The Parthenon

On a previous memoir that I wrote describing my weekend experience in Athens, I mentioned that my visit to the Parthenon merited a write-up of its own. I wanted to write about all of the ways I connected with this structure honoring an ancient culture which represented the power of the people but also how reflecting on its history could bring up memories of rivalry and love which would never be fully realized and only remembered for what it could have been. The Parthenon is a monument to remember not what it was but what it could have been.

It was a monument to Athena, to Athenians, to democracy, and in my opinion, it was a monument to love. Pericles loved his city of Athens. He commissioned the building of the Parthenon not only to honor Athena, as popularly thought, but as a tribute to the people of Athens; to honor the power of the people. Athens was a democratic city and is widely considered to be the cradle of democracy. After all, the word “democracy” is based on the Greek words “dēmos” (common people) and “kratos” (power).

The monument is also a reflection of rivalry. There was a rivalry between the two Greek gods, Athena and Poseidon, both of whom desired the city. The competition to settle who would lay claim to it was held on the rocky outcrop where the Parthenon was built. They both offered gifts. Poseidon struck a rock causing a geyser of salt water to gush out, but Athena offered an olive branch, which was received more favorably, because the olive branch is a promise of peace. Therefore, she laid claim to the city; hence the name “Athens.” Athena is the goddess of wisdom, intellect, war, and peace. She desires peace first but will wreck vengeful havoc on any who cross her. (She once turned an Athenian woman who boasted of her weaving skills into a spider!)

Later on, there was a rivalry between Athens and its neighboring Greek city-state, Sparta, incited by The Delian League, a financial organization that was supposed to be neutral, but a lot of its funds went toward Athenian projects. Eventually this rivalry lead to the Peloponnesian War, which Pericles died at the beginning of, and the full completion of the beloved Parthenon he had envisioned was never seen.

There is a lot of the unknown which comes to mind when observing and studying the Acropolis. Did Pericles use funds from The Delian League to build the Parthenon? Did he take from something that was not actually his or his city’s in order to sponsor this great project that would later be a credit to him and to his city? Was this monument, which was intended to be a tribute to democratic fair society, actually built in the beginning with misappropriated funds? Does it have its historical roots in corruption? Can we still admire what it meant to represent — democracy, strength, and power of the people — in spite of the possible corruption?

Millions of people go to visit the Parthenon every year. Why? Is it to admire a beautiful structure? It is not actually that beautiful of a structure. It might have been and most likely would have been, but right now it is faded and in decay and rubble. In all likelihood, it began with corruption and ended due to war. It is a monument that represents, in addition to aforementioned attributes, unfinished business. The people gave up and lost heart. It is an unfinished work of love.

A metaphorical allegory...

There was a woman with a love story inside of her that was left unfinished. Her own inner Parthenon. She once met a man who might have been her counterpoint. There was a stimulating rivalry between them with palpable tension. And then there was deception and betrayal and then eventually a cold war. Her rival, her Poseidon, walked away out of fear that he would lose the competition and when he could not have her, he tried to destroy her. He struck his trident and spewed a great torrent of distorted truths and outright lies into the community in which they both shared with the intent of drowning her reputation. His aim was to isolate her and effectually protect himself.

Now her temple is in shambles, half standing and half destroyed, but still there. It might’ve been spectacular. No one will come to gaze at her monument and say “I see what you might have been. I can imagine the possibilities. I know the truth, and I still think your story is beautiful. You are beautiful. You are Athena. Goddess of victory and wisdom and peace and gifts.” The spectators of this continuing battle do not know the truth: that she sought peace with her rival and if they could not have love, they could find compromise. He refused to settle for compromise and friendship and instead, he became her enemy. And unlike Athena, she was not able to win over the community of the city that she loved; the community that had at first welcomed her with hospitality and opportunity. It rejected her olive branch of peace and sincere goodwill in favor of his salty lies and manipulative charisma.

A monument is a memory. Love and hate are each built by memory, in small persistent ways. After our first vision of them, and with every subsequent encounter, the persons we care for become composite beings, altered by every interaction as it comes so that they really exist less in the present than in the past, and are embodiments not only of their own but also of our departed days: the nuances of them, from our perspective, are all the occasions, mostly lost in the past and perhaps forgotten, in which our lives were joined, however briefly. The person we love (or hate) now, isn’t the person they are in the present, but the person that they were then. If they walked away from a love that could have been spectacular, then all that is left is an unfinished monument in our hearts that no one visits but ourselves alone. It exists only in the memory of those who contributed to building it.