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Updated: May 13, 2025
Every portion of the building blazed with gold and vivid coloring; the painter's hand had added life to the marble groups in high relief that filled the pediments and the smaller figures in the long row of metopes. All the population of a town might have found refuge in the vast edifice and its effect on the mind was like that of a harmonious symphony of adoration sung by a chorus of giants.
The metopes represent the battles between the Centaurs and Lapithæ, at the nuptials of Pirithous. Each metope contains two figures, grouped in various attitudes; sometimes the Lapithæ, sometimes the Centaurs victorious.
While Christ walked to and fro among the palms and poppies of Palestine, glorifying anew an accursed and degraded human nature, unlettered fishermen, who mended their nets and trimmed their sails along the blue waves of Galilee, were fit instruments, in his guiding hands, for the dissemination of his Gospel; but when the days of the Incarnation ended, and Jesus returned to the Father, all the learning and the mighty genius of Saul of Tarsus were required to confront and refute the scoffing sophists who, replete with philhellenic lore, and within sight of the marvellous triglyphs and metopes of the Parthenon, gathered on Mars Hill to defend their marble altars to the Unknown God.
Lest what has been said should suggest that the sculptors of the Olympia pediment-figures were indifferent to beauty, attention may be drawn again to the superb head of the Lapith bride. The twelve sculptured metopes of the temple do not belong to the exterior frieze, whose metopes were plain, but to a second frieze, placed above the columns and antae of pronaos and opisthodomos.
The face of this member is plain, except that along the upper edge there runs a slightly projecting flat band called a TAENIA, with regulae and guttae at equal intervals; these last are best considered in connection with the frieze. The FRIEZE is made up of alternating triglyphs and metopes.
The whole building was adorned with the most exquisite sculptures, executed by various artists under the direction of Phidias. These consisted of, 1. Each tablet was 4 feet 3 inches square. Those on the south side related to the battle of the Athenians with the Centaurs. One of the metopes is figured below. 3.
But the result is faulty, whether it is attained by broader metopes or narrower intercolumniations. For this reason, the ancients appear to have avoided the scheme of the Doric order in their temples.
At the bottom of each is a row of small pendants, known as guttæ, which closely resemble wooden pins, such as would be used to keep a timber beam in place. The panels between the triglyphs are usually as wide as they are high. They are termed metopes and sculpture commonly occupies them. The third division of the entablature, the cornice represents the overhanging eaves of the roof.
The two pediment-groups and the metopes of this temple show such close resemblances of style among themselves that they must all be regarded as products of a single school of sculpture, if not as designed by a single man. On various grounds it seems almost certain that Pausanias was misinformed on this point.
The question has often been discust, whether Lord Elgin was justified in carrying off this pediment, the metopes, and the friezes, from their place; and the Greeks of to-day hope confidently that the day will come when England will restore these treasures to their place.
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