The South Frieze of the Parthenon: Problems in Arrangement

Abstract

Almost without exception, recent studies of the Parthenon frieze have accepted W. B. Dinsmoor's arrangement of the south frieze. In his important contribution to our understanding of the problems of arrangement, however, the assignment of eight blocks to the victims of the south frieze is shown here to be based on an error. On technical and compositional grounds, this article largely reinstates the sequence first proposed by Adolph Michaelis, which employs only seven blocks, and goes on to consider the implications of this for the pedestrian sequence of the south frieze as a whole. The block that is released from the procession of victims may be allocated to a conjectured group of hydriaphoroi, balancing the four shown on the north frieze. Further, if it is accepted that the so-called pinax-bearers of the south frieze are, in fact, kithara-players like those on the north, then the long friezes of the Parthenon may be seen to parallel each other. Both consist, therefore, of a sequence of horsemen, chariots, elders, musicians, hydria-bearers, tray-bearers, and victims.