- Temple of Athena Nike
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The temple of Athena Nike after its recent anastylosis which integrated many original spare parts of the temple.
Nike means "victory" in Greek, and Athena was worshiped in this form, as goddess of victory in war and wisdom, on the Acropolis in Athens, Greece. Her temple was the earliest fully ionic temple on the Acropolis, compensated by its prominent position on a steep bastion at the south west corner of the Acropolis to the right of the entrance (propylaea). There the citizens worshipped the goddess in hope of a prosperous outcome in the long war fought on land and sea against the Spartans and their allies. The Temple of Athena Nike was an expression of Athens' ambition to be the leading Greek city state in the Peloponnese. The Temple sits within the sanctuary of Athena Nike, atop a bastion on the south flank of the great stair to the Athenian Acropolis. In contrast to the Acropolis proper, a walled sanctuary entered through the Propylaia, the Nike Sanctuary was open, entered from the Propylaia's southwest wing and from a narrow stair on the north. The sheer walls of its bastion were protected on the north, west, and south by a parapet, the famed "Nike Parapet", named for its frieze of Nikai celebrating victory and sacrificing to their patroness, Athena.
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Temple architecture and sculpture
Floor planThe Temple of Athena Nike is a tetrastyle (four column) Ionic structure with a colonnaded portico at both front and rear facades (amphiprostyle), designed by the architect Kallikrates. This building was erected on top of the remains of an earlier 6th century BC temple to Athena, demolished by the Persians in 480 BC. The total height from the stylobate to the acme of the pediment while the temple remained intact was a modest 23 feet. The ratio of height to diameter of the columns is 7:1, the slender proportions creating an elegance and refinement not encountered in the normal 9:1 or 10:1 of Ionic buildings. Constructed from white pentelic marble, it was built in stages as war-starved funding allowed.
A well-known relief from the parapet around the temple which shows an ancient goddess fixing her sandal. It is housed at the Acropolis Museum.A statue of Nike stood in the Cella, or otherwise referred to as a Naos. Nike was originally the "winged victory" goddess (see the winged Nike of Samothrace) The Athena Nike statue's absence of wings led Athenians in later centuries to call it Nike Apteros (wingless victory), and the story arose that the statue was deprived of wings so that it could never leave the city.
The friezes of the building's entablature were decorated on all sides with relief sculpture in the idealized classical style of the 5th century BC. The north frieze depicted a battle between Greeks entailing cavalry. The south freize showed the decisive victory over the Persians at the battle of Plataea. The east frieze showed an assembly of the gods Athena, Zeus and Poseidon, rendering Athenian religious beliefs and reverence for the gods bound up in the social and political climate of 5th Century Athens.
Some time after the temple was completed, around 410 BC a parapet was added around it to prevent people from falling from the steep bastion. The outside of the parapet was adorned by exquisitely carved relief sculptures showing Nike in a variety of activities, the best-known Olympian.
Temple of Athena NikeAfter three separate restorations the small Temple of Athena Nike/Apteros still stands on the Acropolis, together with the Erechtheum and the Parthenon, a survivor of antiquity. The main structure, stylobate and columns are largely intact, minus the roof and most of the tympanae. Fragments of the sculpted frieze are exhibited in the Acropolis Museum; copies of these are fixed in their place on the temple.
See also
- Architecture of Ancient Greece
- Art of Ancient Greece
- Classical architecture
- Classical sculpture
References
- Greek architecture Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1968.
- Greece: From Mycenae to the Parthenon, Henri Stierlin, TASCHEN, 2004.
External links
Categories:- 5th-century BC architecture
- Temples in ancient Athens
- Ancient Greek buildings and structures in Athens
- Acropolis of Athens
- Temples of Athena
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