The metopes, the first part of the Parthenon's sculptural program, were executed during the period from 447 to 442 B.C. All their themes reflect the artist's attempt to symbolically declare the victory of the civilized, organized and restrained forces over the disorganized and anarchic elements. They show the struggle of barbarism and pathos versus ethos or the overwhelming pride on one side and civilized forces on the other. All battles depicted are against uncivilized forces and the cultured Greeks always win. In general, these themes were symbolic of the recent battles between the Greeks and the Persians, and the success of the Greek forces. The east metopes depicts the Gigantomachy, the battle between the gods and the "giants". According to this legend, most of the older gods revolted against Zeus and the so-called "Olympian" deities. Zeus and Athena fought side by side and won the battle, thus showing the superiority of the well-organized Olympian Pantheon over the "gods of darkness". The Gigantomachy is placed beneath the pediment scene of the birth of Athena. The west metopes shows an Amazonomachy (the storming of the Acropolis by the Amazons), believed to have happened in prehistoric times. The Amazons were women warriors from the East (Asia Minor), who despised men and were renowned as expert archers and horseback riders. One writer tells that they cut off their right breasts in order to shoot their arrows better, and another that they killed all their male offspring. For the ancient Greeks, such denial of "woman's role" was thought barbarous in the extreme. The north metopes depicts the destruction of Troy by the Greeks. It is the iconographical representation of the culmination of the ten-year sack of Troy by the Greeks (the "Achaeans" in Homer). In Periclean Athens the Trojan War was a metaphor for the war between the Persians and the Greeks. The South Metopes showed the Centauromachy, the fight between the Centaurs (creatures from northern Greece who were humans from the waist up and horses from the waist down) and the Lapiths (Greeks from Thessaly) at the wedding feast of king Perithoos. The Lapiths, who lived in northern Greece, had the Centaurs as their neighbors. In the story, the king of the Lapiths, Perithoos, was marrying the princess Deidameia. All of the neighboring tribes were invited to the wedding party. In the course of the celebration, the Centaurs got drunk and tried to rape the women, including the bride, but they were defeated. The heroes of the battle were Perithoos and his best friend, Theseus, king of Athens. The story illustrates that the Greeks led by the Athenian Theseus, were superior and could defeat barbaric peoples, thus reinforcing the initial concept for the metopes' iconographical project.