The History of the Parthenon

The Parthenon in Athens is probably the most iconic window through which we can observe ancient Greek architecture at its best. But there’s much more to this temple than a highfalutin photo opportunity. In its two-and-a-half thousand year history, the great temple has been set ablaze, defaced, looted, blown up and served as a place of worship – so not just a pretty façade!

Birth and Rebirth

The Parthenon, in its original guise which most now recognise as the ‘Old Parthenon’, was built shortly after the Battle of Marathon, around 490-488 BC, when the Athenians defeated Darius I’s marauding Persian forces. It was built as a sanctuary for the goddess Athena Parthenos, or ‘Athena the Virgin’, who heralded the nomenclature of the capital we know today, as the centre of the ancient Greek empire. It occupied the same area at the summit of the Acropolis. However the Persians rallied back and sacked Athens in 480 BC, razing the Acropolis as they went.

However when Athens was recaptured thanks to the birth of the Delian League, the influential general Pericles moved the Delian treasury to Athens; a move the ancient historian Plutarch described as a way of usurping funds for elaborate extra-military architectural projects. Nevertheless, by 447 BC the rebirth of the Athenian Acropolis was under way, and the new Parthenon, in homage to its predecessor, would be an even more staggering construction – completed in just nine years, until 438 BC. The great Greek architect Phidias then began to decorate the building, alongside 70 other sculptors, to create the magnificent frieze, metopes and statues which have caused so much controversy in (comparatively) recent times. These were not completed until 431 BC, and featured as their focal point the staggering chryselephantine figure of Athena Parthenos; a contemporary copy of which now stands in the replica Parthenon in Nashville, Tennessee, U.S.A.

According to ancient records, the gold sheets shielding the goddess were melted down to pay troops in 296 BC, damaged by fire a century later; and sadly lost thereafter. As Evan Hadingham of the Smithsonian writes, “The Parthenon served not merely as an imperial propaganda statement but also as an expression of Athens' burgeoning democracy – the will of the citizens who had voted to fund this exceptional monument.”

A Troubled Adolescence

Well, a mid-life crisis, perhaps. The Parthenon was almost a thousand years old when Athens became nothing more than a provincial city, swallowed up by the Roman Empire. And with the Romans came Christianity; a religion which the Romans were keen to impose upon Athens’ most imposing landmark. The first Christian funerary inscriptions were carved onto the Parthenon in around 600 AD, some 220 of which have survived to this day. Many more are believed to have succumbed to the building’s structural damage.
The Athenian Christians worshipped in their historic cathedral for another four hundred years or so, until it reached a nadir if importance when the Byzantine emperor Basil II undertook a pilgrimage to the Parthenon following his decisive victory over the Bulgarians. Basil saw Athens as a site of reverence for the Theotokos, or Mother of God; taking the title away from Constantinople, and travelling further from the Byzantine capital on pilgrimage than had ever been done before. This act of adoration to Athens and the Parthenon left the building in its highest esteem for centuries, as the epicentre of Byzantine piety.

A Struggle for Identity

Following the Fourth Crusade and the sacking of Constantinople in 1204, Athens was occupied by Burgundians, Catalans, Florentines and Venetians. Thus Christianity, specifically Roman Catholicism, held firm at the Parthenon – which had by now taken on the official name Theotokos Atheniotissa. The cathedral also became a popular pilgrimage destination; Pope Nicholas IV promoted it in several announcements. However in 1456 Athens fell to the Ottomans, and the Parthenon saw yet another change of identity. A minaret was added to the building and it became another symbol, this time of Ottoman Islam. It is important to add at this point that the Parthenon was still a fully functioning building, and stairways led worshippers as high as the architraves. It seemed as if the Parthenon would stand tall for many years , proudly bestowed with the honour of being a landmark for the successful Ottomans, yet two hundred years later it would face its deepest crisis.

In 1687 Francisco Morosini attacked Athens with his powerful Venetian army. During the time it was common for the Ottomans to destroy or deface ancient Greek buildings for materials to fight their myriad border wars – thankfully the Parthenon had not yet met such an unedifying demise. However it was used as a gunpowder depot, and a German mortar, allying the Venetians, hit its contents and sent the roof of the Parthenon high into the Athenian sky. Subsequent looting saw the Venetians take many of the building’s invaluable sculptures and statues, some of which fell to the floor fatally as clumsy soldiers attempted to remove them. The Parthenon, formerly a glorious working mosque, was now a ruin – much of the sculptural decoration known only via the artwork of the Flemish artist Jaques Carry, made in 1674.

Losing its Marbles

The Ottoman Empire went into a period of stagnation during the 18th century, and the Parthenon in particular garnered more interest from further afield as a masterpiece of ancient Greek architecture. The British and French took a particular liking to the building, leading to the building’s most controversial incident. The Earl of Elgin, at the time a diplomatic envoy to the Ottoman Empire, obtained a firman in 1801 to make sketches and to remove sculptures around the Acropolis – ostensibly to restore the Parthenon to some kind of dignified state following its increasing obscurity.

However Elgin saw the firman as a licence to take away the Parthenon’s marble treasures for his own private collection of antiquities, and employed local people to ship them back to his native Britain. Following a public outcry back home, the Earl sold his collection of marbles to the British Museum. More marbles are in Paris and Copenhagen, and the Greek government has thus far been unable to retrieve any of the treasures.

The Parthenon Today

So the Parthenon has been a temple, a church, a mosque and a gunpowder magazine. It’s been besieged, beloved and blown up. It has had the most colourful life of any ancient building, and still draws hundreds of thousands of visitors per year with its beauty and mystique. Since 2004 it has benefited from an intense project to restore it to its post-explosion state, following decades of ruinous decay at the hands of modern Athenian pollution. It has had a difficult life so far, but the Parthenon is surely in its youth.

Images by Costas.

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About The Author

Sean Williams

Last three pieces by this author:

Join Heritage Key Live from Stonehenge Spring Equinox | Celebrate St. Patrick's by Visiting Loughcrew for Spring Equinox | What can you Expect from Stonehenge Spring Equinox 2010?

Sean is an English Literature graduate, who currently works as a writer and journalist in London. He enjoys ancient history, theatre and sport. He does not enjoy Big Brother.