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The Acropolis and Persepolis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

A. W. Lawrence
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Extract

Two of the greatest monuments of the ancient world date from the fifth century B.C. and they embody respectively the ideals of the Persian and of the Athenian Empire. There had been nothing in all Asia as sumptuous as Persepolis; the Acropolis of Athens, a quarter its size, was given a magnificence absolutely unprecedented in Greece. A comparison between the two schemes must reflect the divergence between the Persian and the Greek outlook but also reveal some elements in common, if only because of an inevitable resemblance in ways of thinking among contemporaries when confronted with rather similar problems. But it must not be taken for granted that every parallel between them is fortuitous. There is reason to think that the sculptors employed at Persepolis were largely Greeks—conscripted subjects of Persia, no doubt; the sculptors of the Acropolis were by no means all Athenian but came also from other Greek states, and surely there must have been talk among them of the tremendous project from which many of their colleagues had returned to cities east of the Aegean. Persepolis was built steadily from about 500 to 460, by which time the reconstruction of the Acropolis had begun; its earliest Periclean building, the Parthenon, was commenced in 447. It is conceivable that some particular sculptor may have carved figures in the friezes of both Persepolis and the Parthenon; workmen who could attain the requisite standard must have been in demand. At any rate one Greek artist from the Persian service seems to have gone as far west as Delos, to judge by imitation there of the Persepolis type of column-base, in the Thesmophorium, a building datable about 480–460.

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Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 71 , November 1951, pp. 111 - 119
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1951

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References

1 The fragmentary inscription recording expenditure on the Erechtheum shows a high proportion of alien workers; the section on the frieze mentions three Athenian and five alien sculptors (I.G.I2 374).

2 From the inscriptions, Darius seems to have completed only one of the buildings; most of them date from the reign of Xerxes (486 or 485–465) but one of his foundations was completed by Artaxerxes I (465–424). One of the last kings, Artaxerxes III (359–338), made an addition.

2a BCH LIII (1929) 257, fig. 34.

3 Translated in AJA L (1946) 25.

4 Herodotus, III, 129–130.

5 Hellenisation proceeded farther in reliefs made in Asia Minor for (?) Persian clients (Pope, , Survey of Persian Art, IV, Pls. 103–4Google Scholar) and in gems (Richter, , Comment. Studies in honor of Shear, Hesperia Suppl. VIII 291Google Scholar).

6 The material used at Persepolis is local stone.

7 The view that the Greek element was insignificant (Sarre, F. and Herzfeld, E., Iranische Felsreliefs, 145Google Scholar) is no longer tenable (Frankfort, and Richter, , AJA L (1946) 6 and 15CrossRefGoogle Scholar). Cf. Ionian reliefs of the early fifth century (e.g. BM Cat. I. 1, Pls. xxi–xxxi).

8 The tomb of Cyrus appears to show indirect Greek influence, through the medium probably of one of the semi-hellenised races in Asia Minor, and if the constituents of its surrounding colonnade really come from his palaces, the same applies to them.

9 This may have been the foundation for the belief that artisans were fetched to Persepolis from Egypt (Diodorus Sic. I, 46, 4), though the Susa inscription mentions structural work by Egyptian labour there. A fragmentary statue of a lion from Persepolis in local stone (Oriental Inst. Chicago, no. AF3) seems to me to have necessarily been designed and carved by an Egyptian; it stood at the entrance to one of Xerxes' buildings.

10 My article in EB s.v. ‘Persia—Archaeology’, though in some respects out of date, is a convenient summary of the ingredients.

11 The excavation of this site (near Erevan) began in 1939 after an inscription of Rusas II had been discovered; I know only the semi-popular account of Piotrovskiy, B. B., Istoriya i Kultura Urartu (Akademiya Nauk, Erevan, 1944) 157Google Scholar, plan fig. 20.

12 AA 1941, 807 for plan; Koldewey, Das wiedererstehende Babylon.

13 Dieulafoy, M., L'art antique de la Perse, II, Pl. IIGoogle Scholar; Pope, op. cit. IV, Pl. 81B; cf. Scranton, Greek Walls; Wrede, Attische Mauern.

14 Only partially excavated, hence not complete on the plan (from Oriental Inst. Communications no. 21, Schmidt, Erich F., The Treasury of Persepolis, fig. 5; p. 7Google Scholar for the wall).

15 Apart from the earliest Athenian decree, only two or three of those from the Acropolis can be older than the reconstruction of the 460's, as Mr. A. G. Woodhead informs me.

16 E.g. Q. Curtius, V, 2, 8; 6, 20; Schmidt, op. cit. 16.

17 Collections of plans: von Gerkan, Griechische Städteanlagen; Dunbabin, Western Greeks. Two important examples: JHS LXII (1942) 39, fig. 1; 51 Winckelm.-progr. Berlin (1891), Koldewey, Heandria, plan at end.

18 Stevens, , Hesperia XV (1946) 77Google Scholar, figs. 4, 6.

19 The fifth-century approach to the Propylaea was an embanked zigzag ramp (ibid. 84, fig. 1). The space was too narrow for a double staircase, of course, but the effect must have somewhat resembled half of one.

20 Although the Nike temple was not built till the 420s, the site had been reserved in the lay-out of the Propylaea, and I regard it as essential to the Periclean scheme. For corrections of axis inward from the Propylaea see Stevens, , Hesperia V (1936) 519Google Scholar and his restored plan, fig. 66.

21 Stevens, , Hesperia XV (1946) 87.Google Scholar

22 After allowing for perspective—actually the flat roof over the caryatids is higher than the architrave of the north porch but reaches some 6 ft. west of the peak of its roof, which makes a horizontal line when seen from the west.

23 If the central block had extended appreciably westward of its eventual termination (as Dörpfeld believed to have been projected) this effect would have been lost from most angles, whereas it would not have been impaired by the slight extension restored by Dinsmoor. The adjoining cella of the Old Temple could have been either preserved or demolished with little aesthetic consequence.

24 The Erechtheum was begun after Phidias' disgrace but its shape may already have been agreed, as was evidently the case with the Nike temple.

25 From the panoramas, Dieulafoy, op. cit., Pls. IV–XI; Schmidt, op. cit., fig. 3.

26 Symbolic of the struggle of Mithra, and of the king, against evil, perhaps with special reference to the vernal equinox, which became New Year's Day on the adoption of a solar calendar in 410; the annual presentation of gifts to the king on that day may be an earlier custom (Sarre and Herzfeld, op. cit. 136).

27 The lion-gryphon, used on Alexander's coinage apparently as a symbol of his victory over the Persian king (Hill, , JHS XLIII 156Google Scholar).

28 The summing-up of the excellent criticism by G. N. (Lord) Curzon, himself a sympathetic authority on pomp (Persia, II 194).

29 The subject(s) of the two friezes of the Erechtheum can only be guessed from the inscription and the fragments (Stevens, G. P., The Erechtheum 239Google Scholar) but were clearly less formal than the Parthenon's—apparently scenes before or after a procession, with a mixed crowd of spectators. Three galloping chariots must belong to the north porch; on the central block were many figures seated or quietly standing. Perhaps the scenes placed overlooking the agora illustrated the gathering there of the same procession, while on the south its passage to the east end of the Parthenon could have been reproduced or reflected in figures of its spectators.

30 Of a filly, whereas the others are full-grown horses (Markman, , The Horse in Greek Art 74, 77Google Scholar). A religious prejudice against the differentiation of human figures is not likely to have applied to equine, and Phidias would not appear to have been a cautious man if he made recognisable portraits of himself and Pericles on the shield of the national cult-image of Athena Parthenos.

31 ‘Through art Pericles taught the lazy Athenians to believe in empire’, said Cecil Rhodes; the intuitive understanding of one empire-builder for another led him to a conclusion which his classical reading could not have substantiated (Baker, Herbert, Cecil Rhodes by his Architect 10Google Scholar).