Besides the drawings or pictures, which Pantænus had made in conjunction with Phidias[90], he had already painted at Athens the battle of Marathon, in which the portraits of the leaders of both armies were conspicuous. The two Mycons, and Timarete, the daughter of the second, were his cotemporaries; his elders, Aglaiophon, Cephysodorus, and Phylus, were still living. These all employed their genius upon subjects relating to the religion or the history of their country. From devotion or patriotism they drew their inspiration. Hence the grandeur and severity that, according to all authors, distinguished their works. Between seven and eight centuries before Christ, about the time when the Olympic games became fixed, many of the temples and public buildings of Athens appear to have been improved or rebuilt. At that period all the states, enjoying any advantages of situation as to maritime commerce, appear to have been actively employed in domestic improvements, or in sending out foreign colonies. Syracuse, Corcyra, Tarentum, Rome, and many other cities were founded. Byzantium, half a century later; and in the interval Necho’s ships had sailed round Africa. By the year 550 before Christ, the Athenians, under the government of Pisistratus and his sons, had not only improved in all that renders civilised life delightful, but had extended their commerce, and acquired a degree of wealth and splendour, that drew upon them, first the admiration, and not long after the hostile attacks of the Persians, aided, it must be confessed, by the revenge of the Pisistratidæ, who had been expelled when the popular government was established. It was then when the great contest began between Athens and the Monarchs of the East, who would have oppressed all Greece by the conquest of her first free people, that the arts were called into existence. They lent their aid to deepen religion, to animate patriotism, to reward virtue. Themistocles rebuilt in purer taste, and with greater magnificence, some of the temples, and most of the other public buildings injured by the Persians. But it is said that his works were chiefly those necessary, or at least most useful to the people. Cimon, the son of that Miltiades who won the battle of Marathon, resolved to beautify the city with temples, and statues, and pictures, part of the expense of which he defrayed out of his private fortune, and part was provided for by a portion of the Persian spoils. Struck with the heedlessness of the Athenians, who, among their many shrines, had never erected one in honour of Theseus, their greatest benefactor, he planned and accomplished the Temple of Theseus[91], about thirty years before Pericles’ more magnificent structure, the Parthenon, rose to fix for ever a canon for perfection in architecture and sculpture[92].