the excavation of the athenian agora twelfth season: 1947

176 HOMER A. THOMPSON
pediments of the Parthenon and were well nigh irresistible to the next generation.
The drapery on the back of our torso in its stiffness and the formality of its design
is actually reminiscent of the Olympia pediments and the Mourning Athena of the
Acropolis.
These arguments would suggest for the style of our figure a date early in the
30's of the fifth century; the exquisitely fresh quality of the modelling and of the
surface finish are also worthy of that period.
As for the destination of the 1lewly found Athena, we may conjecture that she,
like several others of similar scale in the Acropolis Museum, was intended as a votive
offering in some sanctuary; in which remains to be seen.36
A slighter but none the less delightful echo of the Parthenon style is afforded by
the small marble plaque of P1. 54, 1." A solitary horseman, cloak on shoulder, sits
his horse with all the easy nonchalance of the knights on the Parthenon frieze.
The kerchief-bound head of P1. 52, slightly over half life size, brings us still
closer to a monument of the Acropolis.38 The marble was found at the west foot of
the Areopagus in a late Roman context with Byzantine intrusions. Clear traces of
heavy drillwvork on the back of hiead and neck show that these parts were cut clear
of a background on which the body was presumably carved in relief. The top of the
head over the back two-thirds of its area is fresh and was obviously protected; the
front third is heavily weathered. Despite the sadly battered state of the marble one
can detect a masterly hand in the modelling and a very delicate surface finish. This
combination of circumstances points inevitably to the parapet of the Nike Temple and,
although no direct join has been established, the attribution would appear to be certain.
Carpenter, writing on the parapet in 1929, knew one head still attached to its body,
one head loose in the Acropolis Museum, and a plaster cast of a now missing head.39
The Greek Archaeological Service, excavating in 1931 in the Market of Caesar and
Augustus, came on another head which seems certainlly to derive from the same
source and which has suffered much as ours did in its long roll down the slope.40 The
head from the Agora, better preserved than any of the others, brings out the piquancy
which the parapet gained from the contrast between the warm, vibrant bodies of the
Victories and the chill, passive beauty of their faces.
36 For the Acropolis Athenas cf. Casson-Brooke, Catalogue of the Acropolis Museutm, II, pp.
238 ff., nos. 1336, 1337. Similar in style and close in date is the Athena in Venice (Richter, Sculpture
and Sculptors of the Greeks, p. 105, fig. 323).
37 S 1289. Height, 0.16 m. Pentelic marble. The right edge only is original. Traces of a
working boss on the back of the plaque may be presumed to give the mid point; they suggest an
original width of ca. 0.27 m. The piece was probably intended as a votive offering.
38 S 1246. Height, 0.152 m. Pentelic marble.
39 Carpenter, The Sculpture of the Nike Temple Parapet, p. 29.
40 Stavropoulos, 'ApX. AEXTiOV, HlapapTypa, 1930-31, p. 7 and illustration on p. 9, fig. 8 (wrongly
titled).