Greek sculpture
and architecture reached their height of perfection during the Classical
period. Greece embarked upon a period of peace—albeit short-lived—and turned
its attention to rebuilding its monuments and advancing art, drama, and music.
The dominating force behind these accomplishments in Athens was the dynamic
statesman Pericles. His reputation was recounted centuries after his death by
the Greek historian Plutarch. On the one hand, Plutarch described the anger of
the Greek city-states at Pericles’ use of funds that had been set aside for
mutual protection to pay for his ambitious Athenian building program. On the
other hand, Plutarch wrote glowingly about postwar Athens: “in its beauty, each
work was, even at that time, ancient, and yet, in its perfection, each looks
even at the present time as if it were fresh and newly built. . . . It is as if
some ever-flowering life and unaging spirit had been infused into the creation
of these works.”
After the Persians destroyed the Acropolis, the
Athenians refused to rebuild their shrines with the fallen stones that the
enemy had desecrated. What followed was a massive building campaign under the
direction of Pericles. Work began first on the temple that was sacred to the
goddess Athena, protector of Athens. This temple, the Parthenon, became one of
the most influential buildings in the history of architecture.
Constructed by the architects Ictinos
and Callicrates, the Parthenon stands as the most accomplished representative
of the Doric order, although it does include some Ionic elements. The Parthenon has stood atop the Acropolis of
Athens for nearly 2,500 years and
was built to give thanks to Athena, the city's patron goddess, for the
salvation of Athens and Greece in the Persian Wars. The building was officially
called the Temple of Athena the
Virgin; "Parthenon" comes from the Greek word parthenos,
"virgin."
Throughout its long life, the Parthenon has
functioned most importantly as a Greek temple, but has also been a treasury, a
fortress, a church, and a mosque. Today, it is one of the most recognizable
icons and popular tourist attractions in the world.
Replacing an older
temple destroyed by the Persians, the Parthenon was constructed at the
initiative of Pericles, the leading Athenian politician of the 5th century BC. It
was built under the general supervision of the sculptor Phidias, who also had
charge of the sculptural decoration.
The temple was still
intact in the 4th century AD, but by that time Athens was no more than a
provincial city of the Roman Empire with a glorious past. Sometime in the 5th
century the great statue of Athena was looted by one of the Emperors, and taken
to Constantinople, where it was later destroyed, possibly during
the sack of the city during the Fourth Crusade in 1204.
The subsequent history of the Parthenon
is interesting and shocking. It was used as a Byzantine church, a Roman
Catholic Church, and a mosque. The Parthenon survived more or less intact,
although altered by these successive functions, until the seventeenth century,
when the Turks used it as an ammunition dump in their war against the
Venetians. Venetian rockets hit the bull’s-eye, and the center portion of the
temple was blown out in the explosion. The cella still lies in ruins, although
fortunately the exterior columns and entablatures were not beyond repair.
