ArtofACOdyssey 6: Delphi

 It’s time for DAY 6 of #ArtofACOdyssey, brought to you by a very disappointed art historian who did not find the Bronze Athena in Piraeus. So, we’re going to my other happy place – Delphi!

 

Now, a word before we start. The layout of the sanctuary it pretty solid – rather than just climbing over anything in my way like I normally do, I made sure to walk AROUND the mountain and up the sacred way. It was stunning, and I fangirled. A lot. Unfortunately, while the geography is good the decorations aren’t as accurate. Since making it to Athens I’ve decided this was likely a result of Ubisoft rationing their time towards places where the majority of players are likely to hang out. We don’t spend much time in Delphi.

Well, most people don’t. I spent 30 minutes taking detail shots of Athena Pronaia. ANYWAYS. Back to today’s object. The first treasury you see is the Sikyonian Treasury, not labelled on the game map but right where it should be.

 

Sikyonian Treasury, Delphi. Screenshot from Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey (Ubisoft 2018).

Since we know each treasury (and temple) had more or less bespoke decoration, and these metopes are pretty famous for not being on the Sikyonian Treasury, we can safely assume that they were put in the rubber stamp kit for temple decoration. You see them elsewhere as well. I do want to make clear that Ubisoft was working on a very short schedule to roll this game out (Origins dropped about a year ago and most of their team would have been working on that – it usually takes 3+ years for a sequel to come out) and what they have done is amazing.

So, no hard feelings for prioritizing. What that means is that like the Vergina motifs and Parthenon frieze bits, we get to see these everywhere. You probably at least recognized the main character here – what we have is Hercules’ canonical labors.

Screenshot from Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey (Ubisoft 2018).

 

 

They aren’t in order, but they are a good likeness. Starting from left we have the Erymanthian boar, Atlas, the Hydra, the Man-Eating Horse(s) of Diomedes, the Cretan Bull, and the Ceryneian Hind (reversed). All of them were originally on the Temple of Zeus at Olympia/c. 460 BCE. Here’s the Cretan Bull metope, which you can see at the Louvre. The bull is the same one that caused havoc on Crete – i.e., Minotaur baby-daddy.

Notably, this temple was the first place where the labors were canonized. The Trojan ketos, Nessus, Monkey Cercopes, Caucasian Eagle, and others were relegated to the Parerga, or “lesser labors”. Kind of like the side quests we do in Odyssey. However, thanks to the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, the twelve labors chosen for the metopes were fused into the narrative we are familiar with today.

 

This was originally posted on Twitter, October 12 2018.