Siege of the Acropolis

And the Destruction of the Parthenon on 26 September 1687

4 min readSep 26, 2022

335 years ago today, the Parthenon, which had managed to remain nearly intact through more than two millennia, was mostly destroyed in an engagement between the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Venice.

The Parthenon was completed in the form that we know it (i.e., in its ruined form) in 432 BC when Athens was near its apogee of power and influence under Pericles. The building had suffered from neglect and damage over more than two thousand years, but remained largely intact until some 2,119 years after its completion it was largely destroyed by the explosion of a Turkish ammunition store kept in the Parthenon, which was ignited by a Venitian mortar round.

An account of the destruction of the Parthenon by the German officer Major Sobiewolsky, quoted in the Mommsen paper cited below, runs as follows:

“…there came a deserter from the castle with the news that the commander of the fortress had all the stores of powder and other precious things brought to the temple which is called the temple of Minerva, and that also the people of rank were there because they believed that the Christians would not do any harm to the temple. Upon this report, several mortars were directed against the temple, but none of the bombs was able to do damage, particularly because the upper roof of the temple was somewhat sloping and covered with marble, and thus well protected. A lieutenant from Luneburg, however, offered to throw bombs into the temple, and this was done. For one of the bombs fell through (the roof of) the temple and right into the Turkish store of powder, whereupon the middle of the temple blew up and everything inside was covered with stone, to the great consternation of the Turks.”

An anonymous German officer quoted in the same paper wrote:

“Early in the morning the cannon and bomb-throwing began again, but many of these were mis-thrown; Towards evening one fell into the beautiful temple of the goddess Minerva… in such a way that the beautiful building was completely ruined by a mighty blow.”

The larger context of the confrontation in Athens between the Ottoman Turks and the Venetians was the Great Turkish War (14 July 1683–26 January 1699), and the larger context of the Great Turkish War is the conflict between Christendom and Islam, which continues to the present day, alternating between “hot” wars like the Great Turkish War, and periods of détente. The conflict between Christendom and Islam has been a feature of history in the Old World since Islam rose to political and military significance not long after its origins — but still a thousand years fewer than the role of the Parthenon and the Acropolis in Western history. The Parthenon itself, after ceasing to be a pagan sanctuary, was, for a time, a Christian church under the Byzantine Empire, and a Mosque while Greece was occupied by the Ottoman Empire, so in its long history it has seen both sides of this longue durée conflict claim sovereignty over this structure.

One cannot overstate the importance of the Parthenon and the Acropolis to Western art, and even to the conception of the beautiful itself in Western thought, which is so central to our civilization. Many Westerners make an aesthetic pilgrimage to the Parthenon. I have myself visited the Parthenon, and even in its ruined state my visit to the site was one of the peak experiences of my life. I had arrived early in Athens (about 6:00 am) on a ferry from Crete. After dropping my bags off, I went to the Acropolis and was only the third person to enter that day. I had almost the entire place to myself for sunrise. It was a morning that I will never forget, but that is a story for another time.

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