Cleon’s Victory at Sphacteria & Temple of Athena Nike on Athenian Acropolis

All are welcome!

Please do consider a donation to the Friends' Lectures here: https://www.bsa.ac.uk/donate/

We suggest £10 if you are a BSA Supporter, £15 otherwise. Please quote "Friends Lecture" in the Additional Comments field. Thank you for your generosity!

Abstract: Cleon’s dramatic victory at Sphacteria in 425 – with its unprecedented capture of 292 Spartan hoplites – was a transformative moment for Athens’ fortunes in the Archidamian War. In addition to extraordinary personal honours for Cleon—sitesis and proedria—a decision also was made to ‘door up’ the existing sanctuary of Athena Nike—probably rebuilt after Athens’ defeat of Aegina c. 457 (see Thuc. 1.108.4)—and to construct a new temple and altar on the raised Nike bastion that more intimately connected the sanctuary to the Propylaia (IG I3 35). The architect appointed to oversee this project was the famous Kallikrates. Kallikrates also had worked on the Parthenon, the Middle Wall linking Athens to the Piraeus, and on the restoration of a small section of the Acropolis walls, the function of which was to exclude refugees from entering Athena’s temenos (IG I3 45). By 424/423, Athena Nike’s sanctuary was ready for use and the payment for her priestess had been agreed (IG I3 36).Proportionally, the new temple of Athena Nike was the most heavily decorated Ionic temple in the history of Greek art. The Ionic frieze evoked the mythical invasion of Attica, the victory at Marathon, and the recent events at Sphacteria. The parapet frieze, contemporary with the temple, included cattle and panoplies, the same offerings that were included in a rider, proposed by Thudippus, to the Great Reassessment of Tribute that took place right after Sphacteria (IG I3 71), as well as in the decree relating to the foundation of the Athenian colony of Brea in the Thraceward district (IG I3 46). Gilt bronze Nikai were placed on the roof of the temple. It is also possible that the walls of the bastion were covered with a selection of captured Spartan shields. All the ancient evidence – epigraphical, literary, historical, and archaeological – strongly suggests a direct connection between the building of the temple of Athena Nike and Cleon’s victory at Sphacteria.

Bio: David Gill is an honorary professor in the Centre for Heritage at the University of Kent, and an honorary research fellow in the School of History and the History of Art at the University of East Anglia. He is a former Rome Scholar at the British School at Rome, and Sir James Knott Fellow at Newcastle University. He had curatorial responsibility for the Greek and Roman collections at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge before moving to Swansea University where he was reader in Mediterranean Archaeology. He is a recipient of the Outstanding Public Service Award from the Archaeological Institute of America for his research on cultural property. His publications include Sifting the Soil of Greece: The Early Years of the British School at Athens (1886-1919) (2011), Winifred Lamb: Aegean Prehistorian and Museum Curator (2018), and The World of Disney: From Antiquarianism to Archaeology (2020). His research on the sanctuary of Athena Nike is being conducted with Dr Mike Lippman and Dr Peter Schultz.

You can also sign up to watch the event online here: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_bD8lnMPdTeyCemQWlLniqw

Also check out other Arts events in London, Nonprofit events in London, Entertainment events in London.