The Fall of the Athenian Empire-(A New History of the Peloponnesian War) Donald Kagan - (1987)

260 'I'HE FALL OF THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE
activity is hard to believe. The scale of the new building program was
small, even tiny compared to the great works undertaken before the
war. The only works begun at this time were the addition of a parapet
to the temple of Athena Nike and the completion of the temple to
Athena Polias, the Erechtheum, as it has come to be known. 57 The
parapet would have employed few men; the greater part of the Erechtheum
had been done by the time work resumed in 409, so that not
many would have been given employment. Not many of the workers,
moreover, were citizens. Of the seventy-one contractors and workers
named in the inscription for 409/8, only twenty were citizens, the rest
being slaves and resident aliens. 58 That is no way for democratic politicians
to organize construction projects meant to give work to the
voters. It seems more likely that the citizens of the restored democracy
and their leaders were trying precisely to hark back to the great days
of the democracy under Pericles, to build monuments to prove their
own greatness and make them "the objects of admiration both to
contemporaries and to men in the future. " 59 The sight of great and
new buildings was meant to bring confidence, hope, and courage to
the men who must gain victory over formidable foes after suffering
terrible misfortunes.
It is tempting to believe, although we have no positive proof, that
the parapet surrounding the temple of Athena Nike was erected to
commemorate the great double victory at Cyzicus. 60 The relief carvings
show Nikai, goddesses of victory, setting up trophies and leading sacrificial
bulls to Athena for ceremonies of thanksgiving. To display this
beautiful carving with the theme of victory in so prominent a place
would deliver an unmistakable message to all who saw it. The Erechtheum
met different, but no less important, needs of the moment.
The response of the Athenians to the scandals of 415, the mutilation
of the Hermae and the parody of the Eleusinian mysteries, reveal how
close to the surface lay the religious feelings of the Athenian people."
The Periclean era had been a time of experiment, novelty, enlight-
57
The date for the parapet is somewhat speculative. Among those proposing the date
accepted here are Glotz and Cohen (HG II, 739) and Will (Le monde grec, 38o). The
date of the resumption of work on the Erechtheum is firmly fixed by an inscription
(IG I 2 372-374) in the year 401)18.
'"M. N. Tod, CAHV, 5·
591.41.4.
60
1 am grateful to J. J. Pollitt for calling my attention to this suggestion made by
Eve Harrison in an unpublished paper.
"C. A. Powell, Historia XXVIII (1979), 15-31.