In addition to this frieze, a smaller frieze decorated the upper portion of the walls of the colonnade. It,
too, displays its artists’ extensive learning by depicting in great detail the life of the local hero Telephus.
In order to construct this visual narrative, the artists needed to make use not only of well-known texts like
Euripides’ Telephus (p. 197), but also some very obscure epic accounts that modern scholars have had
great difficulty identifying and reconstructing. The importance of the Telephus frieze, which is
unfortunately very poorly preserved, lies in its careful narrative sequence. It is the earliest example of
such continuous narrative in Greek art, following as it does a chronological sequence that can be “read,”
like a text or a comic strip, from left to right. The importance of the frieze showing the battle between the
gods and the giants, however, lies in its flamboyant, restless style. Unlike the restrained and Classical
frieze from the fifth-century Parthenon (p. 182), everything here is a swirl of motion and emotion. The
action is violent and disordered and the entire surface of the frieze is filled with figures: gods and giants
(some winged), wild beasts, and the serpents that take the place of some giants’ legs. In contrast to the
conventions of Classical art, there is here no hesitation to represent emotion outright, by showing its
effects on the features of the participants (figure 76).
Figure 76 Part of the east frieze of the Great Altar of Zeus, showing Nike crowning Athena as she battles
an unidentified giant, with Gaia (Earth, the mother of the giants) rising up to entreat her; height of frieze
2.3 m. Berlin, Pergamum Museum.
Source: © VPC Travel Photo / Alamy Stock Photo.
Characteristic of Hellenistic art is the artist’s desire to engage the viewer more directly and with greater
immediacy than had been the case in the Classical Period. The creators of the Altar of Zeus have
accomplished this not only with the emotionally involving style of presentation, but by the very design of