How Did Pericles Build The Original Parthenon

Parthenon

In ancient Greece, after the Persians invaded Athens in 490BCE, the Athenian Acropolis lay in a state of total destruction. The Acropolis, meaning “high city”, was the high point of the city of Athens, and consisted of a large complex of buildings, temples, theatres, and other components of the city of Athens. Pericles, the new Athenian leader, and founder of Athenian democracy, decided to rebuild the Acropolis to be better and more grand than ever. In the center of the Acropolis, at the highest point, he began the building of a new temple to the goddess Athena Parthenos, the Parthenon, to replace the original Parthenon that was destroyed by the Persians before completion. Between 447 and 438 BCE, the new Parthenon became the most

significant part of the rebuilding of the Acropolis. For Pericles, it was a major representation of Greek culture, religion, art, architecture, and economy. He wanted the Parthenon to represent the power of Athens, and show it off to the rest of the world.

To design the temple, Pericles hired the architects Callicrates and Ictinus.

The amazing feat of building the Parthenon only took eleven years, with work on the sculptures continuing a few years longer. It stands on the foundation of the original Parthenon, on which building was started in 490BCE, but which was destroyed by the Persians before its completion. Surprisingly, there are very few straight structural elements and right angles in the entire construction, yet every piece was shaped to the 10th of a millimeter. It is in fact designed to be an optical illusion, having very few straight lines or right angles, yet it looks perfectly straight, and every angle appears to be a perfect right angle. The columns are angled in slightly, so that if they were one mile tall, they would meet in the middle of the Parthenon. The marble floor of the Parthenon is slightly curved, which is part of the optical illusion, but also possibly served the purpose of letting rain water run off the

floor.

Because Athena, the patron goddess of Athens, is the goddess of wisdom and success in battle, most of the new Acropolis, including the Parthenon, was dedicated to Athena in thanks for the Athenian’s victory against the Persians.

Most likely the name Parthenon was derived from the word Parthenos, which means virgin. Pericles also hired the sculptor Pheidias to sculpt a giant statue of the goddess Athena Parthenos, to be inside the Parthenon. The statue of Athena Parthenos was a 40 foot tall statue, made of ivory, with her clothes made from solid gold. In her hand, she holds a statue of Nike, the goddess of victory. In her other hand, she holds a spear, and at her feet is a shield and near the spear is a serpent. On her breast is an ivory head of Medusa. On the middle of her helmet is a sphinx, and on the sides, griffins. On her pedastal are images of the birth of Pandora.

One of the many other reasons the Parthenon was built is because the Athenians were proud that they had defeated the Persians, making the Persian’s attempt to take over Greece futile. They wanted to make their city as beautiful and majestic as possible, and show off how wealthy and powerful they were. Also, the Parthenon was a gift to Athena herself, and was placed in the high position of the Acropolis, symbolizing the high position of

Athena.

After the original Parthenon was destroyed, Pericles started and oversaw the rebuilding of the Acropolis and creation of a greater Parthenon than before the place of the original. In fact, they used the same foundation. Most of the funding for the Parthenon came from the Delian League’s treasury, which made some members of the Delian League resent Athens and the Athenians. The Delian League was an alliance of Greek city-states that formed together to defeat Persians, but then essentially became the empire of Athens, after the Persians were defeated, because Athens forced the city-states of the league that wished to leave to stay, and held control over the entire league.

There were 92 metopes, meaning carved marble panels, on the outside of the Parthenon. These metopes are part of the Doric frieze. The structural decoration includes the metopes, the pediments, Ionic frieze, Doric frieze, and most importantly, the Athena Parthenos statue. Each side of the Parthenon had metopes describing a different subject. The east metopes above the main entrance show the battle between the gods and the giants. The West metopes show the invasion of Athens by the Amazons, a reference to the Persian wars. The North metopes show scenes of the Greeks sacking Troy, and the Trojan war. The South metopes show the battle of the Lapiths and Centaurs. The metopes represent scenes from mythology and history, but they are also thought to have represented the victory or order and reason by the Athenians or their gods, over chaos and animal passion.