The Athenian Parthenon is perhaps the most well recognized of all the ruins of the ancient world,
but how exactly did it become a ruin? Was it some ancient battle? Was it some
natural disaster in antiquity? Well it was neither. It might surprise you to
find out that the Parthenon remained largely intact into the early modern
era. The 1687 destruction of the Parthenon is history that deserves to be remembered.
The temple we call the Parthenon was constructed during the Golden Age of Athens in the 5th Century
BC replacing an earlier, but unfinished temple that was destroyed by the Persians after the
Greek defeated Thermopylae. Athens was at its height at the head of the Delian League which
made it a virtual Athenian Empire. Much of the famous Acropolis was built under the Athenian
leader and general Pericles. Jeffrey Hurwit, a historian and author of The Athenian Acropolis
explains that Athens under Pericles wanted to promote itself as the greatest of Greek cities.
The temples built at this time likely include the Temple of Athena Polias,
The Great Gate to the Acropolis and the Temple to Athena Nike in addition to the Parthenon. The
earliest sources called the building the Temple, and Parthenon seems to have been associated with
the giant statue of Athena Parthenos housed within. Parthenos, meaning maiden virgin or
unmarried woman. The temple was built under the supervision of the artist Phidias who sculpted the
42-foot statue as well as the architects Ictinus and Callicrates. Construction began in 447 and
was largely completed only nine years later in 438 although decorations continued to be added
for years afterwards. The Parthenon was considered a triumph of architecture even when it was first
built. The entire building is subtly curved inward including the columns, and the columns themselves
are fatter in the middle, likely to counteract the illusion from a distance that columns have
a waist. Hurwit wrote that, “The Parthenon is a building, but is also almost a sculpture.”
That it has been described as the culmination of the development of the Doric order, a type
of architecture that Greeks were famous for, as well as combining ionic architectural features.
Slight slopes allow the building to effectively shed rain water and it was built to withstand
earthquakes. A modern engineer said the design has excellent seismic performance properties. It
survived a significant earthquake in 426 BC almost unscathed. It was also filled with a large number
of masterfully made sculptures and carved freezes which depicted various parts of myth and history.
It was not entirely left alone in the history that followed. A fire damaged the statue and temple
battle in the 3rd Century A.D and destroyed the sanctuary's roof which was replaced.
The building was damaged in 276 when Athens was
sacked by pirates. Because don't all good stories involve pirates?
For most of a thousand years it remained dedicated to Athena,
but the already ancient building was weathering more than just storms, but waves of history.
Greece became a part of the Roman Empire which associated Athena with the Roman deity Minerva,
and in turn the Roman Empire slowly became christianized. Eastern Roman Emperor Theodosius II
decreed in 435 that all pagan temples be closed; however the Parthenon remained a center of pagan
resistance. At some point the great statue was looted and taken to Constantinople where
it was lost. The temple was first converted to a Christian church a few decades after the decree,
dedicated to the Virgin Mary. It was a major Orthodox church in the Byzantine era visited
by pilgrims and emperors alike. The Fourth Crusade saw the region ruled by the Latin Empire and the
Orthodox church became instead a Catholic one. In 1456, Ottoman Turkish forces invaded Athens and
the Acropolis itself was besieged. The Parthenon was transformed into a mosque before 1500,
although the circumstances are unclear. According to archaeologist Samuel Walter Miller it was
converted because the Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror found the Athenians plotting against his rule.
Each of these successive eras came with changes, rooms were converted, walls were
built between columns and various pieces were vandalized for being too pagan; graffiti and
white paint covered over other pieces. A tower was built and the Muslims then added a minaret,
however most of the building was the same as it had been when Pericles walked its halls,
with many of the original freezes and sculptures. A Turkish traveler in 1667 marveled at its
construction writing that it was, “a work less of human hands than of Heaven itself.”
A French artist in 1674 was able to sketch its sculptural decorations;
they remained some of the only images of the lost pieces of the Temple.
Some two Millennia after its construction it was still one of the true wonders of the
ancient world that visitors could still experience, but that was not to last.
Beginning in the late 1600s the Ottoman Empire began pressing into Europe. In the 1680s
Ottomans attacked the Austrian Habsburg monarchy. The Turks nearly captured Vienna before Christian
Alliance stalled the Ottoman invasion. To face the threat of the Muslim Ottomans, Pope Innocent XI
initiated a Holy League, which included the Holy Roman Empire, the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth,
the Venetian Republic and Russia. The Great Turkish War, also called the Wars of the Holy
League, was actually a series of wars between the Ottomans and the European powers. Before the
Great Turkish War the Ottomans and Venetians had already fought a series of conflicts, beginning
with the Venetian participation in the Crusade of Nicopolis in 1396. In 1463, the two powers fought
the first of what would become seven wars, largely fought in the Aegean, Greece and various islands.
In 1684, the Venetians took advantage of the Ottoman War against the Habsburgs to invade
the Mauryan Peninsula better known as the Greek Peloponnese in the Mauryan War, it was meant to
avenge the Venetian defeat in the previous war where the Ottomans had taken control of Crete.
The Mauryan War was the only one of the many wars where Venice declared war on the Ottomans rather
than the other way around. The Venetians were able to successfully push the Ottomans out of
the Peloponnese and by 1687 the Venetian forces were advancing into Central Greece to secure
the peninsula. On September 21st 1687, a Venetian Army landed near Athens while the Venetian Fleet
entered the Athenian Port of Piraeus. The Ottomans evacuated Athens but the garrison retreated to the
Acropolis to wait for Ottoman reinforcements. The Siege of the Acropolis was devastating to
the ancient buildings that remained there. The Ottomans destroyed the Temple of Athena Nike
near the Parthenon for the placement of cannons while the Venetians placed cannons and mortars on
the heights around the city to prepare to bombard the Turkish soldiers. On the 25th of September,
a Venetian shell destroyed the vaunted gateway to the Acropolis when a powder magazine exploded.
The Venetian invasion was led by General Francesco Morosini and Swedish officer Otto Wilhelm
Konigsmarck. Morosini had led the Venetians to victory over the Peloponnesus and he achieved
great fame thanks to the successful campaign, becoming the first person to have a bronze bust
placed in the Great Hall in Venice while he was still alive. He was said to dress only in red
and never went into action without his cat beside him… because don't tell good stories involve cats!
The Venetians bombarded the Turkish positions on the Acropolis for six
days beginning on September 23rd. On September 26th a mortar fired a round
which arced over the Acropolis to land squarely on the Parthenon and
apparently through a weak spot on the roof as previous shots had rolled off the angled tiles.
Hitting the monument was tragedy enough however the Turks had been used in the temple as a powder
magazine. Greek architect and archaeologist Cornea Castillaslani described the ensuing explosion.
“Three of the sanctuary's four walls nearly collapsed and three-fifths of the sculptures from
the freeze fell. Nothing of the roof apparently remained in place, six columns on the south side
fell, eight from the north as well as whatever remained from the eastern porch except one column.
With them fell the enormous marble carvings which had stood for two thousand years.” The spectacular
explosion killed 300 people, not just soldiers but civilians who had huddled in the Acropolis for
safety. Fires were started throughout Athens and chunks of marble fell upon the Turkish defenders.
In his report back to Venice Morosini called the shot miraculous or fateful. Morosini specifically
praised the Count of San Feliz who had been in charge of the Venetian morters.
Konigsmarck's feelings are only recorded in a letter from one of the general's wife's companions
who wrote, “How reluctantly Count Konigsmarck saw himself compelled to destroy the beautiful
temple. The bombs did their work and this temple can never again be re-erected in this world.”
A 17th century biography of Morosini had the general bemoan Athens cultural heritage which is,
“Now reduced.” The dramatic explosion did not however induce the Turks to surrender. They held
on through two more days of bombardment finally surrendering when an Ottoman relief army was
repulsed on September 28th. The Turkish Defenders surrendered on the condition that they could
be transported to Smyrna. There has long been debate about whether the shots were deliberate,
that is whether the Venetians were aiming at the Parthenon or not. There's a report from a German
officer's diary that claims the Venetians captured a deserter who told them about the powder magazine
in the temple because the Turks believe that the Christians would not do any harm to the temple.
The account goes on to say that several mortars were directed against the Parthenon itself.
Other authors pointed to Venetian reports that the Count of San Feliz was reprimanded for failing to
hit his targets, implying that the mortars were not accurate enough to deliberately target the
sanctuary. One report describes the fateful round flying “capriciously and irregularly.”
It's difficult to know for certain with the surviving sources, however it's clear that the
Acropolis was the target of systematic bombardment hoping to quickly displace the Turkish defenders.
Perhaps the greatest tragedy was how little capturing Athens did for the Venetians. They
were unable to protect their power far from the city, and only six months later they abandoned
the city altogether. The terrible destruction also began years of looting. The Venetians
attempted to loot several statues including sculptures of Poseidon and Athena's Horses.
The Great Lion Statue that stood in Piraeus was removed to Venice where it remains to
this day. Especially valuable remnants were sold or looted by the Turks when they returned
and pieces of the ruin were used to build a mosque inside the shell of the old building.
True archeology and study of the ruins only followed a century later, and in 1801,
the Earl of Elgin supposedly obtained an edict from the Turkish Sultan which allowed him to
take the so-called Elgin marbles, an act which has provided continuing controversy.
Sometimes, maybe all too often, the plot of history is written as a tragedy. The Parthenon,
one of the most extraordinary buildings ever built by humanity and an amazing record of a
lost civilization, survived almost unscathed for millennia. It served as a worship place
for multiple religions only to be unceremoniously destroyed in a war that almost no one remembers.
That accomplished almost nothing. The Ottomans reconquered the Peloponnese by 1714, and the
Republic of Venice itself ceased to exist by 1797. They are forgotten, but their damage remains.
And repairing or replacing that damage is likely an impossible task because even the
record of the decorations is incomplete, and the pieces are now dispersed and lost. The best we
can do is view reproductions that are based on conjecture like the one in Nashville Tennessee.
And yet the amazing ruin that is left stands as a testament to our past,
and evokes the words of Pericles, “Mighty indeed are the marks and monuments of our Empire.”
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