The West Pediment of the Parthenon

‘No artist will ever surpass Pheidias: progress may exist in the world, but it is not so in Art. The greatest of all sculptors will remain for ever without an equal’ (Rodin).It is agreed that the sculptures of the Western pediment represented, at the centre, the Contest of Athena and Poseidon; that this central action was terminated by two chariot groups, one on the left, the other on the right; and that beyond these were spectators. Further, it is generally accepted that a pair of figures of an old man and a maiden on the left of the central action were meant for Cecrops and one of his daughters. Immediately to the left of Cecrops, between him and the first figure in the angle of the pediment, Nointel's drawing showed a void space, and in a nearly corresponding position in the other half of the pediment the same old drawing recorded another gap (X and Y in Fig. 1). It had been supposed by many students that both spaces might have been left void intentionally; Leake and others thought that one or both would have been filled.