Volta
Culture447–432 BC (dedicated 438 BC)

Building of the Parthenon

Also called: Parthenon, Temple of Athena Parthenos

In 447 BC Athens under Pericles began a temple to Athena Parthenos (Athena the Virgin) on the Acropolis; it was dedicated in 438 BC and its sculpture finished in 432 BC. The sculptor Phidias directed the work and its sculpture.

The Acropolis of Athens and the Parthenon
The Acropolis of Athens and the Parthenon

Jebulon · CC0 · Source

After the Persians burned the Acropolis during the Persian Wars, Athens under Pericles began a new temple in 447 BC, using funds of the Delian League as well, to the resentment of its allies. It was designed by the architects Ictinus and Callicrates, and the sculptor Phidias oversaw the whole project and its sculpture. Built of Pentelic marble, it is a Doric temple surrounded by eight columns on the fronts and seventeen on the sides. In 438 BC Phidias’ gold-and-ivory Athena Parthenos, some 11 m tall, was dedicated, and the pediment sculptures were completed in 432 BC.

The east pediment showed the birth of Athena from the head of Zeus, and the west pediment the contest between Athena and Poseidon for Athens; the frieze running round the walls showed the procession of the Panathenaic festival and the Olympian gods. The statue of Athena is lost and known only from small Roman copies.

The Parthenon later served as a church and a mosque, and on 26 September 1687 a Venetian bombardment ignited the Ottoman gunpowder stored inside, wrecking it. Sculptures removed by Lord Elgin in the early 19th century are now in the British Museum, and Greece has long demanded their return. The Acropolis became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987.

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States at the time
Greek city-states
Places
Acropolis of Athens, Athens

People

  • Pericles429 BC

    key figure · Statesman of Athens at its height who led the city for some thirty years, completed its direct democracy and built the Parthenon

  • Phidias

    key figure · Sculptor of ancient Athens (c. 480 – c. 430 BC). A friend of Pericles, he oversaw the building and sculpture of the Parthenon and made the gold-and-ivory Athena Parthenos and the Statue of Zeus at Olympia

1 part of this event

  1. 447 BCThe Contest of Athena and Poseidon for AthensLegend

    A Greek myth told by Herodotus, Apollodorus’ Library and Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Athena and Poseidon competed to be patron of Athens: Poseidon brought forth a salt spring on the Acropolis and Athena an olive tree, and Athena won.

Before and after

Earlier
470 BC The Twelve Labours on the Metopes of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia
Later
431 BC Peloponnesian War

Themes that include this event

  • The Olympian Gods800 BC – 432 BC

    From Chaos and Gaia to the War of the Titans, the reign of Zeus, Prometheus and Pandora — the gods of Greek myth in story order, alongside Hesiod’s Theogony and the real sanctuaries where the myths lived: Eleusis, Delphi, the Parthenon and Olympia