the excavation of the athenian agora twelfth season: 1947

EXCAVATION OF ATHENIAN AGORA, 1947 175
In material, workmanship, and weathering the two heads are identical. The neck of
the monstrous head is bevelled in such a way as to show that it had been attached to a
background so as to project at an angle of about 450; for the metal pin that held it in
place a hole was drilled in the neck with the same diameter as those in the Herakles
head. The bevel indicates that the head was set with its right side toward the wall and
that it faced left, opposing the hero. The head defies classification in any of the normal
zoological genera, but it may perhaps be recognized as of a Stymphalian bird.3'
A date toward the close of the sixth century is indicated by the close similarity
between the new Herakles head and the heads of the same hero on the metopes of the
Athenian Treasury at Delphi. Beyond this we can scarcely at present go with any
assurance. The group would appear to derive from the decoration of a building, but
whether from the pedim-ent of a small structure or from the metope of a large would
be difficult to decide; in any case no suitable building of any size has yet appeared
within the area in which the marbles were found.
The Athena torso of P1. 51 comes likewise from a late Roman context at the west
foot of the Areopagus.32 The scale is slightly more than one-half life; the figure is
carefully finished on all sides. Head and forearms were cut from separate pieces and
attached; the snake heads of aegis and of girdle were doubtless of bronze and inset.
A large round shield carried in the left hand would have concealed the ugly inventory
letters, the deltas, on left shoulder and breast.!3 The right forearm may be thought
of as thrust forward, holding in the hand some small attribute like a patera which
would have left exposed for full enjoyment the rich drapery of the right side.
In stance, proportions, and scheme of drapery our small torso shows the influence
of the great Pheidian creations, the Parthenos and the Lemnia. In these respects,
however, it is less developed than works of the last quarter of the century such as the
figures on the east frieze of the Temple of Nike Apteros, the treasure-record relief
of 410/09 in the Louvre,34 the female figure in Eleusis.35 The drapery was presumably
carved by someone who had worked or was working on the Parthenon frieze, who
delighted in a rich voluminous effect with well-rounded ridges rather than in the
sharper folds and the transparency that were already coming into evidence in the
31 On the vase paintings Herakles is represented attacking the birds sometimes with bow and
sometimes with club. On the coins of Stymphalus itself he uses the club. The coins of Stymphalus,
moreover, give us the most circumstantial picture of the creatures' heads. Cf. Imhoof-Blumer and
Gardner, Nuinismatic Commentary on Pausanias, p. 99, pl. T, X-XII; Thompson, A Glossary of
Greek Birds, s. v. ErvtOaXit8Es.
32 S 1232. Height, 0.66 m. Pentelic marble.
33 On the inventory marks on temple treasures see Athenian Studies presented to W. S.
Ferguson, p. 205.
34 Ath. Mitt.s 35, 1910, pl. 4, 2; Diepolder, Attische Grabreliefs, p. 22, fig. 4.
Richter, Sculpture and Sculptors of the Greeks, fig. 325; Bieber, Griechische Kleidung,
pl. IV, 5.