PHEIDIAS. nLove all, that most perfect work of human art, the temple of Athena on the Acropolis, called the Parthenon or the Hecatompedon,, on which, as the central point of the Athenian polity and reli- gion, the highest efforts of the best of artists were employed. There can be no doubt that the sculp- tured ornaments of this temple, the remains of which form the glory of our national museum, were executed under the immediate superintendence of Pheidias ; but the colossal statue of the divinity, which was enclosed within that magnificent shrine, was the work of the artist's own hand, and was for ages esteemed the greatest production of Greek statuary, with the exception of the similar, but even more splendid statue of Zeus, which Pheidias afterwards executed in his temple at Olympia. The materials chosen for this statue were ivory and gold ; that is to say, the statue was formed of plates of ivory laid upon a core of wood or stone, for the flesh parts, and the drapery and other ornaments were of solid gold. It is said that the choice of these materials resulted from the determination of the Athenians to lavish the resources of wealth, as well as of art, on the chief statue of their tutelary deity ; for when Pheidias laid before the ecclesia his design for the statue, and proposed to make it either of ivory and gold, or of white marble, intimating however his own preference for the latter, the people at once resolved that those materials which were the most costly should be employed. (Val. Max. i. 1. § 7.) The statue was dedicated in the 3d year of the 85th Olympiad, B.C. 438, in the archonship of Theodoras. The statue itself will be described presently, with the other works of Pheidias ; but there are certain stories respecting it, which require notice here, as bearing upon the life and death of the artist, and as connected with tlie date of his other great work, the colossal statue of Zeus at Olympia. The scholiast on Aristophanes (Paa?, 605) has preserved the following story from the AttMs of Philochorus, who flourished about B.C. 300, and whose authority is considerable, inasmuch as he was a priest and soothsayer, and was therefore well acquainted with the legends and history of his country, especially those bearing upon religious matters. " Under the year of the archonship of Pythodorus (or, according to the correction of Palraerius, Theodoras), Philochorus says that ' the golden statue of Athena was set up in the great temple, having forty-four talents' weight of gold, imder the superintendence of Pericles, and the workmanship of Pheidias. And Pheidias, appear- ing to have misappropriated the ivory for the scales (of the dragons) was condemned. And, having gone as an exile to Elis, he is said to have made the statue of Zeus at Olympia ; but having finished this, he was put to death by the Eleians in the archonship of Scythodorus (or, according to the correction of Palmerius, Pythodorus), who is the seventh from this one (i. e. Theodorus), «&:c.' " And then, further down, " Pheidias, as Philochorus says in the archonship of Pythodorus (or Theo- dorus, as above), having made the statue of Athena, pilfered the gold from the dragons of the chrysele- phantine Athena, for which he was found guilty and sentenced to banishment ; but having come to Elis, and having made among the Eleians the statue of the Olympian Zeus, and having been found guilty by them of peculation, he was put to death." {SdioLinAnsUQ^, Dindorf ; Fragm. Hidor. PHEIDIAS. 247 Graec. p. 400, ed. MUller.) It nnist be remem- bered that this is the statement of Philochorus, as quoted by two different scholiasts ; but still the general agreement shows that the passage is toler- ably genuine. Of the corrections of Palmerius, one is obviously right, namely the name of Fyilio- durus for Scythodorus ; for the latter archon is not mentioned elsewhere. Pythodorus was archon in 01. 87. 1, B. c. 432, and seven years before him was the archonship of Theodorus, 01. 85. 3, B.C. 438. In the latter year, therefore, the statue was dedicated ; and this date is confirmed by Diodorus (xii. 31), and by Eusebius, who places the making of the statue in the 2d year of the 85th Olympiad.* This is, therefore, the surest chronological fact in the whole life of Pheidias.f The other parts, however, of the account of Philochorus, are involved in much difficulty. On the very face of the statement, the story of Pheidias having been first banished by the Athenians, and afterwards put to death by the Eleians, on a charge precisely similar in both cases, may be almost cer- tainly pronounced a confused repetition of the same event. Next, the idea that Pheidias went to Elis as an exile, is perfectly inadmissible. t This will be clearly seen, if we examine what is known of the visit of Pheidias to the Eleians. There can be little doubt that the account of Phi- lochorus is true so far as this, that the statue at Olympia was made by Pheidias after his great works at Athens. Heyne, indeed, maintains the contrary, but the fallacy of his arguments will pre- sently appear. It is not at all probable that the Athenians, in their eagerness to honour their god- dess by the originality as well as by the magnificence of her statue, should have been content with an imitation of a work so unsurpassable as the statue of Zeus at Olympia ; but it is probable that the Eleians, as the keepers of the sanctuary of the supreme divinity, should have desired to eclipse the statue of Athena : and the fact, that of these two statues the preference was always given to that of Zeus, is no small proof that it was the last executed. Very probably, too, in this fact Ave may find one of the chief causes of the resentment of the Athenians against Pheidias, a resentment which is not likely
- It is not, however, absolutely necessary to
adopt the other correction of Palmerius, &eoBwpou for Uvdoddpov, since Philochorus may naturally have placed the whole account of the trial, flight, jind death of Pheidias under the year of his death ; or the scholiasts, in quoting the account of his death, given by Philochorus under the year of Pythodorus, may have mixed up with it the be- ginning of the story, which Philochorus had put in its proper place, under the year of Theodorus. The correction, however, makes the whole matter clearer, and the words ciTro rovrov rather favour it. t It is remarked by Miiller, with equal inge- nuity and probability, that the dedication of the statue may be supposed to have taken place at the Great Panathenaea, which were celebrated in the third year of every Olympiad, towards the end of the first month of the Attic year, Hecatombaeon, that is, about the middle of July. X The form in which Seneca puts this part of the story, namely, that the Eleians bon'oiced Phei- dias of the Athenians, in order to his making the Olympian Jupiter, is a mere fiction, supported by no other writer. (Senec. likeU ii. 8.)
