Classical Sculpture from the Athenian Agora, Part 2: The Friezes of the Temple of Ares (Temple of Athena Pallenis)

by Andrew Stewart, Eric Driscoll, Seth Estrin, Natalie J. Gleason, Erin Lawrence, Rebecca Levitan, Samantha Lloyd-Knauf and Kelsey Turbeville

Hesperia, Volume 88, Issue 4
Page(s): 625-705
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2972/hesperia.88.4.0625
Year: 2019
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ABSTRACT:

This article discusses 49 high-relief, half-life-size marble fragments from the Agora excavations (the so-called Agora high-relief frieze) and one from the Roman Agora. It attributes them to the pronaos and opisthodomos friezes of the Temple of Ares, originally the Temple of Athena Pallenis at Pallene. The iconography of the friezes, the temple's sacred law, and its original orientation toward Apollo's sacred isle of Delos prompt an identification of their subjects as the introduction of Apollo to Pallene (east) and a joint sacrifice to him and Athena (west). Dated to ca. 430-425 B.C., they are examined in relation to the temple's possible genesis as a response to the great plague of 430-426.