(piano music)
- [Voiceover] One of the most prominent buildings
in the sanctuary at Delphi, the Panhellenic Sanctuary,
was the, in treasury.
This is a small building meant to house treasure
that was dedicated to the god, Apollo,
who's sanctuary this was.
- [Voiceover] Now, the Siphnians came from a small island
in the south Aegean, and they could afford to do this
because they had both silver and gold mines,
and at least according to one ancient chronicler,
they devoted a 10th of the money they made
from these mines to Delphi.
Now, the reason they did this is because religion
in ancient Greece was transactional.
That is, if you gave sacrifice to the gods,
they would favor you in return.
- [Voiceover] Sacrifice in gifts, exactly.
And the Siphnian treasury was supposedly
the most beautiful, most elaborate,
most highly decorated of the different treasuries
from the different Greek city states
at the Panhellenic sanctuary at Delphi.
- [Voiceover] When you walk up the sacred way,
the pathway that leads up into the sanctuary,
and you come to the Siphnian treasury,
you first see its back, or east side.
And the sculpture from the pediment,
earned from that side of the frieze,
and there was a kind of band or ribbon of carving
that went around all four sides has been preserved.
- [Voiceover] Well, a continuous frieze around
the treasury makes sense because this is a building
in the ionic style.
- [Voiceover] So, let's take a look at
what that sculpture depicts.
In the pediment, you have something
that's very appropriate for this location.
It is the hero, Herakles, who's trying to steal
the tripod from the god, Apollo.
- [Voiceover] Now, the tripod was associated
with the oracle at Delphi.
The oracle sat on the tripod and made pronouncements
channeling Apollo.
- [Voiceover] You can see why that would upset Apollo,
and why Zeus has had to step in,
Zeus would be the figure that has lost his head
in the middle, who seems to be trying to negotiate
between the two.
- [Voiceover] You can see Herakles,
he's got the tripod on his back,
and he's heading away as though
he's gonna be successful in this theft.
But the tripod is being held at the other end
by both Apollo and Zeus.
- [Voiceover] And we see Artemis, the goddess
who seems to be restraining Apollo,
who had quite a temper.
- [Voiceover] These figures look like archaic style
figures to me, here we are at the end
of the sixth century, that's when the Siphnians
built this treasury.
They have a little bit of that stiffness
that we associate with archaic figures.
We see them from the profile view, or frontal view,
and not a lot of twisting, and turning in space
which we'll see more of, actually, in the frieze below.
- [Voiceover] But we do get a sense of energy from,
for instance, Herakles' more widely spaced legs
as if he is trying to really pull away.
So, let's look at the east side of the frieze.
That is the area just below the pediment.
It's divided into two parts.
On the right side, we see a scene from the Iliad,
the great Trojan war.
We see two great soldiers, one on the Trojan side,
one on the Greek side.
- [Voiceover] So, Achilles is on the right,
he's the Greek, and Memnon is on the left,
he's the Trojan.
- [Voiceover] Achilles is holding a shield
which has a Gorgon head on it,
fighting with Memnon, and they're fighting over
the dead body of Antilochus.
But while these men feel that their fate
is being decided by their battle, in fact,
what the sculptor is showing us is that
their fate is being decided far away
on Mount Olympus by the gods.
- [Voiceover] So, on the left side, we see the gods
and goddesses who are siding with the Trojans,
and on the right, the gods and goddesses
on Mount Olympus are siding with the Greeks.
- [Voiceover] The figure that's seated in the center
is probably Zeus, who's actually making
the final determination, and we get the sense that
the gods and goddesses on either side
are arguing for him to listen.
- [Voiceover] There have been different identifications
of the figures here, so we have to be careful,
but it does seem as though on the far left,
we have Ares, god of war, and we may have Eos.
- [Voiceover] And she's the mother of Memnon.
- [Voiceover] Then we may have Artemis or Aphrodite,
and then the figure of Apollo.
- [Voiceover] Now, Apollo is turning back
and really listening to what the women are saying.
And we see these beautiful, elegant figures,
that he has a real nobility, and a kind of stasis
to these figures as opposed to the figures
that are actually in battle.
- [Voiceover] The women seem to be pleading
with Apollo, and the women raise their hands,
they open their palms, and they seem to look directly
at Apollo, who turns around to listen to them.
Now, remember all of this would have been painted,
and therefore, much more visible.
- [Voiceover] The three gods and goddesses that remain,
that would have been arguing on the side of the Greeks
are Athena on the left, in the center, Zeus' wife, Hera,
and then possible Thetis, who would be pleading
for her son, Achilles.
- [Voiceover] While there's a sense of emotion,
there's still primarily a sense of stability here,
of figures and profile.
But when we move to the battle that they're deciding,
we see for shortening, we see a real illusion into space.
Look at these horses who are turned toward us,
moving almost into our space.
- [Voiceover] We see that sense of space even more
explicitly rendered as we walk up the hill
towards the front of the treasury,
and we look at the north side of the frieze.
- [Voiceover] Here, we see a common scene
in Greek sculpture, this is a battle of the gods
and the giants.
- [Voiceover] So, according to Greek mythology,
everything starts with the most primary deities,
and that would be the goddess, Earth,
Gaea, and Uranus, and the god of the sky.
And they give birth to the titans,
they give birth to the giants.
The giants, in turn, give birth to the gods.
And so, the gods are, in a sense,
the third generation, and they rule from Mount Olympus.
But according to myth, the giants want to be able
to rule from Mount Olympus, they want what the gods have.
- [Voiceover] So, this is the great battle that takes place
between them.
- [Voiceover] The giants are really stand-ins for humans.
Having a great hubris, and really wanting to take
from the mighty gods of Mount Olympus.
- [Voiceover] Hubris, meaning a kind of pride,
a sense that you can accomplish more than
you can really accomplish as a human being.
- [Voiceover] In fact, so much of the sculpture
at the Siphnian treasury is in reestablishing
the power of the gods, and the fool hardiness
of trying to upset that natural order.
So, let's take a look at the action.
On the very far left side of the north frieze,
we have the god, Hephaestus.
Now, this is the god that is associated
with craftsmanship.
- [Voiceover] He's a blacksmith.
- [Voiceover] That's right, so,
he's associated with the fortune.
We see him, actually, pushing down the bellows,
manufacturing of lightning bolt,
which Zeus can use against the giants.
- [Voiceover] Or a weapon of some sort in any case.
And we see the giants advancing from the right.
- [Voiceover] Luckily, Hestia and Demeter
are there to meet them.
Without a doubt, the most famous part
of this frieze is the chariot of Dionysos,
which is pulled by two lions.
- [Voiceover] Those lions are attacking
one of the giants, biting and clawing the torso.
- [Voiceover] And the other lion is rearing up,
and it looks like it's about to bear down,
in fact, that further lion, which is almost
completely gone, but you can just make out its mane,
is also wrapping its forepaw around that giant's neck.
That giant has had it.
- [Voiceover] Now, that giant who's being devoured
wraps his arm around the lion as if to pull it
away from him.
- [Voiceover] The artist has done something
really quite exceptional for the archaic period.
He's turned the head at a kind of three quarter pose.
It's helmeted, but that mouth piece
is a means of expressing the pain that this figure
is feeling, even though if you look very closely,
the mouth is still closed in the traditional
noble expression.
- [Voiceover] Look at how Dionysos strides forward,
and he looks so powerful.
- [Voiceover] And just in front of him is the local goddess,
Themis, and she actually rides on the chariot.
- [Voiceover] What we have here is a sense
of the chaos of battle.
As our eye moves to the right to follow this story,
we see two archers, those are Apollo and Artemis,
but just to the right of them, we see a fleeing giant
who looks absolutely terrified.
He looks back behind him, but runs forward
with this sword.
Looks at his drapery flowing back behind him,
you get a sense of real movement.
- [Voiceover] He's so terrified, he's abandoning
his colleague to those lions.
- [Voiceover] And below him is a fallen giant.
- [Voiceover] So, the giant is so interesting because
he's in back of Apollo and Artemis,
but there's an expression of distance between them
because of the distinction in the depth of relief.
In other words, Apollo and Artemis
are carved fairly deeply while he is at a slightly
smaller scale, and carved in a more shallow way,
so that we know he's part of the scene in back of them.
- [Voiceover] So, we have a real sense of deep space here
in the battle field.
- [Voiceover] Look at the way the artist links
that fleeing giant through his shield,
which is concave, with a concave shield
of the three giants that are confronting
Apollo and Artemis.
- [Voiceover] And we have a sense of the imminent danger
that he's in because one of his colleagues
is fallen below.
- [Voiceover] The Olympian gods are always overmatched,
and yet, they triumph.
- [Voiceover] The other thing that happens is that
the Olympian gods are represented
very individualistically, very heroically,
fighting together, but also a sense of them
fighting individually with their own strength and power,
whereas, the giants are fighting as an anonymous group.
- [Voiceover] The next section of the north frieze
is missing, but we know what would have been there.
It would have been the chariot of Zeus
in the middle with horses which we can still see,
and he would probably have been throwing
a thunder bolt.
- [Voiceover] And those horses are rearing up,
and you can almost hear them galloping,
and they're followed by two more giants with their shields,
throwing spears.
- [Voiceover] And so, Zeus, a single god,
is taking on at least two giants.
- [Voiceover] And below, we see Aphrodite,
who's aiming a spear so intensely at a falling giant
on the ground, we can just barely make out
his body, his knee has bent under his weight,
his arm is holding him up.
It's as if he's in the process of dying,
and next comes Athena.
Always the hero.
- [Voiceover] We can identify her quickly
because of the aegis that she wears,
which is fringed by snakes.
We can see the inside of her shield,
and we can actually, there, see a little bit
of the very bright paint that would have covered
this entire frieze.
- [Voiceover] And she's clearly advancing on the enemy.
- [Voiceover] In front of Athena, we have another giant
that's fallen, this time backwards.
And then there's another dead giant
just behind him.
In back of him is yet another giant, still standing,
ready to throw a spear.
- [Voiceover] But we know he won't be successful
against Athena, that's apparent.
- [Voiceover] And at the head of all of the gods,
we have Ares, the god of war.
- [Voiceover] He strides forward,
his shield in his left hand, actively in pursuit
of the giants.
- [Voiceover] And it's quite a collection
of giants that he's after.
We can see the one just beside him
is actually ready to hurl an enormous rock
while another has his spear ready to throw.
And finally, we can recognize Hermes
under a conical helmet, and he's taking on
what looks like a small army of giants.
- [Voiceover] Looks like he's about to pull a dagger
from his sheath.
- [Voiceover] In back of him, there are just a few traces
of what would probably be Poseidon,
but that part is mostly lost.
So, what we see here is this really interesting moment
of transition from the more static
and symbolic representations that we so much
associate with the archaic period,
and this increasing interest in the complexity
of human interaction.
- [Voiceover] And storytelling, absolutely.
- [Voiceover] As we move towards the classical.
(piano music)