Commentary Prepared by Dr. Julia Lenaghan, Ashmolean Museum

A 096
Figure A ("Aktaios" or "Eridanos") from the West Pediment of the Parthenon. London

Nude male with mantle over left upper arm seemingly rising out of the Pediment floor. From the North Corner of the West Pediment (viewer’s left) of the Parthenon, dated ca. 430s BC

Marble (Pentelic)
Pedimental Figure
H 82 cm, L 1.56 from left foot to end of right block- originally at least 2 m

From the Parthenon in Athens. The statue belongs to the North Corner of the West Pediment. It was brought to London for Lord Elgin and was assuredly there in 1810.
United Kingdom, London, British Museum
438/7-434/3 BC

Preservation:
The figure is missing its head, right leg from the shin down (including the foot), the left foot (which may never have been worked), the right arm from just above the elbow down (including the hand), the left hand, the penis, and a portion of the mantle behind the left elbow. The back of the shoulders are weathered. There is a slash across the back and the outer backside of the right thigh is heavily abraded as is the right pectoral. The back side of the drapery has been worked away, probably in order to fit the statue in the pediment. The part of the left thigh that rests against the floor was cut back so that the figure seems to emerge from the floor. Traces of the original polish are preserved on the inner surface of the left lower leg. There is a small round hole in the right thigh. There are also two holes in the geison block 3 (the figure rests between blocks two and three) that may relate to the figure.

Description:
The over-life size statue shows nude male stretched out on his mantle and in the process of pulling his upper body up. The body lies on its left side with its front facing the viewer. The upper body, leaning forward, twists upwards at the waist and is supported by the left arm which, lowered and to the left of the body, is braced against the ground. The head apparently turned to the left. The right arm was lowered and appears to have held the mantle at the right knee. The right leg is raised slightly and reaches its highest point at the knee. The left leg is bent so that the lower leg, tucked backwards, is almost invisible to the viewer. The left lower leg was not fully worked in the round but is in high relief. The scrotum with extreme realism, lies fallen against the inner left thigh. A mantle is draped over the upper arm. One end falls in front of the arm and rests on a rocky surface. The other part of the mantle falls behind the body. It moves alongside the back of the body and is pulled up at the right knee where a portion of it rests on the leg. It was presumably held there by the right hand. From the knee it falls downwards and behind the body again. The fluidity and naturalness with which the body is rendered is striking.

Discussion:
This rising male is Figure A of the West Pediment of the Parthenon. Building records from the Parthenon allow us to date the sculpture of the pediments in the 430s BC and perhaps as specifically as 438/7-434/3 BC. The first modern testimony of Figure A is a drawing made by Jacques Carrey, the artist of the French Ambassador, who saw it still in situ in 1674. The statue was brought to England for Lord Elgin in the early nineteenth century and is now on display at the British Museum. Pausanias (1.24.5) writes “those [figures] in the rear [West] pediment represent the contest for land between Athena and Poseidon”. We are, therefore, as in the case of the East Pediment sure of the original subject of the pediment. The West pediment, when it was drawn by Carrey in 1674, still preserved almost all of its figures. It suffered serious damage in 1687 and 1688. In 1687 the besieging Venetians shelled and caused an explosion in the Parthenon which was being used as a powder magazine by the Turks. Subsequently in 1688 Venetian commander Morosini then attempted to remove the central sculpture of the West pediment which fell and smashed to bits. Figure A weathered both of these events. The drawings by Richard Dalton in 1749 and by William Pars in 1765 show it in the same state as the drawing of Carrey approximately 100 years earlier. Pars rendering of 1765 still shows the left forearm, the right elbow and piece of the forearm, and a little more of the right leg than exists now. Interestingly both Carrey’s and Pars’s drawings suggest that the left hand rested on the edge of the horizontal cornice. It is unclear whether the statue was still in situ or had already fallen when Lusieri, Elgin’s agent, took it. The seventeenth and eighteenth century drawings decisively show the original location of the figure between geison blocks two and three. There was no sculpture to the figure’s right and to the left was a blank space and then a figure, B, whom scholars have identified as Kekrops on account of a snake between him and Figure C. Some scholars have postulated a figure A*, already lost by the time Carrey arrived, to fill the space between our figure A and the “Kekrops” figure, B. The identity of Figure A remains uncertain. There are two general possibilities: either he was a mortal with a connection to Kekrops or he was a river god. The first possibility is suggested by the theme of the pediment and the A’s proximity to B, Kekrops. Thus, Aktaios, the father-in-law of Kekrops, and Kranaos, Kekrop’s successor, have both been suggested. The second possibility is suggested by the reclining/rising pose and comparison to the reclining figures of East Pediment of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia (cat.no. A 51) who were the rivers Kladeos and Alpheios according to Pausanias. If Figure A were a river, three possibilities, Illisos, Kephisos, and Eridanos, have been proposed. Visual echoes of Figure A can be found in Hellenistic and Roman sculpture. Palagia cites an early Hellenistic statue of Herakles, a Roman sarcophagus lid, and a figure from the Nymphaeum of Pollio at Ephesos. J. Lenaghan

Bibliography:
A.H. Smith, British Museum. The Sculptures of the Parthenon (London 1910)
F. Brommer, Die Skulpturen der Parthenon Giebel. Katalog und Untersuchung (Mainz 1963) 30-31, 165-166 pls.81-84 full bibliography, believes that it represented an Attic hero rather than a river god
E. Harrison, "U and her Neighbors in the West Pediment of the Parthenon" Essays in the History of Art Presented to Rudolf Wittkower (London 1967)
F. Brommer, Die Parthenon Skulpturen-Metopen, Fries, Giebel, Kultbild (Mainz 1979) p.40 pl.113 summary statement, clear and brief
B. F. Cook, The Elgin Marbles (London 1984) 43-44 fig.53 succinct discussion in catalogue for general public
F. Brommer, "Meister am Parthenon" Parthenon-Kongress (Basel 1984) 287
J. Boardman, The Parthenon and its Sculptures (London 1985) pls.19-21
O. Palagia, The Pediments of the Parthenon (Leiden 1998) 41 figs.71-72 discussion of preservation status and scholarly opinions, considers both the identification as an Attic hero and as river god
M. Lagerlöf, The Sculptures of the Parthenon: Aesthetics and Interpretation (New Haven 2000)