Athena's bridles
The Elgin Marbles have long puzzled the experts in ancient Greece because of the prominence accorded to horses and horsemen in the alleged procession. Literary accounts of the Panathenaic procession - which is supposed to be what the Elgin Marbles represent - emphasise the role of footmen and say nothing about horsemen, yet it appears that every second figure is riding a horse.
Some have attempted to solve the puzzle by suggesting that the event commemorated is, in fact, that Battle of Marathon - but that battle was won by the heavily armoured hoplites. Cavalry did play a role in the closing stages, but the victory belonged to the footmen.
Other suggestions have included the sacrifice of his daughter by Erectheus - in which case where do horsemen come into it at all? - or that the frieze is a declaration of Athen's democratic ideals, in which case there shouldn't be any horsemen at all, because only the rich could afford horses!
Professor Mont Allen of the University of California at Barkeley has come up with a new idea. Apparently Athena, the goddess worshipped in the Parthenon from which the Marbles came, was supposed to have invented the bridle. He points to the evidence for bronze bridles and reins on the horses and claims that the real point of the frieze was the horsemen, and in particular their horses with their nice shiny bronze bridles.
© Kendall K. Down 2009
