Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks

44 Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks
Reconstruction of the Propylaea or monumental entrance to the Acropolis.
Courtesy akg-images, London.
fragments of architectural sculpture. For forty years, the Acropolis
remained in its ruined condition as testimony to Persian barbarity
until 447 b.c.e., when an ambitious building program was instigated
on the initiative of Perikles, financed by the surplus tribute paid by
Athens’s naval allies, which resulted in an architectural project of
breathtaking beauty.
Entering the Acropolis through the Propylaia, one faces the
diminutive Erechtheion on the left and the massive Parthenon on
the right. The Parthenon stands starkly isolated at the highest point
of the rock, surrounded by a wasteland of broken marble somewhat
resembling a stonecutter’s yard. Yet the Acropolis played host
to many other temples, of which virtually no trace has survived. To
appreciate the effect that it would have presented in antiquity, one
must imagine several other temples, sanctuary walls, and altars, as
well as a forest of dedicatory statues, all jockeying for attention like
insistent petitioners.
The Acropolis remained largely intact until the invasion of the
Heruli in c.e . 267, when, in all probability, the Parthenon was
severely damaged by fire, thereby reducing to a pile of carbonized
rubble the chryselephantine (gold and ivory) statue of Athene by
Pheidias, which it had housed.