shall not give up until I conquer Athens and set it on fire . . . .1212
Herodotus, The Histories 7.8.
Things did not turn out as Xerxes planned. While the bridging of the Hellespont was a great achievement and the Persians did finally annihilate the Greeks at Thermopylæ in 480 BC, this was only after three hundred Spartans kept Xerxes’ tens of thousands of “Immortals” at bay for seven humiliating days. The delay allowed the rest of Greece valuable time to prepare. The Athenians, in particular, were able to effect an orderly evacuation of their city, so when Xerxes arrived to put it to the sword he found only a small rearguard on the Acropolis. Meanwhile, the Athenian fleet had gone to the island of Salamis armed with a plan. The Greeks lured the Persian navy into a constricted strait near the island where their large, elaborate ships were unable to maneuver, and the swifter, more agile Greek vessels crushed them. Xerxes returned to Persia, and the war concluded the following year as an unqualified triumph for Athens and her allies.
Pericles was only a boy when these events took place, but he had witnessed enough of them to understand how remarkable the Greek victory had been – and by extension, how remarkable the Greeks must be. The Persians commemorated this proud achievement, and Aeschylus won first prize for tragedy at the Festival of Dionysus in 472 BC.
Athens: 461 BC*
There were a number of suspects in the murder of Ephialtes, the leading politician of Athens. One of them was Pericles, who as his deputy was likely to succeed him. But the more likely culprits were members of the traditionally conservative Areopagus, the council of aristocrats. Many of them believed that Cleisthenes’ democratic reforms had resulted in mob rule, but Ephialtes thought the reforms had not gone far enough. In close consultation with Pericles, he stripped away most of the council’s jurisdiction, a radical act that finally broke the power of the aristocracy and launched the most expansive phase of Athenian democracy.
If members of the Areopagus had indeed plotted to assassinate Ephialtes on the assumption that the reform movement would founder in his absence, they were quickly disappointed. Pericles became, in effect, the “first citizen of Athens” in 461 BC and aggressively continued the effort to transfer political power to the Ecclesia as he consolidated his own position. His main rival was ostracized, or banished, on the grounds that he was a Spartan sympathizer. Over the next decade, Pericles led Athens in an almost endless series of military adventures against the Spartans, against the Persians in Egypt, and even against the sacred city of Delphi. These expeditions had mixed results, but they nevertheless enhanced Pericles’ power and burnished his prestige. For the moment, Athens was the acknowledged leader of Greece as head of the Delian League.
When a formal peace was finally settled with the Persians in 449 BC that permanently excluded them from Greece, Pericles declared it was high time for Athens to emerge from the long, self-imposed state of mourning that followed the sack of the city. A tiny olive seedling had appeared amidst the rubble left by the Persians on the Acropolis, and the citizens decided it must have sprung from Athena’s legendary tree. Pericles interpreted the seedling as a sign that the sanctuary should be rebuilt (though he may well have planted it himself).
The first challenge for Pericles was financial. He was not an elected official with executive authority to dispense funds at will, but merely the most influential member of the Ecclesia. He could wield power only by calling on the support of allies and persuading his fellow citizens that his ambitious building plans were a worthy expenditure of the city’s limited financial resources. But Pericles was nothing if not persuasive. When the various projects around the city were running low on funds, he convinced the Ecclesia to dip into the treasury of the Delian League – the money set aside by Athens and her allies for their common defense. The first stone for Athena’s new temple was laid in 447 BC.
* * *
The Acropolis: c. 445 BC
When Pericles walked into the workshop, a scantily clad girl raced for a curtained enclosure at the back of the room. Phidias turned around with a scowl. “Impeccable timing as always,” he snapped. “You’ve frightened my model.”
“And whore?”
“Of course.”
Pericles grinned. “Don’t let her distract you too much – I need you to keep working.”
“What else have I done these many years?” the sculptor sighed dramatically.
“Tell me about it! I’ve been to a banquet only once since Ephialtes died,” Pericles responded.1313 “You’ve been well paid. Some say too well paid. And there are obvious benefits.” He nodded toward the curtain. “Besides, aren’t you now the most famous artist in Greece?”
Plutarch, Pericles 7.
The scope of Pericles’ building projects, combined with his firm faith in the genius of Phidias, had given the sculptor a singular opportunity to remake the city center in his own style. Pericles had decided that the Acropolis would be completely razed, and what little the Persians left would be removed or embedded in the new foundations. Thousands of workmen, from day laborers to the most sophisticated engineers and craftsmen, were required to complete the task on the ambitious timeline Pericles had set, and only Phidias had the ability to coordinate this army so that their collective product was coherent.
Statuette of Athena Promachos, 50 BC–25 AD.
His workshop was half stonemason’s yard and half laboratory, with various tools for carving marble and chasing metal. The furnaces to cast bronze were nearby, on the south slope of the Acropolis. When Pericles dropped in, Phidias was working on a large clay figure of Athena holding a spear in one hand.
“I don’t see why you need a nude model for this, Phidias. I’ve never seen a woman so covered up in all my life.” Pericles gestured to the heavy, embroidered peplos that was pinned at the figure’s shoulders and belted at her waist, draping all the way to the floor.
“The virgin Athena is always chaste, more’s the pity,” Phidias agreed. “But the important thing is to get the anatomy right beneath the drapery. Our old sculptors didn’t care about such things and the bodies they carved were just blocks. But even under that shroud you can see that my Athena has the figure of a goddess. Look how gracefully she strides forward.”
“Her head is exquisite, but she is certainly fierce,” Pericles observed.
“The goddess at war!” said Phidias, with visible satisfaction. “She is ready to lead Athenians into battle – truly promachos (first in war.)”
“How big will she be?” asked Pericles. He hated anything small.
“Thirty feet. Athena Promachos will tower over all the buildings. Her body will be bronze but her helmet and spear will be gold, so when they flash in the sunlight you will be able to see her all the way from the port at Pireaus.”1414
Pausanius, Description of Greece 1.28.2 (available at the Perseus Digital Library).
“Perfect. Then you can concentrate on finishing the temple – and the Athena Parthenos to go inside it.”
The Acropolis: 432 BC
Pericles had to admit that even by his exacting standards, what Phidias and his team had accomplished was staggering. From the charred rubble there emerged a gleaming new complex that would stand as a testament to Athenian achievements in the decades since the Persians had been repelled. The ancient sacred way had zigzagged up the rock, but now visitors ascended a grand central ramp and were greeted by the Propylæa, or gatehouse, a massive structure of limestone and white marble with both Doric and Ionic columns. Inside the main space was a wall with five gates into the temple complex. On the western, outward-facing side, two wings flanked the building. Corresponding wings planned for the eastern side would never be built; reality caught up with ambition as tensions grew between