GREECE---For 2,500 years, the six sisters stood unflinching atop the Acropolis, as the fires of war blazed around them, bullets nicked their robes, and bombs scarred their curvaceous bodies. Their initial function was to prop up a part of the Erechtheion, the sacred temple near the Parthenon that paid homage to the first kings of Athens and the Greek gods Athena and Poseidon. The Caryatids’ origins were less poetic: According to one legend, Mr. Pantermalis said, the statuesque maidens were not intended to be glorified, but condemned to stand in penance at the temple for eternity to atone for an ancient treachery committed by their hometown, Caryae, a Greek city near Sparta that took the side of the Persians against the Greeks during the Peloponnesian War. Other historians say young women from the city who danced for the goddess Artemis were inspirations. [link]
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