Pantheon

Barry Switzer

If I showed you pictures of the Parthenon and Pantheon, would you get them confused? Well, I sure did at first, but then realized a lot of people do because they look almost alike. Well I am going to tell you today that they are two completely different, yet monumental pieces of architecture. To start off I want to look at the Parthenon and then finish with the Pantheon. So let’s begin!

The Parthenon is a temple that towers above the city of Athens, symbolizing the Athenians' wealth and power. The temple is dedicated to Athena, a Greek goddess and the city-symbol of Athens. This temple served as a monument to Athena because they believed that she helped the Greeks conquer the Persian Empire in the Persian Wars. The Parthenon had a style new to that era and it was impressive to the eye. The Greeks had to the work diligently to create the Parthenon in perfection. It was built in the masculine Doric style with some Ionic elements. To me the Doric style provided the perfect look, which demonstrated the Athenian desire to be perfect god-like beings. Using this style, the Parthenon hardly incorporated a single straight horizontal

Barry Switzer

or vertical line. This bulging of the columns gave the building a more masculine look and it made the temple seem perfect to the naked eye. This perfection was important at the time because the Greeks saw themselves as rising to the level of the gods and nearing perfection. The Greeks had just defeated the Persians, and they were feeling very confident. They built the Parthenon to show their dominance and strength. A key purpose of the Parthenon was to show their gratitude to Athena for helping them conquer the Persians. The statue of the god Athena that was built was 26 ft. wide and 13 ft. deep. It was made of wood, which supported ivory pieces on the top of the statue.

Sadly, the Parthenon was burned and suffered severe fire damage at a certain date that cannot be determined. In 1687 the Parthenon was blown up during a Venetian siege of the acropolis. Restoration work began in the early 20th century. Today the Parthenon remains as a symbol of the once great Greek culture, and the importance of the city of Athens.

Barry Switzer

Now I want to look at the Pantheon. Today's Pantheon ("Temple of All the Gods") is not the original. Marcus Agrippa's Pantheon burned down in 80 AD, was rebuilt by Domitian, and again burned down in 110 AD. Emperor Hadrian completely restored the building in 126, and in my opinion, it is his Pantheon which stands today as the best-preserved building in Rome.

The Pantheon is the first temple to combine concrete construction, a technique in which the Romans were especially innovative with the more conservative, if not decorative use of Greek classical orders. Originally, the visitor approached the temple through a courtyard precinct, where the main altar was located. A colonnade on three sides of this courtyard served to mask from view a sight of the real domed form of the building. Only the classical portico with huge columns of black and red Egyptian granite could be seen. Attached awkwardly to the curvilinear drum of the building, this portico