Destruction and Memory on the Athenian Acropolis

Abstract

One of the most famous—and notorious—instances of iconoclasm in the Classical world is the Persian sack of the Athenian Acropolis in 480 BCE. While the Athenians responded immediately by commemorating the event with ruins, relics, and the ritual burial of damaged sculptures, the Periklean response was radically different. In the course of rebuilding the Parthenon, elements of the previous structure were integrated into the new. In its sculptural decoration, the connection to the past was thoroughly transformed, as history was retold through myth, emphasizing the “Oriental violence” inflicted by the Persians, in an effort to memorialize collective experience.

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