But granting that Plutarch is right, it is quite manifest that it was impossible for Phidias to have had more than an official superintendence of these great works. The sole administration of public affairs was conferred on Pericles in B. C. 444, and it was not until then or subsequently that Phidias could have been appointed to this office. Among the public works built at this period were the Propylæa, the Odeum, the Parthenon, the Temples of Ceres at Eleusis, of Juno at Argos, of Apollo at Phigaleia, and of Zeus at Olympia—the last being finished in B. C. 433. Within these eleven years, therefore, Phidias is supposed to have superintended all or a portion of these temples, with their manifold sculptures and statues, and, in addition, to have made the colossal chryselephantine statues of Athena in the Parthenon, Zeus at Olympia, Aphrodite Urania at Elis, and also, perhaps, the Athena Areia in bronze at Platæa. But excluding all consideration as to the other temples, and confining ourselves solely to the Parthenon, let us see if it be possible, with all his occupations, for him to have executed the Athena alone, and also executed or even designed the other sculptures of the Parthenon. In the tympanum there are 44 statues, all of heroic size. There were 92 metopes representing the battles of the Centaurs and Lapithæ, and the frieze, which was covered with elaborate _bassi-relievi_ representing processions of men, women, and horses with riders, was about 524 feet in length. There seems to be no distinct statement of the exact time when the Parthenon was begun; but it certainly was after the appointment of Pericles in 444 B. C., and we know that it was finished and dedicated in 438 B. C. This gives us six years as the outside possible limits within which it was built. Now, if Phidias made, executed, or even modeled or designed, only the 44 statues of the tympanum within this period, he must have been a man of astonishing activity and rapidity in his work. To do this he must have made more than seven heroic statues in each year, or more than one statue every two months for six years. This may safely be said to be impossible, unless we mean by the term designing the making of small sketches in clay or terra cotta, with little elaboration or finish. But if we add the 92 metopes and the 524 feet of figures in relief, the mere designing in clay of all the figures and groups becomes impossible.