The Metopes, square panels which alternated with the triglyphs above the architrave all round the building, are carved in very high relief. Fifteen originals and casts of five others are here shown high up on the west wall. These fifteen, together with forty-one still remaining (much decayed) on the Parthenon and one at Pahs, are all that remain of the original series of ninety-two.
The metopes represent the battle of the Lapiths (a legendary people inhabiting Thessaly) and the Centaurs, one of whom had, at the wedding of Peirithoos, the Lapith king, seized Hippodameia, the bride. Each metope represents a single combat. They represent very various stages of accomplishment, the differences being probably more in the artists than in the time; No. 316 is perhaps the finest.
Round the walls, at eye-level, is arranged the Frieze (324-327), representing in low relief the Panathenaic procession up to the Acropolis, the greatest Athenian festival, which culminated in the investiture of the image of Athene in a sacred violet 'peplos,' or robe. This frieze ran above the inner colonnade round the cella, and must have been curiously difficult to see. Its unique technical achievement is that the gradations of a third dimension are exactly given in an actually minute depth in the marble. About four-fifths of the original series survives and, with the help of some casts, is here presented in the original order as reconstructed. The grace and dignity of the procession are supreme.
East Frieze: At the corner (1), on the return face of the end of the south side, a man stands and beckons to the procession behind, so unifying the two sides. Before him are (3-17) maidens in pairs, bearing sacred vessels. Headed by a marshal they approach a group of men (18-23), perhaps the authorities responsible for the solemnity, and behind these sits (24-30) a group of gods, among whom may be recognized Hermes (24), Dionysos (26) Demeter (26), Ares (Mars, 27), Zeus (30; note the well-preserved head), and Hera (29). Between this and the corresponding group of deities (doubtless conceived as sitting in a semicircle, at the point where were the entrance to the temple and the culmination of the rite) is a group (31-35) which seems to represent maidens setting seats for the gods and a boy delivering the folded peplos to a priest. The right-hand group of gods includes Athene (36; who is naturally placed so as to pair with Zeus), Hephaistos ? (37), Poseidon (38), Apollo (39), Artemis (40), Aphrodite and Eros (41, 42). Beyond are four figures (43-46) corresponding to the group on the other side. The rest of the side is occupied by officials and a procession of maidens advancing from the corner and corresponding to that we have already seen. North Frieze: Here cows and sheep are being led to sacrifice, followed by youths bearing offerings (13-19), musicians (20-27), elders (28-43), chariots (44-68; very fragmentary), and cavalry (72-133). The grace of fine horsemanship could not be better rendered than in this last section. West Frieze (all but two slabs are casts of the originals still at Athens; the two sets of casts, Lord Elgin's and those taken in 1872, show how weather damages the surfaces): Preparations for the procession of the North Frieze; note 11, the richly armoured rider. South Frieze; The procession's other stream (of which we saw the head on the south half of the east side), much more fragmentary than the North Frieze, consists of horsemen (13-56), chariots (59-77), elders (88-103), and cows for the sacrifice with their leaders.
South half of the room: 504. Hera (Agrigentum); 550. Ideal head of a bearded god (Asklepios or Zeus); 1572. Head of Athene, perhaps a copy from Pheidias.
To the north, in front of the east wall, are a Caryatid, a column, and some other remains from the small Ionic temple of Erechtheus (the Erechtheion) on the Acropolis. On the east wall are casts from the frieze of the Temple of Theseus, and (under the Parthenon frieze) casts of the small frieze of the monument of Lysikrates, both at Athens.
