mythical time or the present day, the participants in the procession give every impression of being
contemporary Athenian citizens; that is, the very people who would see the frieze as they walked around
the Parthenon toward its east end. Every year the citizens of Athens celebrated the festival of the
Panathenaea, which included a procession through the streets of the city, culminating on the acropolis, at
the altar of Athena, where animal victims were sacrificed in her honor (figure 51). The frieze, then,
appears to represent either the procession associated with the Panathenaea or some other procession of
the very sort that fifth-century Athenians were accustomed to participating in themselves. The human
figures on the frieze include men and women, old and young (figure 52), so that all Athenians could
identify, and identify with, their own counterparts on the frieze. Or, rather, all Athenians could aspire to
identify with the figures on the frieze: As in advertisements today on television or in glossy magazines, no
unattractive or impoverished people are depicted. The frieze projects, whether intentionally or not, an
idealized image of the citizens of contemporary Athens, in the presence of the gods.
Figure 50 Plaster cast, made ca. 1790 before the marble original suffered further damage, of the east
frieze of the Parthenon, showing Poseidon, Apollo, and Artemis; height 106 cm, original (now in the
Acropolis Museum, Athens) ca. 440–435 BC. Urbana, Spurlock Museum, 1911.03.0021.
Source: Courtesy of The Spurlock Museum, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.