After a busy day of classes and extracurricular clubs, you finally get home and want to relax for a little while. You jump onto your couch and boot up your PS5, excited to hop into the new Spider-Man game. Swinging from street to street, building to building, you find yourself staring at the marble columns of the Federal Hall building in Lower Manhattan. Suddenly, you feel yourself being yanked out of your seat and, a few moments later, there is a large, white structure in front of you with similar columns to those you saw in the game. After observing your surroundings, including a bustling agora that reminded you of New York City with people selling all sorts of goods and foods, and remembering your ancient history class, you realize you are looking at the Parthenon. The Parthenon was quite important during Ancient Greece and still shows its impact to this day, from its architectural design to its mythological statues and depictions on its interior and exterior.
(left) Image of the Parthenon from afar, showing its vast size and influential power with its location on the top of a hill. Also shown are the columns that kept the Parthenon erect.
Before delving into how the Parthenon’s influence can be seen today, let’s understand why it was built. The primary purpose of this building was to store gold and treasures that were given to the Delian League, an association of city-states to protect Greece from the Persians. These included “a variety of types of furniture, vases, musical instruments, armour, and jewellery” as well as potentially other goods that have not been discovered yet through the preservation of marble inscriptions. It was built south of the Akropolis in Athena with the name Parthenon, or “Virgin Room”, as a resemblance to the virgin goddess Athena, in which a statue was later built. These statues were another way to store wealth. Using marble, the structure was mostly built between 447 BCE and 438 BCE with these 3 men leading the project: Pheidias, Iktinos, and Kallikrates. The Parthenon is quite large for being built in such a short time: “[the] base was 23,028 square feet and its 46 outer columns were some 34 feet high. A 525-foot frieze wrapped around the top of the exterior wall of the building’s inner chamber.” Building the Parthenon was no small feat and required all Athenians to come together to make it successful.
The Parthenon is just some old ancient Greek building though, so why would we care about it now? Well, the Parthenon’s architecture has had a great influence on many important Western buildings, both structurally and in meaning. For example, the Federal Hall building in Manhattan, New York, and the Parthenon share a Doric column style, which is identified by the fluted column shaft and lack of a base, and a similar rectangular shape for the main structure. There are, of course, some structural differences, and the Federal Hall lacks a central sculpture inside the building (although there is a George Washington sculpture in front of the building). However, these buildings share a symbolic meaning, as the Federal Hall building was “where George Washington took the oath of office as the first President” and, in a sense, was the birthplace of democracy for the United States. Similarly, Athenian Greeks showed their democratic powers when choosing to build the Parthenon, as it was democratically voted upon in 449 BCE.
Imaged is a side-view of the Doric, fluted columns and the mid-section of the George Washington statue.
Image of the Federal Hall building in New York City. Highlighted in this image are Doric columns and a statue of the first president of the United States, George Washington.
Other examples of the Parthenon’s structural influence can be found in the US Capitol Building, the Abraham Lincoln Memorial, and the Third Indiana Statehouse. The US Capitol Building and Abraham Lincoln Memorial mainly inherit the Doric columns from the Parthenon, whereas the Third Indiana Statehouse, in addition to the Doric columns, also inherited the 4:9 or (x:2x+1) ratio of the Parthenon. This ratio was seen in the pillar numbers as well as the sizes of other components in the Parthenon to maintain symmetry and appealing design. The Third Indiana Statehouse follows a similar pattern as the Parthenon with its columns, having 8 (x) columns on one side and 17 (2x+1) columns on the other. However, this statehouse was not as structurally stable as the Parthenon and was only open for about 40 years before having to be demolished.
The US Capitol building, with Doric columns shown on the front as well as supporting the dome on top.
The Abraham Lincoln Memorial, with Doric columns supporting the main entrance in front of where Abraham Lincoln sits.
A drawing depiction of the Third Indiana Statehouse, displaying the Doric columns and the x:2x+1 ratio it shares with the Parthenon.
Beyond the architectural influence of the Parthenon on modern-day buildings, the mythology depicted and housed in this building has also had a great influence on society. One such example is the statue of Nike, the goddess of victory. Nowadays, Nike is a popular clothing company that promotes its goods through sports and popular, victorious athletes.
The Parthenon also features a frieze, “which ran all around the top of the cella wall, inside the colonnade” and featured sculptures depicting Centauromachy, Amazonomachy, and Gigantomachy. These sculptures were on all sides of the Parthenon’s frieze and the mythological beasts, such as the Giants and Centaurs, were often used to depict real battles and events, such as replacing rebels with Giants to show soldiers quelling the rebels. Using mythological beasts often amplified the effect and added heroics to the tales. While the Parthenon is not the sole contributor to Greek mythology today, it still plays a role in it. Greek mythology flourishes in today’s world, with Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson novels, Centaurs being prevalent in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books and films, and video games like God of War and Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey relying heavily on mythological tales and beasts.
Next time you walk through a city, or even swing around in a city in Spiderman or another video game, and see a unique business name, a building made of marble, columns with special patterns (like fluting), or other environmental things, stop and think about where that could have originated. Chances are, that building or business was influenced by the Parthenon or other ancient Greek structures and mythology. The Parthenon’s importance lives on to this day with its architectural and mythological influence, and it is something we should never forget.
References
Burford, Alison. “The Builders of the Parthenon.” Greece & Rome, vol. 10, 1963, pp. 23-35.JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/826893?seq=2
Hadingham, Evan. “Unlocking Mysteries of the Parthenon.” Smithsonian Magazine, February 2008, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/unlocking-mysteries-of-the-parthenon-16621015/
Harris, Diane. The Treasures of the Parthenon and Erechheion. New York. Oxford University Press, 1995.
Loth, Calder. “The Parthenon and Its Derivatives.” Institute of Classical Architecture & Art, 4 April 2012, https://classicist.org/articles/classical-comments-the-parthenon-and-its-derivatives/
Neer, Richard T. Greek Art & Archaeology. 2nd ed., New York, New York. Thames & Hudson, 2018.