This statue displays the peplos of Athena, a garment that was dedicated to her every year by Greek girls at the Greater Panathenaea Festival. The Greater Panathenaea Festival was begun under Peisistratus’ reign of Athens. Although he was part of the period of tyranny which was overthrown with the birth of democracy, there was great cultural flourishing under his rule and it was thought to be a kind of Golden Age for the polis. Peisistratus’ sponsorship of Athenian greatness in effect made Athens a cultural center of Greece. The “secular power” that Parker refers to is held now by the city at one of the heights of its cultural achievement, and its aim is to show off its splendor to the Greek world through a religious festival. By this process, Athens is unified as a polis rising in power and is celebrating its own existence: “Modern discussions of the festival stress its social function in uniting all classes, and make much of its location at the beginning of the civic year” (Fowler 7). It marks a point only decades before Athens defeats the Persians, and then dominates Greece in the form of empire. In addition, the celebration functions as the polis’ claim on the goddess Athena through the symbol of marriage that is realized by the dedication of the sacred peplos, which was a common wedding present in Ancient Greece (Hǻland 161). It is no coincidence that it is a matrimonial ceremony between the polis and Athena Polias (i.e. “of the city”).
Exhibition of Ancient Greek Religion 