Person

Phidias

Also called: Pheidias

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

The son of Charmides of Athens, he was born around 480 BC and is said to have worked as a painter in his youth. He set up the colossal bronze Athena Promachos on the Acropolis to commemorate victory in the Persian Wars. When his friend Pericles rebuilt the Acropolis he directed the whole project, and in 438 BC he dedicated the gold-and-ivory Athena Parthenos in the Parthenon. He was then accused of embezzling gold and of impiety for carving his own and Pericles’ likenesses on the goddess’s shield, charges many see as a political attack on Pericles. He made the gold-and-ivory seated Zeus at Olympia; accounts of his end differ, Plutarch saying he died in prison at Athens and another tradition that he was put to death by the Eleans. None of his own works survives intact, but the Parthenon sculptures made under his direction became the model of Classical Greek sculpture.

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2 related events

1
470 BC – 435 BCThe Temple of Zeus at Olympia and Phidias’ Statue of Zeuskey figure
Around 470–456 BC the architect Libon of Elis built the Temple of Zeus in the sanctuary of Olympia, and around 435 BC Phidias made for it a seated statue of Zeus in gold and ivory, some 12 m tall, counted among the Seven Wonders of the ancient world.
2
447 BC – 432 BCBuilding of the Parthenonkey figure
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.

People who appear alongside

Pericles429 BC
Statesman of Athens at its height who led the city for some thirty years, completed its direct democracy and built the Parthenon

Themes this person appears in

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