Smith, Arthur H.; British Museum <London> / Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities [Hrsg.]: A Catalogue of the sculptures of the Parthenon, in the British Museum (London, 1900)

HISTOEY OF THE PARTHENON. 5

PHEIDIAS AND THE SCULPTURES OF THE
PARTHENON.

The sculptures of the Parthenon illustrate the style of
Pheidias, the greatest of Greek sculptors.

Pheimas, son of Charmides, the Athenian, was born
about 500 B.C. He was a pupil of the sculptor Agelaidas,
of Argos, and, it has been conjectured, of Hegias or
Hegesias, of Athens. His youth was passed during the
period of the Persian wars, and his maturity was prin-
cipally devoted to the adornment of Athens, from the
funds contributed by the allied Greek states during the
administration of Pericles.

Among the chief of the works of this period was the
Parthenon, or temple of the Goddess Athene, called par
excellence Parthenos, or virgin. The architect was Ictinos,
but the sculptural decorations, and probably the design of
the temple, were planned and executed under the superin-
tendence of Pheidias. The building was probably begun
about B.C. 447 (according to Michaelis, b.c. 454). It was
sufficiently advanced to receive the statue of the Parthenos
in B.C. 438, and was probably completed either in that
year or a little later. It stood on the Acropolis of Athens,
on a site which had been already prepared for a more
ancient temple, the foundations of which are incorporated
in those of the Parthenon. It is a matter of controversy,
however, whether these are the remaiKsof a temple which
was burnt in the sack of Athens by the Persians, B.C. 480,
or whether they belong to a structure begun but never -
completed after the Persian wars.

The Parthenon was of the Doric order of architecture^
and was of the form termed peripteral octastyle ; that is to
say, it was surrounded by a colonnade, which had eight
columns at each end. The architectural arrangements