[38] Aristotle, Politic. ii, 5, 1; Xenophon, Hellen. ii, 4, 1;
Harpokration, v, Ἱπποδάμεια.
[39] Diodor, xii, 9.
The new scheme upon which the Peiræus was laid out, was not without
its value as one visible proof of the naval grandeur of Athens.
But the buildings in Athens and on the acropolis formed the real
glory of the Periklêan age. A new theatre, termed the Odeon, was
constructed for musical and poetical representations at the great
Panathenaic solemnity; next, the splendid temple of Athênê, called
the Parthenon, with all its masterpieces of decorative sculpture and
reliefs; lastly, the costly portals erected to adorn the entrance of
the acropolis, on the western side of the hill, through which the
solemn processions on festival days were conducted. It appears that
the Odeon and the Parthenon were both finished between 445 and 437
B.C.: the Propylæa somewhat later, between 437 and 431 B.C., in which
latter year the Peloponnesian war began.[40] Progress was also made
in restoring or reconstructing the Erechtheion, or ancient temple of
Athênê Polias, the patron goddess of the city,—which had been burnt
in the invasion of Xerxes; but the breaking out of the Peloponnesian
war seems to have prevented the completion of this, as well as of
the great temple of Dêmêter, at Eleusis, for the celebration of
the Eleusinian mysteries,—that of Athênê, at Sunium,—and that of
Nemesis, at Rhamnus. Nor was the sculpture less memorable than the
architecture: three statues of Athênê, all by the hand of Pheidias,
decorated the acropolis,—one colossal, forty-seven feet high, of
ivory, in the Parthenon,[41]—a second of bronze, called the Lemnian
Athênê,—a third of colossal magnitude, also in bronze, called Athênê
Promachos, placed between the Propylæa and the Parthenon, and visible
from afar off, even to the navigator approaching Peiræus by sea.
[40] Leake, Topography of Athens, Append. ii and iii, pp.
328-336, 2d edit.
[41] See Leake, Topography of Athens, 2d ed. p. 111, Germ.
transl. O. Müller (De Phidiæ Vitâ, p. 18) mentions no less than
eight celebrated statues of Athênê, by the hand of Pheidias,—four
in the acropolis of Athens.
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