ABSTRACT
The picture of a woman deceitfully putting on a pretty face may have suggested the modern cliche ‘tarting up’; this would explain why Meiggs has imported the idea of wantonness, which is not present in Plutarch’s Greek. Plutarch uses the phrase ‘like a deceitful woman’ to amplify the reference to “putting on a pretty face”. The reported simile for the Parthenon seems to have point as a reference to deceit, rather than to vanity, wantonness or whoredom. Thucydides nowhere singles out the Parthenon for reference, but he does make one remark about the impression left by Athens’ sacred buildings. The sentence of Plutarch which refers to “putting a pretty face” on a “deceitful woman” also includes an emphatic claim that Athens is behaving like a tyrant towards the Greeks with wilful, degrading, arrogance. An interesting re-interpretation of the purpose of the Parthenon has been put forward by J. Boardman.
