that has just taken place, but the execution of their verdict
lies in the future.
The argumentspresentedabove enrich and supportthe statementof
Karl Schefold that, like tragedy,the ParthenonIlioupersis is about the
inescapable cycle of crimes and punishments that defines the human
53 MikraIlias, fr.9: vi0 V ?rvrlV eodraTTI,
Xacslpin 6f' nixe,EXeoGeXivq.
54 Berger (above, n. 8) 26-28, 34-35.
55See above. Praschniker(above, n. 44) 138-139 considered this possibility and dis-
missed it, on the groundsthat Athena, on metope 32, has her back to Zeus. Schefold and
Jung (above, n. 6) 282 suggested that the assembled gods discuss the punishmentof the
Greeks.
56 On the
interlockingof persis and nostos in the epic, see below, pp. 144-145.
 The Ilioupersis in Athens 133

Figure 1. Attic red-figurehydria.Naples, Museo Nazionale 2422.

After Adolf Furtwanglerand KarlReichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei
(Munich 1904) pl. 34.
134 Gloria Ferrari

Figure 2. Attic red-figurekylix. Rome, Museo Etrusco di

Villa Giulia. Interiordetail.
 TheIlioupersisin Athens 135

Figure 3. As above. Interior.

136 Gloria Ferrari

Metope 1 Metope 2

Metope D Metope 24

Metope 28 Metope 29

Figure4. Parthenon,northmetopes. After Camillo Praschniker,

Parthenonstudien (Vienna 1928).
 TheIlioupersis in Athens 137

Metope 3 Metope A

Metope 25 Metope 27

Metope 30 Metope 31 Metope 32

138 GloriaFerrari

condition in the heroic age.57I would add that, in this tale, righteous-
ness is never at any point the exclusive prerogativeof one side or the
other. There is an importantdistinction to be made between participa-
tion in the expedition against Troy and participationin the sacrilegious
violence against the helpless and the gods. When Nestor reveals to
Telemachus the events that followed the sack of the city, he explains
that "Zeus in his mind devised a sorry homecoming for the Argives,
since not all were responsible (voigoveq) nor righteous (8iKcato)"
(Odyssey3.132-134). He implies that some of the men who took partin
the captureof the city did so accordingto the rules of the heroic code of
war, responsibly and righteously.These words aptly describe what the
Athenians did on that terrible night. In visual representationsof the
Ilioupersis,the sons of Theseus are very much in evidence but have no
part in the fighting and violence. Their role is limited to the rescue of
their grandmother.The picture of the Ilioupersis by the Kleophrades
Painteris instructiveon this point (fig. 1). The centralscene of sacrilege
is framedon either side by paragonsof filial piety: the departureof the
TrojanAeneas from the burningcity, carrying Anchises on his shoul-
der, and the AthenianDamophonand Acamas turninga helping hand to
old Aethra. Aethra's condition is the result of an earlier act of hubris,
which exactly parallels that of Paris and indirectly establishes a com-
parisonbetween the captureof Troy and an ancient sack of Athens. To
rescue their sister Helen, whom Theseus had abductedfrom the sanctu-
ary of Artemis Orthia,the Dioscuri invadedAttica and took away with
them to SpartaTheseus' mother,to be Helen's handmaid.58Aethralater
followed Helen to Troy. By their participationin the recovery of Helen
from yet another abduction, Demophon and Acamas atone for their
father'stransgression,which had caused his mother'senslavement,and
secure her release.59At the same time as they narratethe causes of the
ultimate destructionof the Argives, the images highlight the contrast
57Schefold and Jung (above, n. 6) 282: "Die Frevel der Griechengehoren zur Tragodie
der menschlichenExistenz, zu Grosse und Verhangnisdes Menschen,das Siihne verlangt.
Die Skulpturendes Parthenonsind nicht als Propagandafur Athens Selbstbewusstseinzu
verstehen;so billig ist die griechische Kunst nie zu deuten: Nein, es geht um das mythi-
sche Begreifen des Daseins wie in der Trag6die."
58Apollodorus 3.10.7, scholium at Iliad 3.242, and Herodotus9.73 give Aphidnae as
the site of the sack; Apollodorus'Epitome 1.2 identifies the city as Athens, as did a poem
by Alcman (Pausanias1.41.4) and an inscribedhexameteron the chest of Cypselus (Pau-
sanias 5.19.3).
59Anderson(above, n. 5) 97-101.
 The llioupersis in Athens 139

between the bad behavior of Aias, Neoptolemus, and the Atridae and
the piety of the Athenians.The contrastof the two is key to understand-
ing how, in Athens, the captureof Troy could be cause for both pride
and condemnation.In this scenario, the ancestorsof the Atheniansfind
themselves invariably on the side of their goddess. Athena herself
claims a large part of the spoils of war, a parcel of the Scamanderval-
ley, of which she makes "a choice gift to the sons of Theseus"(Aeschy-
lus Eumenides402). The point of representingthe Ilioupersis,however,
was not to praise the Atheniansbut to blame the Achaeans.
The efficacy of the ParthenonIlioupersisas the mythic exemplumof
the devastatingconsequences of hubris lies in its capacity to establish a
different analogy with the Persian invasion of Greece. Here I wish to
reopen a possibility, which John Boardmanentertainedbriefly,then dis-
missed: that the destruction of Troy prefigures that of Athens.60The
case for a metaphoriclink between the two relies on three kinds of cir-
cumstantialevidence. The first is an argumentfrom probability.Long
before the Persians invaded Greece, Troy stood as the paradigm of
wrongful conquest in visual images and in the lost poems that dealt
with the subject. That model contained many features that made it the
perfect vehicle for a metaphorof the Persian invasion: an overwhelm-
ing force crossing the sea; the slaughterof suppliants;the plunderand
burningof the shrines of Athena; death at sea for the invadersby the
will of the gods. A more specific, non-accidentalcorrelation is indi-
cated by the prominence accorded the destructionof temples in both
accounts: in the epic model, the desecrationof the temples brings ruin
upon the attackers;in Greece, and on the Acropolis of Athens, the very
temples they had burnedkept alive the memory of the Persians' sacri-
lege. Finally, the analogy between the outrages committed by the
Achaeans and those committed by Xerxes is explicitly drawn by
Aeschylus in the Persae and in the Agamemnon.
Herodotusreports an ominous episode, early in Xerxes' campaign,
which announcesthe wrathof Athena againstthe men who will plunder
her shrines. When it entered the land of Ilium and set camp for the
night at the foot of Mount Ida, the Persian army was struckby a hurri-
cane with thunder,which caused the loss of a host of men.61Upon
60 John Boardman, "The Kleophrades Painter at Troy,"AntK 19 (1976) 14-15; The
Parthenonand its Sculptures(Austin, TX 1985) 249.
61 Herodotus 7.42: I v3v&
ril aFqv &ptaVpiorplv Xtepa tjiF?;
?T v 'IXUaItdyiv.
Kai RpcirTa'Ev oi0 irb 'i,16j vuKcXaava(eLvavn ppovTai Tr Ka(i xpnpoArpe
v lXov&tO(P0etpav.
ireoanT'lxouo KcaxtvC arixou rxiau' oaZuioV
140 Gloria Ferrari

reaching the Scamander,the king climbed the citadel of Priam, driven

by a desire to see the site. There he sacrificed a thousand bulls to
Athena Ilias and his Magi poured libations to the heroes of Troy. Nes-
selrathhas shown that these ceremonies are in conformitywith the Per-
sian view of the Trojanwar, which Herodotusreportsin book 1.1-5.3:
the destructionof Troy on a frivolous pretextwas unjust and it laid the
foundationof the Persian enmity towards Greece.62By paying formal
tributeto the goddess of Ilium and the victims of the Achaean invasion,
Xerxes representshis own invasion of Greece as a retaliatoryexpedi-
tion and claims for himself the role of the avenger. "After they per-
formed these acts-Herodotus adds-their army was seized by panic
fear in the night."63If the direct link drawnhere between the sacrifices
and libations and the dreadthat struckthe Persianarmyhas any signifi-
cance, it is to indicate that the king's offerings did not please Athena
Ilias, and that his attemptto identify his cause with that of the Trojans
failed. The actual capture of Athens contains several points of corre-
spondence with the capture of Troy. Xerxes and his troops found the
city empty of its population,except for the treasurersof the sanctuary
and a few men too poor to leave, who had barricadedthemselves on the
Acropolis (8.51). When the citadel was taken, some of its last defenders
threw themselves off its wall; others sought refuge in the temple of
Athena Polias. The Persians turneddirectly to the doors of the temple,
opened them, and killed the suppliants.After the slaughter,they plun-
deredthe sanctuaryand set the whole Acropolis on fire.64As Agamem-
non had wished to do in the wake of the sack of Troy,65Xerxes tried to
placate Athena with offerings. He dispatched the Athenian exiles in
62Heinz-Ginther Nesselrath, "Herodotund der
griechische Mythos," Poetica (1996)
283-284. I owe the referenceto this articleto Nino Luraghi.
63Herodotus 7.43: raixTa 6? coitroaavoiot
vulcKTb; (p63o; ?T;O ocpazXTO6 6ov
veixeoe. This sequence of events has an uncannysimilarityto anotherstory in Herodotus
involving Athena and the Persians. As they approachedthe temple of Athena Pronaiaat
Delphi, the barbarianswere greeted with thunderboltsfrom heaven and two great boul-
ders broke off Mount Parnassus,killing a host of men; then "fromthe temple of Athena
there was heard a shout and a cry of triumph"(8.37). Next, the Persian army was seized
by panic fear and turnedto flight (8.38). The episode is reportedalso by Diodorus Sicu-
lus, 14.3-4.
64Herodotus 8.53: Tc&v68 fepoCov1 aovaopeprloK6Te; tpcrov Lev ExpdaovTO 7p6O
Tix 7c6XaS, TaTca; 68 avoitavT?E ToU; itcKera;kp6veov . EiCi 8 ot rnvx vT?; KaTEoTp-
(OVxo, T6 IpOV GUova(avT?; EvVenprloav IoaxV Tiv &CKpO7ro?lv.
65See above, n. 54.
 TheIlioupersis in Athens 141

his following to the Acropolis, to perform sacrifices, either because he

had experienceda vision, or out of concern over having burnedthe tem-
ple (8.54).
The matterof the temples burnedby the Persians was addressedin
the oath, which the allied Hellenic forces allegedly took on the eve of
the battle of Plataea. A recitation of ancestral glories, with a pro-
nounced anti-Peloponnesian flavor, is the context in which we
encounterthe Oathof Plataeafor the firsttime in Lycurgus'prosecution
of Leocrates for treason. It contains the following clause: "I will not
rebuildat all (or from the groundup) any of the sanctuariesburnedand
destroyed by the barbarians, but I will leave them standing as a
reminder of the barbarians' impiety for generations to come."66
Whetherthe oath is authenticor a fabrication,as Theopompusof Chios
claimed,67the provision concerning the destroyed temples was hon-
ored, after a fashion. Archaeologicaland literarysources indicate a pat-
tern of selective compliance. We learn from Plutarch,who makes no
mention of the oath, that in the years immediatelyfollowing the Persian
invasion at least two temples were rebuilt.68Many others, however,
were not built anew, but continuedto function down to the time of Pau-
sanias, still displaying the scars of the destruction.Pausaniasmentions
the temples at Haliartus,the oracularshrine at Abae in Phocis, the tem-
ple of Hera on the road to Phalerum, and the temple of Demeter at
Phalerum.69Among the Ionian sanctuariesthathad been sacked, he sin-
66
Against Leocrates 81; the text is closely comparableto Diodorus 11.29.3. The clause
about the destroyedtemples is absentfrom the version of the Oath of Plataeathat follows
the text of the ephebic oath on the stele from Acharnae.MarcusN. Tod, GreekHistorical
InscriptionsII (Oxford 1950) 303-307 no. 204.
67FGH 115 F 153. The debate over the authenticityof the Oath of Plataeacontinues in
modem time, with scholars firmly positioned on one side or the other, but those who
believe in its historicity seem now to have the upperhand, after Siewert's monographon
the subject.Peter Siewert, Der Eid von Plataiai (Munich 1972) 102-108, however,argues
that the promise to make memorials of the burntshrines was not partof the original oath,
because that clause is omitted in the Acharnaeinscriptionand some temples were rebuilt
immediatelyafterthe battle of Plataea.
68These are the temple of Athena Areia at Plataea,Aristides 20.3, and the Telesterion
of the Lycomedaeat Phyla, Themistocles1.3.
69Pausanias 10.35.2-3. It is commonly assumed that these temples lay abandonedand
in ruins for centuriesbut nothing in Pausaniasdescriptionsuggests that this was the case.
In the course of the Sacred War, in 347, the Phocians sought refuge in the temple of
Apollo at Abae, presumablyas suppliants.This indicates not only that the structurewas
in good enough repairto give them shelterbut also that it retainedits cult functions. Even
after it was set on fire a second time by the Thebans, the temple remained standing,
142 Gloria Ferrari

gles out the temples of Hera on Samos and that of Athena in Phocaea,
"a wonderto behold, even thoughthey were damagedby fire"(7.5.4).
On the Athenian Acropolis itself, the ancient temple of Athena
Polias was never rebuilt. In the late nineteenth century, D6rpfeld and
Kavvadias uncovered its foundations on the terrace north of the
Parthenon,revealing that no building had encroachedon upon them in
antiquity.70Although this fact has been acknowledgedfor some time,71
we have yet to reckon fully with the importanceof Dorpfeld's discov-
ery in our understandingof the Periclean planning of the Acropolis
reconstruction.It is possible indeed that, as D6rpfeld argued,the temple
was repairedand continued to function in its damaged state to the end
of antiquity.72At the very least, the fact that it remained undisturbed
indicates that the site of the outrage was established as the tangible
memorial of the Persian impiety. Once the import of that decision is
acknowledged, the temple can be seen to be the centerpiece of an
extensive choreographyof ruins, of which other partshave been recog-
nized for some time. Column drums and part of the architraveof the
archaic predecessor of the Parthenonwere built into the south wall of
the Acropolis.73Pieces of the entablatureof the archaic temple of
Athena Polias were built high up into the north wall of the Acropolis,
not randomlybut in correspondencewith the location of the temple.74
In the same position and furtherto the east, column drums from the

although"the most frail of the buildings burnedby the flames"(Pausanias10.35.3). Pau-

sanias mentions the temple of Demeter at Phaleruma second time in book 1.1.4, with no
reference to its destruction; the temple of Hera on the road to Phaleron, which he
describes as having neitherdoors nor roof (1.1.15), still housed the statue of the goddess
by Alcamenes.
70W. Dorpfeld, "Der alte Athena-Tempelauf der Akropolis zu Athen," AthMitt 10
(1885) 275; "Der alte Athenatempel auf der Akropolis," AthMitt 11 (1886) 337-51;
Antike Denkmiler I, 1886, pls. I-II. P. Kavvadiasand G. Kawerau,Die Ausgrabungder
Akropolisvom Jahre 1885 bis zumJahre 1890 (Athens 1906) col. 32.
71W. N. Bates, "Notes on the Old Temple of Athena on the Acropolis," HSCP 12
(1901) 319-326.
72Wilh. Dorpfeld, "Der alte Athenatempel auf der Akropolis,"AthMitt 12 (1887)
25-61, 190-211. The survival of the archaic temple is the subject of a separateessay,
"TheAncient Templeon the Acropolis at Athens,"forthcomingin AJA(2001).
73 M. Korres, "Die Athena-Tempelauf der Akropolis,"in W. Hoepfner ed., Kult und
Kultbautenauf der Akropolis.InternationalesSymposium, Berlin July 7-9 (Berlin 1997)
219.
74F. C. Penrose, The Principles of AthenianArchitecture(London 1851) pl. 40, figs.
1-2; Kavvadiasand Kawerau(above, n. 70) col. 72; Hurwit(above, n. 2) 142, 159.
 TheIlioupersisinAthens 143

unfinished predecessor of the Parthenon,also burnedby the Persians,

remain an impressive sight to this day.75The display of ruins on the
north wall would be visible for a long way from the processionalroute
at the Panathenaea,coming into progressively sharperfocus before the
procession turned westward, to the entrance ramp of the Propylaea.76
Upon entering the Acropolis the visitor confrontedthe colossal bronze
Promachos,built with the spoils of Marathon(Pausanias1.28.2), which
stood in front of the terraceof the ancient temple. The temple itself of
Athena Polias contained the most legendary (and possibly inauthentic)
Persian spoils: the cuirass of Masistius, Mardonius' sword (Pausanias
1.27.1-2). And on its terrace stood ancient statues of Athena, "intact
but blackenedand too fragile to survive a blow,"which had felt the Per-
sian fire, still there for Pausaniasto see over 600 years after the event
(Pausanias1.27.6).
It is against this backgroundthat the theme of the destroyed shrines
in the Persae of Aeschylus and in the Agamemnonacquiresproperres-
onance. This is also the most conspicuous among a series of links
between the two plays, staged at a distance of fourteen years. While
each has been noted before, less attentionhas been paid to the way in
which these correspondencesecho back to the Ilioupersistheme to sug-
gest a comparisonbetween the sack of Troy and that of Athens.77The
two plays, it has been noted, have a comparablestructure,in which an
anxious chorus of elders and the queen await news from the field and
learn of the outcome of the expedition from the messenger, before the
return of the king.78As in the Agamemnon,the chorus of the Persae
recalls the gathering of a great armada for the expedition (Persae
16-58; Agamemnon40-48). In both, althoughin substantiallydifferent
75A. Tschira, "Die
unfertigen Saulentrommelnauf der Akropolis von Athen,"Jdl 55
(1940) 242-261.
76As Robin F. Rhodes, Architectureand
Meaning on the Athenian Acropolis (Cam-
bridge 1995) 32-33, writes: "The rebuiltnorth wall of the Athenian Acropolis ... repre-
sents a specific monumentconsciously constructedfrom the ruins of the Persian sack to
commemoratethat specific event, to warn of the Persianthreat,to kindle the anger of the
Athenians against them, and, probably,to symbolize the Athenians' selfless sacrifice of
their city to the general defense of the Greek mainland."See also T. Leslie Shear Jr.,
Studies in the Early Projects of the Periklean Building Program (Ph.D. diss., Princeton
University,Princeton1966) 36-37; Hurwit(above, n. 2) 142.
77Anderson(above, n. 5) chapter7 gives a perceptiveanalysis of Aeschylus' use of the
Ilioupersistheme in the Agamemnon.
78Ibid. 107 n. 1.
144 GloriaFerrari

ways, the king's decision to cross a hostile Aegean is representedas an

act of mad daring,thrasos.79In the Persae, the words "aboutthe nostos
of the king and of the army rich in gold" (&ag(pi f
8e vdcatpT 1actoxsip
/ KaitoRuXpUiaoo oxpatna 8-9) both announce the content of the
play and set up an epic frame of reference.80Xerxes' nostos, in fact, is
the subjectof the Persae, as much as that of Agamemnonis the subject
of the play that bears his name.81The chorus and the queen await the
king's return.Fears for his safety and darkforebodingare momentarily
dispelled when the messenger reveals that he is alive (299), to give
place to despair over the loss of Persian lives. The ghost of Darius is
informedthat his son has safely crossed the bridge over the Hellespont
into Asia (735-736). The king finally appears, at the end of the play
(908-917), a brokenman in tatters,whose arrivalsignals the startof the
kommos:"in salutation for your nostos I shall release this wretched-
sounding cry, the sorrowful voice of a Mariandynianmourner,a wail
full of tears"(935-940).
The significance of the word nostos, so near its opening, becomes
apparentif one reflects upon the markeduse of Homeric diction in the
play,82and upon the connotationsthat the word carries in the Homeric
poems. Nostos signifies both the safe returnfrom an expedition in dis-
tant lands and the song about the homecoming. Like the song of
Phemius (Odyssey 1.326-27), the Nostoi of the epic cycle recounted
"the baneful homecoming of the Achaeans from Troy, which Pallas
Athena had ordained."83Anderson has shown how in the epic any
79Agamemnon 222: ppoToi; Opcaotvet yap aioXp6ogrlti; / tatikva rcapaKcona
nTpooinjpwov; Persae 744-748: ncLS; ' ogb6;Td' o a6caret6ox;TJvuDvove Opaoaet/
pov 8o'ov
'oxti'EXXAioovTov pv/ `oL(te g; peovG
sogacotv / (oi?v a, Boaoopov
p6ov Oeo).
80 The scholia at Persae 8-9 note that the phraseis Homeric. Aeschylus uses the word
nostos only here and at Agamemnon 812 and 989; A. Sideras, Aeschylus Homericus
(Gottingen 1971 [Hypomnemata31]) 34.
81 S. Ireland,"DramaticStructurein the Persae and Prometheusof
Aeschylus," G&R
20 (1973) 165-168, arguesthat the absentXerxes dominatesthe plot of the Persae. Edith
Hall, Aeschylus, Persians (Warminster1996) 18, points out that the play "is essentially a
'homecoming' drama,like tragedies derived from the cyclic Nostoi"; see also her com-
ments on 1. 8 at p. 107.
82 Homericisms in the Persae are collected by Sideras, (above, n. 80) 198-200,
212-215. Ann N. Michelini, Traditionand Dramatic Form in the Persians of Aeschylus
(Leiden 1982) 77-78, 105, suggested that epic forms in the play would have been per-
ceived as "obsolete and strange"(77) and may be employed with dramaticirony to char-
acterizebarbarians.
83
Nagy (above, n. 36) 97 ?6 n. 2 notes that the word nostos at Odyssey 1.326 "obeys
 TheIlioupersis in Athens 145

thought of the return is intimately tied to that of the sack.84 Zeus'

promise to him-Agamemnon recalls at Iliad 2.112-113-was that he
would return home after destroying Troy. But the longed-for return
home, which was part of the conquerors'reward,turns into their pun-
ishment. In a perversionof the traditionalbond, in the Trojansaga nos-
tos follows persis as retributionfollows crime.85Nestor will explain to
Telemachusin the Odyssey:

But afterwe had sacked the sheer citadel of Priam,

and were going away in our ships, and the god scattered the
Achaeans,
then Zeus in his mind devised a sorryhomecoming (Xuypov
v6oTov)
for the Argives, since not all were consideratenor righteous;
thereforemany of them found a bad way home, because of
the ruinousangerof the Gray-eyedOne, whose fatheris mighty.86

The wealth of allusions implicit in the word nostos would not be

wasted on the audience for whom Aeschylus staged the Persae in 472
B.C.E., in the midst of a city still in ruins. These were Athenian men,
well versed in the epic, most of whom, like Aeschylus, had faced the
Persianson land and sea. The sack of Athens was Xerxes' Ilioupersis.
The allusion to the Achaeans' disastrousnostoi at the beginning of
the Persae is picked up again in the messenger's speech, with the
description of the wreck of the Persian ships in the battle at Salamis.
The image of death at sea must have been part of the traditionof the
Ilioupersis. Traces of it remain in Alcaeus' vision of Athena raising
waves over the sea as she storms out of Troy. In Euripides' Troades
82-84, Athena asks Poseidon to make the Aegean pass "thunderto the
tripled wave and spinning surf, cram thick the hollow Euboean fold

the convention of beginning with a word that serves as a title ... followed by an epithet
and then a relative clause that sets forth the relationshipof the title word to the main
subject...."
84Anderson(above, n. 5) 75-81.
85 Ibid. 77: "Justas Paris' crime is punished with the ultimate destructionof
Troy, so
too the wrongs committedby the Achaians in sacking Troy are punishedas they returnto
Greece. Retributionbinds together persis and nostos in a simple cause-and-effect rela-
tionship."
86 Odyssey 3.130-135; translationby R. Lattimore,The Odysseyof Homer (New York
1965).
146 Gloria Ferrari

with floating dead." In the Agamemnon, the messenger describes the

effects of that stormin termsof an attack(653-660):

ev VxKTI 8'oGK1c4avTa ' cbpcop& KcaKc-.

vavS yap tpo; aXXiX71at EpijKial ivoax
K ai 8e KepoTU ?Evoat
(petiCov o [i5a
XE4?tKOVt-
%?eiu(-6VI crVV(rc
al)(PO)VczXO,,
Tixpo l T'?a'
O[lppoKWti(p),
6tIpoKi:7Co,
MxovT'6apavrotntOItpvo; KCaKOI)PTp6OCp.
?tei 8' &vfiXOeXCaLcgpov ilXfo (pdo;,
6poLgev&v0oovn7iXayoSAiyaiov veKpoig
dv6pCSv'Aaxtiv vacvxtKoig T' Ep?Etiotg.
In the night evil storm-wavesarose.
Winds from Thracepoundedthe ships
One againstthe other.Rammedby the violence
Of the whirlwindwith wintry squall and crashingrain,
The ships were gone from sight into the evil shepherd'svortex.
But when the brightsun's light came up again,
We saw the Aegean sea blossoming with the corpses
Of Achaeanmen and wreckageof ships.

Similarly,in the earlier play, the Persian ships hemmed in by the Hel-
lenic fleet gore one anotherwith their rams, and corpses and wreckage
fill the shores of Salamis (Persae 412-420):

Tx&cp&a eV vVv Ip?'alepatKco oxapaxo'i

dvxTEXev *dg;8E nfioq ; v (TrEV veiCv
/IOpotoT',&apoyi6' oits; &XXa Xot; 7apiiv
aXTol 6' n' cc'
aixv ,C poXaSi;XaXKooTo6olt;
ncalovx', 0Opauovndvxa Kcco)nrpr\l
To6ov
l vi?
'EXXrlVtKaOC ve o;OK appcagaovox
nrpt4 eOtIvov*I'rTIOVTo
KIcKXCo) 8&
VEc6v,
o7Kcd(pil O
OdXaXaoa6' OK)'c' jvi8?i6v,
vavayiox v nqOriQouoaKai (p6voVppoT&iv
CaKTCai
6 VEKpCV X0tpd8e1; 'C'EnkrXq0v.
At firstthe flood of the Persianarmy
Held out. But when most of the ships were roundedup
In a small space, with no means to bring aid to one another,
They struckeach otherwith bronze-beaked
 TheIlioupersisinAthens 147

Rams, shatteredall oared armament,

And the ships of the Hellenes, not withoutforethought
all aroundin a circle, struck.Ships' hulls
Wereturnedupside down, one could no longer see the surfaceof
the sea,
Which was filled with the slaughterof men and wrecked ships.
Headlandsand reefs filled up with corpses.

There are further,indirect ties. Embeddedin the dense imagery of the

tempest in the Agamemnonis the figure of ate as windstorm.Aeschylus
makes use of this metaphor throughoutthe play.87In the passage at
hand ate is the whirlwind, tuphos, which strikes the ships with driving
rain and thunder and creates the eddy that swallows them. The root-
cause of the disaster is evoked in the image of the shepherd.With an
appeal to the Homeric formula regularly applied to Agamemnon, who
is "shepherd of peoples," notCi\v Xa&cv,the whirlwind becomes
metaphoricallywhat Agamemnon had been in actuality: a "bad shep-
herd,"who leads men to destruction.88A third metaphorfor ate is at
work in the image of the sea in bloom with corpses.89The meaning of
the image becomes clear in the words spoken by Darius in the Persae,
likening the "heaps of corpses" of the Persians fallen at Plataea to the
blossoming of ate, which is the consequence of Xerxes' hubris
(818-822):

9ive; vcKp&v6e KcaiTppToorOpq

yovB
acpova or?Iatlvowotv ogLgaLv 3ppotcov
(b;oV%I6n7Cp(pOVTiOV6V iova XPh(ppovEiv.
iopit; y&p ?tav0oo ' oItXDv
KapTCooe
aTTi;, 60sv IayKXauvovEaga 06po;.

Heaps of corpses, even in three generations'time,

87 I
analyze the imagery of ate in detail in "Figuresin the Text:Metaphorsand Riddles
in the Agamemnon,"CP 92 (1997) 12-19.
88 Achilles indeed refers to
Agamemnon as inotgivo; KicaK in a fragmentof tragedy,
whose attributionto Aeschylus' Myrmidonesis disputed.See Hugh Lloyd-Jones,Aeschy-
lus II (Cambridge,Mass. 1957) 591-592 fr. 286.8.
89Branded "exceptionally incongruous"in John Dewar Denniston and Denys Page,
Aeschylus, Agamemnon (Oxford 1960) 130. Citing Wilamowitz, Eduard Fraenkel,
Aeschylus,AgamemnonII (Oxford 1950) 324, connectedAgamemnon659 to Persae 420,
as did H. D. Broadhead,The Persae of Aeschylus (Cambridge1960) 126.
148 Gloria Ferrari

By their silence will signify to the eyes of men

That one who is mortalmust not presumeabove his station.
For hubris, flowering,broughtforththe bloom
Of ate, and from it reaps a harvestof lamentation.

The focal image here is established by the word cftaga, referring to

mowing or reaping. Hubris blossoms into ate as stalks of grain flower
into ears of corn, but its crop is death. Similarly,in the Agamemnonthe
corpses strewn over the sea are the flowering of hubris, producing
blooms of ate.90
The most strikingof the correspondencesbetween the two tragedies,
however, is the key role that the destructionand plunderof the shrines
plays in both. In the Agamemnon338-344, Clytemnestracontemplates
the situation of the Achaeans now in possession of Troy, sleeping in
Trojanhouses and explicitly links their safe returnto the observanceof
the propertyof the gods:91

ei 6' CTe4epoiolTo;)S oX1taoooXoiV0Oeo'i;

Txot;ri oo;
&X6or; Oev 0' i6pE tata,
o0 x&v XO6vTe; v
au0i;Savd aXoiev av
Epo(; &8lij tI; 5p6oTepov iCgn,JiroTpaTrt
niopoetv&aji XPpri, KIpcpeavVIKOtLr?VolU
6?Tyap ipob oIKiou;voozCLgoot(ozrpiax;,
at8lta XoLuOd epov KcXoovnaXtv.
KaadgL

And if they reverencethe gods who are guardiansof the city

And the dwellings of the gods of the conqueredland
Then the conquerorswill not in turnbe conquered.
Before, let no desire seize the host
To plunderwhat they must not, overcomeby greed.
They need the deliveranceof safe returnto their homes,
To double back onto the second stretchof the course.

90This image occurs again at Septem 601: arqS; 6poupa Oavaxov EcKaptirerwa
(excised by most editors; see G.. . Hutchinson, Aeschylus, Septem contra Thebas
[Oxford 1985] 138). The metaphoris not a creation of Aeschylus, since arlq av9v0ea
appearalso in Solon 4.36, M. L. West, Iambi et Elegi Graeci II (Oxford 1972). On the
generativepower of ate, see also above, pp. 128-129.
91Castriota(above, n. 9) 99 writes that "Aischylosmight easily have portrayedAtossa
or Darius speakingthese words of warningto Xerxes in the Persians."
 TheIlioupersisinAthens 149

The herald, who announces Agamemnon's arrival,confirms her worst

fears (hopes, that is) (524-528):

&EX 1KaCy'apO'UV
) VtVU LOndlaXOUE, 7pE7LEt,
Tpotav icataa cvaava toi- &icrip6pot
At';gaic XXn,nj Kacictpyaaat ir`6ov
PoJtoi 6' hatto2t
icai Oe6v i6pi~tata,
6 CI t6 S ~wac6XXIvtatXOov6S
Iccair~ppxx
But hail him welcome for it befits him,
The man who has laid waste Troy with the mattock
Of Zeus the avenger,by which the plain has been turnedunder.
Vanishedare the altarsand the dwellings of the gods,
and the seed is utterlydestroyedthe whole earthover.

This echoes the words spoken by the ghost of Darius in the Persae
807-812:

oanptv CaIC0v UWt0Ireitcagv&ct ca8e?v,

iSpeFo; aicotva icaOcov(ppovijpRrw0v,
ot yTfv ioX6vte; 'EXX6c8'oi OF,i-v ppFtil
I,soiivto
u GUMX oi
'i ao o~hv 0l6uTFCL 8& int.up&vt
adl at VF-co;
IOCLO,i 6' *atoiot atj.t6vov 0' i6p,$axta
inp6ppt4aqp 6rjv av tpawrat 60 ,pcOv.
There the highest of calamities is in store for them to experience,
The price of hubris and godless designs,
They who, come to the land of Hellas, did not refrain
From despoiling the icons of the gods nor burningtemples.
Vanishedare the altars,and the dwellings of the daimonesY92
Uprootedfrom theirbases, were turnedover in defilement.

With slight change, Aeschylus quotes line 811 of the Persae, perhapsa
famous line by then,93 at Agamemnon527, where the image of uproot-
92 P.
Perdrized,"Le t6moignage d'Eschyle sur le sac d'Ath6nes par les Perses,"REG
34 (1921) 57-79, argued convincingly that the expression refers to the desecration of
burials.
93W. Kierdorf,Erlebnis und Darstellungender Perserkriege(G6ltingen 1966 [Hypom-
nemata 16]) 14-15. Following Fraenkel(above, n. 89) 266-267, some considerAgamem-
non 527 an interpolation,which crept into the text by way of a note in the margins.There
remainsto be explained why an ancient readerwould gloss the descriptionof the sack of
150 Gloria Ferrari

ing and turningover altars and tombs lends itself to a more elaborate
metaphorof destructionas a clearing of the ground.The allusion to the
parallelfates of Athens and Troyhere is more explicit thanever.
With its sympathyfor the conquerorin his disgrace and for the loss
of the nation's youthful flower in a wrong war,94the play looks at the
Persiansthroughthe lens of the heroic world. Hellenes and Persiansare
worthy opponents,bound by the same code of war ethics, in a struggle
that is drivenand monitoredby the gods. Although it affirmsthe innate
courage, cunning intelligence, love of freedom, and piety of the Hel-
lenes, the play resists interpretationsthat would reduce it to a jingoistic
statementof Hellenic superiorityover a corruptEast. The Ilioupersison
the northmetopes of the Parthenonhad an equally complex and polyva-
lent charge. The metaphorthat cast Athens' ordeal in the mold of the
epic grantedher enemy superhumanpower and arrogance,and so gave
her struggle a heroic dimension. As it drew comparisons,the analogy
also highlighted differences. Except for Aeneas, all the men of Troy
would perish with its fall, down to the seed of Hector. But the men of
Athens survived the attack, and the city with them.95In this light, it
appearsmore than coincidence that the images of the sack of Troy on
the north metopes looked upon the ancient temple of Athena Polias,
immediately to the north, which was the visible trace of the Persian
impiety. The anger of Athena, of which Xerxes was warned when he
visited Troy,constitutesa metonymic link between the two. By its posi-
tion, the ParthenonIlioupersis drew upon, and gave epic resonance to,
the artfuldisplay of ruins, which were deployed throughoutthe citadel
and which, as we slowly have come to recognize, were as much a part
of its classical plan as the new Pericleanbuildings.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

Troy with a line from the sack of Athens. In addition to Kierdorf,Denniston and Page
(above, n. 89) 120-121 and Anderson (above, n. 5) 119-120 have argued that the line
should be retained.
94Persae 918-927. See M. Ebbott, "The List of the War Dead in Aeschylus' Per-
sians,"in this volume.
95Aeschylus makes the point at Persae 348-349. When the messenger attributesthe
disasterat Salamis to the gods' hostility, saying that the gods protectAthena's city, a puz-
zled Atossa wonders:"is Athens yet unravaged?"The messengerreplies: "so long as men
remain, her walls stand firm" (?T' &p' 'A0rlv&v?aT' &xo6p9ToS; T6XotS; / &vSpi&vyap
OVTCov
epKco;EoTv &aocpa?;).