The Temples and Gods of Athens: The Interior of the Parthenon
and the Great Image of Athena Chapter 20 § 196 A Day in Old
Athens, by William Stearns Davis (1910) Professor of Ancient
History at the University of Minnesota Chapter XX. The Temples
and Gods of Athens. 196. The Interior of the Parthenon and the
Great Image of Athena. -- The whole Acropolis is the home of
Athena. The other gods harbored thereon are only her inferior
guests. Upon the Acropolis the dread goddess displays her many
aspects. In the Erechtheum we worship her as Athena Polias, the
ancient guardian of the hearths and homes of the city. In the
giant Promachus, we see her the leader in war,--the awful queen
who went with her fosterlings to the deadly grappling at
Marathon and at Salamis; in the little temple of "Wingless
Victory"[*] we see her as Athena the Victorious, triumphant over
Barbarian and Hellenic foe; but in the Parthenon we adore in her
purest conception--the virgin queen, now chaste and clam, her
battles over, the pure, high in