monuments discussed were made in Athens and the majority of them were found
there as well. The central question I address is: what can the study of artifacts and
monuments tell us about religion in Athens, particularly during the second half of the
fifth century? I interpret the term ‘‘religion’’ here (another for which there is no
Greek equivalent) as activity related to the worship of gods, with the understanding
that a fundamental purpose of worship was to attract and maintain the gods’ support
through offerings – which could be sacrifices or appropriate objects (votives) dedi-
cated to the deity. However, it will quickly become clear that in the world of fifth-
century Athens, it is all but impossible to separate the ‘‘religious’’ from the artistic,
economic, and political dimensions of life.
Images at the Panathenaea
I start with a clay vase called an amphora made in Athens around 430 BC on which is
a depiction of two young men preparing to wrestle under the supervision of a judge
(Figure 26.1). Unfortunately, the find-place for this particular piece is not known,
but this fact is less important here because we know precisely what its function was
in Athens, where it was originally used. The technique used to paint the scene is
called black-figure, in which silhouette figures with details incised are set against a
background of the reddish Attic clay. But that technique went out of fashion in
Athens soon after 500 BC and was replaced by a technique called red-figure, where
the figures are reserved, that is they are left in the reddish color of the clay,
and the background is painted black around them. Thus at first sight our vase
would have seemed ‘‘old-fashioned’’ at the time that it was made. However,
the black-figure technique was preserved in Athens on into the second century BC
for the sole purpose of painting amphoras like this one that were given as prizes
to victorious athletes at the Panathenaea, a festival held in late July or early August
in honor of Athena, and which every fourth year included athletic and musical
competitions.
The distinctive shape and the imagery on the prize vases was fixed as early as 566
BC, the date when the contests were probably added to the festival, and they changed
very little during the more than three hundred years during which they were made.
On one side was a depiction of a contest, presumably the one for which the vase was
awarded, and on the other was an image of the warrior goddess Athena, who strides
forward, her shield on her left arm, her spear raised for attack in her right hand.
(Figure 26.2) She wears an Attic helmet and her snake-fringed aegis over herpeplos,
and on our vase the device on her shield is a winged Victory (Nike) with a wreath in
her hands. On either side of Athena are columns surmounted by cocks, and beside
one of the columns is the inscription ‘‘a prize for the games at Athens.’’ The retention
of the old technique and the use of a consciously archaic style of drawing for the
figure of Athena reflect the conservatism of religious customs and rituals. We will
return to this image of Athena, which has a special place in Attic iconography, but first
let us consider the use of the vase.
Many art museums in Europe and the United States proudly display Panathenaic
amphoras as important works of Greek art, and recently a fifth-century example,
much like ours, sold on the art market for more than half a million dollars. This is
Greek Religion and Art 399