Phidias’s Works in Ancient Numismatics

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Phidias (480-430 B.C.) was a renowned Greek sculptor, painter, and architect who is regarded as one of the greatest of all ancient Greek artists. Unfortunately, none of his art has survived to the present day. However, we do have Roman copies that exhibit varying degrees of fidelity and ancient testimonies from contemporaries who admired his works, giving us an idea of the actual appearance of these masterpieces. Fortunately, there’s a third way to gain insight into these bygone works: studying the imprint they left on ancient numismatics.

Among Phidias’s most celebrated works is his statue called the Athena Promachos, placed on the Acropolis between the Parthenon and the Propylaea (a monumental gateway that served as the entrance to the Acropolis of Athens), and another statue of the goddess, Athena Parthenos, located inside the Parthenon. His statue of Zeus built for the Sanctuary of Olympia was included among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Additionally, some ancient sources affirm that Phidias was also responsible for supervising the works on the Acropolis ordered by his friend, the Greek statesman Pericles.

Athena Parthenos

The statue of Athena Parthenos (“Athena the Virgin”) was a monumental chryselephantine (made of gold and ivory) sculpture built around the mid-5th century B.C. It was an offering from the city of Athens to its protective deity. In fact, the naos, or inner chamber, of the Parthenon on the Acropolis of Athens was designed exclusively to accommodate the statue. The sculpture was lost at an unknown date sometime during the A.D. first millennium.

The statue was probably built around a core of cypress wood and then paneled with gold and ivory plates. It was about 42.7 feet tall, including the pedestal. Athena was represented wearing a helmet and holding a large round shield and a spear, placed on the ground to her left, next to her sacred snake. The goddess held in her right hand, probably leaning on a column, a 6.6-foot-high statue of Nike that symbolized victory. Nike held a golden laurel wreath that she was about to place on Athena’s head. Several copies of the statue were made during the Roman period, the so-called Athena of Varvákeion being one of the most famous examples. It is considered the most faithful surviving reproduction of the original Athena Parthenos.

Athena Parthenos appears on several ancient coins, some of which are believed to be based on Phidias’s monument. One of the oldest representations is engraved on coins struck by the Greek city of Aphrodisias in Caria (present-day Turkey) around 400-360 B.C.

Greek coins struck later by other cities during the 4th century B.C. (c. 360-330 B.C.) display a slightly different version of Athena Parthenos. Most notably, the column supporting the goddess’s right hand is missing. This has raised doubts among scholars as to whether this element was actually present in the original statue.

This later depiction of Athena Parthenos (i.e., without the column) was extensively copied on later Greek coins struck by various Hellenistic kingdoms and after the Roman occupation of Greece. 

According to some ancient sources, the Athenian tyrant Lachares used part of the gold plates that decorated the statue to strike gold coins that helped finance the war against the Macedonian king Demetrius I Poliorcetes (“Besieger of Cities”) between 295 and 294 B.C.

Athena Promachos (“She Who Fights in the Front Line”)

This colossal bronze statue was sculpted between 465 and 456 B.C. It was one of Phidias’s earliest works and became a famous landmark that could be seen by sailors and anyone approaching Athens from Attica. The statue was erected to commemorate either the Battle of Marathon (490 B.C.) or the Greco-Persian Wars (499-449 B.C). According to ancient sources, it stood about 29.5 feet tall. The goddess was depicted in armor, protecting the city while holding a large shield in her left hand and a spear in her right. Only parts of the pedestal remain today. The statue was reportedly transported to Constantinople after A.D. 465 as a trophy and may have been destroyed there around A.D. 1203 during the Fourth Crusade.

A remarkable coin struck by the city of Athens in the middle of the first century A.D. shows a view of the Acropolis with Athena Promachos towering above it. It provides invaluable evidence confirming the monument’s existence, its original location on the sacred hill of Athens, and the veracity of the ancient sources. Other monuments, including the Erechtheion (left) and the monumental Propylaea (right), can also be distinguished.

Coins produced during the Hellenistic period and later in Roman times display images of Athena Promachos that are also believed to be based on Phidias’s original monument. Interestingly, a coin minted in Ilium (ancient Troy) around A.D. 37-41 places Phidias’s sculpture between the busts of Roma and the Senate.

Ornamental Works in the Parthenon

Apart from creating Athena Parthenos and Athena Promachos, Phidias also produced other statues for the Acropolis. One of them, the so-called Athena Lemnia, was dedicated as an offering by Athenian colonists sent to Lemnos between 451 and 448 B.C. Some ancient sources describe the statue as the most magnificent of all Phidias’s works. Phidias is said to have been entrusted by Athens’s greatest statesman, Pericles (c. 495-429 B.C), with supervising all the artistic works carried out as part of his building program for Athens. In this sense, some of the sculpted reliefs that once adorned the Parthenon and other temples on the Acropolis are attributed to Phidias or are thought to have been produced in his workshop under his supervision.

Representations of the buildings and temples on the Acropolis, especially the Parthenon, are uncommon on ancient coins. Apart from the example discussed above, an even rarer specimen, allegedly struck by the Athenian mint during the reign of Hadrian, displays a composition showing the Theater of Dionysus and the buildings of the Acropolis. The coin may have been struck around A.D. 124-25 during the restoration of the theater undertaken by the Roman emperor. In any case, the composition depicts the Parthenon and another building that could be identified as either the Propylaea or the Temple of Athena Nike.

The Statue of Zeus at Olympia

According to ancient sources, Phidias was accused of stealing gold from the statue of Athena Parthenos. The sculptor was later accused of impiety and arrested in Athens but allegedly escaped and fled to Olympia, where, ironically, he created his most famous sculpture in 435 B.C.

The monument was a giant seated statue of the Greek god Zeus, about 40.7 feet tall. It was housed in the Temple of Zeus, built between 466 and 456 B.C. at the Sanctuary of Olympia in mainland Greece. Even in antiquity, the statue was recognized as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

Made of ivory plates and gold panels over a wooden framework, Zeus sat on a painted cedarwood throne ornamented with ebony, ivory, gold, and precious stones. Ancient writers, including the 2nd century A.D. geographer and traveler Pausanias, left detailed descriptions of the monument. Zeus was crowned with a sculpted wreath of olive branches and wore a gilded robe made of glass and decorated with animals and lilies. His right hand held a small chryselephantine statue of the crowned Nike. His left hand held a scepter topped by an eagle. The throne featured painted figures and wrought images. Zeus’s golden sandals rested on a footstool decorated with scenes of combat between Greeks and Amazons (an Amazonomachy). The statue was coated with olive oil to protect both the ivory exterior and the wooden interior from moisture.

The circumstances of its eventual destruction are unknown, but as the story goes, it was dismantled and transported to Constantinople, where it was later destroyed in a fire in A.D. 475. Although no marble or bronze copies of the statue have survived, its appearance can be partially reconstructed from depictions on ancient coins, which largely corroborate the surviving ancient descriptions of the monument.

It is interesting to note that many Greek coins predating the erection of the statue depict an image closely resembling the one Phidias sculpted around 435 B.C. Zeus is shown seated on a throne, holding a scepter in his left hand, with an eagle flying near his right arm. These coins strongly suggest that Phidias’s monument was itself based on earlier representations of the god.

Some depictions of Zeus engraved on coins minted during the reigns of Alexander the Great (336-323 B.C.) and Seleucus I (358–281 B.C.), as well as coins minted by the Hellenistic Greco-Bactrian Kingdom (256–120 B.C.), are believed to be based on the statue Phidias created.

Likewise, several Roman-period coins are also thought to reproduce Phidias’s statue.

Phidias’s fate is unknown. Some ancient sources state that he was put to death in Elis after completing the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, while others claim that he spent the rest of his life in exile there.