A catalogue of sculpture in the Department of ... - Warburg Institute

218 CATALOGUE OF SCULPTUREray, i. p. 236).Curtius (Siehen Garten, text, p. 53) suggestedthat the temple may have been that of Heracles in Melite.In this view he has been fuUowed by Wach^miith(Stadt Athen, i. p. 364-). Other patron deities h»ve alsobeen proposed, as Apollo Patroos, or Heracles and Theseustogether, or Hephaestos. Doeipfeld, followed by MissHarrison (^Mythology and Monuments of Anc. Athens, p, 112),is strongly in favour of the last-mentioned attribution,identifying thebuilding with the temple of Hephaestosmentioned by Pausanias (i., 14, 6).It is clear, from a compai'ison of other temples, that noconclusive argument can be drawn from the subjects ofthe sculptures, especially of the melopes, which may havelittle connection with the special purpose of the temple.At the same time we know that the Theseion was decoratedwith paintings relating to the st«)ry of Theseus,and, so far as any weight can be attached to the subjectsof the sculptures, they favour the attribution of thebuilding to Theseus. It has been suggested that thetemple may have belonged toHeracles and Theseus incommon—not on the ground that we hear of such atemple, but because the ten metopes on the east frontrelate to Heracles. But this fact is inconclusive. TheAthenians would be content topoint out the parallelismof Heracles and Theseus, even if Theseus was made tooccupy a subordinate position. The newly-discovered'A6r]vaL0}v UoXtreia of Aristotle furnishes some new evidence.The disarming of tlie Athenians by Peisistratos is said tohave been effected in the following manner. He causedthe citizens to put down their arms in the Theseion, presumablyin the temenos of Theseus, that he might addressthem, and then drew them off tothe Propylaea on thepretext that they would be better able to hear him.Meanwhile his agents shut up the arms in " the adjacentbuildings of the Theseion " (e^oTrAio-tai/ eV tw ©T^o-etw [sic MS.]