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Parthenon South metopes: Lapith and centaur. 447-432BCE

By Phidias in High classical style.

All marble temple building. The athenians sculpted every single one of the columns.The roof of the metopes and the metopes themselves were actually a part of the building.They are therefore dated around the same as the structure itself.A building has 4 sides so we have metopes on all side. There are 32 metopes on the north and south side, 14 on the west and east side.They choose to decorate the metopes with 4 mythological battle stories.

Themes: battle, militarism, etc. So, we see 4 mythological battles.

This one is an image of a heroic Greek battling a centaur. The Athenian Greek is charging forward about to tackle the centaur. The Athenian Greek originally held his spear. There is a little drill hole in the back of the centaur’s body. So it shows the moment before the Centaur is about to kill the Greek by breaking his neck, but the Athenian triumphs over the hubris centaur with the spear.

All the Greeks look the same to show heroic Greek character. The Greek is shown in heroic nude. He is striding forward. This motion helps to emphasize the muscularity and the triumph of the Greeks. The Greek jumped on the back of the centaur and jabbed his knee into the back of the Centaur. The Greek is also killing the centaur by choking him and stabbing him with the sword in the other hand.The centaur stood for hubris and we can see that he has messy hairy beards with open emotion.

More Greeks with Centaur. Notice the heads. The centaur head is extraordinary human; we have that underlying trend in the 5th century BCE. It visually sums up hubris contrasted with sophrosyne, through the hairy head and the well groomed young heroic greek. Really angry and wrinkly centaur.

The other 3 sides shows Gigantomachy (East, in front of Parthenon), Amazonomachy (West), Centauromachy (South), Trojan War (North).

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