Abstract

The Parthenon does not house the primitive cult statue of Athena, to which the rites and beliefs will always remain attached. It is therefore not a temple, but a sumptuous offering that presents an extreme image of the city’s patroness, through its grandeur and complexity. The votive character of the Parthenon is reinforced by its frieze, an unexpected self-portrait of the dedicators, in the form of selected scenes from the annual Panathenaea, Athens’ national festival, where the youth of the city distinguish themselves in various ways. Yet this frieze does not have the unity of time and place of a news report: its coherence is aesthetic. It must be treated as a work of art in which mimesis is transcended by phantasia and reality transfigured by creative imagination.