Athena Promachos - History

History

The Athena Promachos was one of Pheidias' earliest recorded works: it was placed in about 456 BCE. It was made with the Persian spoils of the Battle of Marathon, won some years earlier. Parts of the marble base remain; according to the preserved inscription, it measured about 30 feet (9 m) high. It showed Athena standing with her shield resting upright against her leg, and a spear in her right hand. The statue was so big it was possible to see the tip of the spear and her helmet crest at sea off Cape Sounion.

Surviving accounts for the sculpture cover nine years, but the dates are not identifiable, because the names of officials are missing (Stewart; Lundgreen 1997:191). The sculpture may have commemorated Kimon's defeat of the Persians at the Eurymedon in 467 or the peace of Kallias in about 450/49 (Walsh 1981).

The appearance of the Athena Promachos can only be certainly identified on a few Attic coins minted in Roman times, in the first and second centuries CE, providing clues to identifying versions in surviving sculptures, with varying confidence. They show that she wore a belted garment and stretched forward her right hand on which a winged object can be seen. A spear leans against one shoulder and her shield, which we know was made separately, by different artists, rests on the ground. Sometimes the plinth is indicated. Her crested helmet is sometimes rendered as Attic in type, sometimes Corinthian.

Athena Promachos stood overlooking her city for about 1000 years until shortly after 465 CE, when she was transported to Constantinople (capital of the Eastern Roman Empire), as a trophy in the "Oval Forum", the last bastion and safe haven for many surviving Greek bronze sculptures, under the protection of the Eastern Empire's Imperial court.

The Athena Promachos was finally destroyed in 1203 by a superstitious Christian mob who thought she was beckoning the crusaders who had besieged the city (Jenkins 1947).

Of surviving models thought to represent the type, the two outstanding are the Athena Elgin, a small bronze statuette in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, who bears an owl in her outstretched hand (like some coin types), and the Athena Medici torso in the Musée du Louvre, of which there are a number of replicas.