ABSTRACT
Collective trauma does not only affect those who experienced it personally but might become an integral part of collective identity and instigate negotiations that create visible memory. When the Athenians reoccupied their city after the Persian sacks of 480 and 479 BCE, they took actions that served both practical and psychological reasons. They rebuilt their houses, constructed a city wall, and began to rebuild the damaged wall of the Acropolis (main sanctuary and fortress). Into its north wall, they conspicuously inserted parts of both temples destroyed by the Persians, as a testimony for the barbarians’ sacrilege (in fact, visible until today!). The erection of statues of the Tyrannicides in 477/76 BCE, a replacement for the group looted by Xerxes, in the most important public space, the Agora, was to demonstrate that the Athenians had regained dominance of their city. The next generation radically remodeled the sanctuary and presented the victims as victors: The first monumental structures erected on the Acropolis after the end of the Persian war, the colossal bronze statue of Athena (“Athena Promachos”) and the Parthenon, celebrated the past victory over the Persians and promoted Athenian claims for leadership in the Delian league.
