Inventory number
Ακρ. 20017
Artist
Pheidias' workshop
Category
Architectural sculpture
Period
Classical Period
Date
442-438 BC
Dimensions
Height: 1.01 m
Length: 1.39 m
Width: 0.592 m
Material
Marble from Penteli
Location
Parthenon Gallery
On Block III a horseman probably readjusts the bridle of his horse behind which a young groom stands with his legs crossed. The latter is discussing with a bearded parade marshal (teletarch) who seems to be giving a command with his right outstretched arm. The rider wears a chlamys and petasos which hangs behind him. The servant is nude whereas the parade marshal is clad in a himation that covers the lower part of his body. The horse bridle, now lost, was once made of bronze and secured into the small holes opened on the animal’s head. The left forearm and hand of the servant in which he might have held a bronze whip is a plaster cast of the original kept today in the State Collections of Antiquities in Munich. Many researchers connect this scene with the "passing muster" (dokimasia), the testing of both horse and rider’s capability.
The frieze on the west side of the Parthenon shows the riders preparing to take part in the procession of the Athenian people during the Panathenaic festival, in honour of the protectress of the city, Athena. The procession's destination was the Temple of Athena Polias on the Acropolis. Its purpose was the transportation of the Panathenaic peplos destined to adorn the age-old xoanon of the goddess and the offer of a grand sacrifice of animals at the Great Altar outside of the temple.
The horsemen on the west frieze are in the Kerameikos district, where the procession started. Some converse, some others fasten their sandals, some of them bridle their horses or try to soothe them, while a few horsemen are already galloping in loose formation.
The west frieze is preserved almost intact as the bombardment of the Parthenon by the Venetians under the command of the general Francesco Morosini in 1687 did not affect this side of the temple. Its total length is 21.18 m and is composed of sixteen blocks. Fourteen of them are displayed in the Acropolis Museum after they were removed from the Parthenon in 1993 and kept in the old Acropolis Museum for fifteen years. Blocks I and II are in the British Museum in London, where they ended up after they were forcibly removed by Thomas Bruce, lord of Elgin, between 1801 and 1804, when Greece was still under Ottoman occupation.
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