At the top of the Acropolis of Athens towers ruins that used to be a pagan temple in honor of the goddess Athena, and a Christian one - in honor of the Most Holy Theotokos, and, finally, a Muslim mosque. They are recognized at first glance even by those who have never been to Greece, their photographs are so popular. These are the ruins of one of the most famous temples in the world. His name is Parthenon.
Temple Bookmark and Construction
The ancient Greeks knew how to be thankful. The patroness of their city, the goddess Athena Parthenos, they decided to erect a temple, in gratitude for her help in the battle with the Persians at the Marathon.
For its construction, they chose the elevated and fortified part of the upper city - the Acropolis, and in 488 BC they made a solemn laying. The Parthenon architect chose this place for a reason. Earlier here were earlier temples built in honor of other pagan gods.
The size of the former temples was small, and for their construction was not required to increase the area of the upper part of the hill. In this case, it was supposed to erect something grandiose, and for this purpose it was necessary to build a retaining wall on the south side and, laying lime blocks in its base, raise the edge of the construction site by 7 meters.
Work has been going on for eight years, and a second drum of columns was built when the city was captured by the Persians. The fire killed the fruits of eight years of labor, and construction did not resume for more than 30 years.
The construction of a new temple
Work continued in 447 BC. The power in Athens then belonged to Pericles, a proud and ambitious ruler. The construction of the temple was part of his plan, as a result of which Athens was to take a leading place, both in the military field, and in the economic and cultural. Implementation of the plan was also facilitated by the fact that by that time the treasury of the Delos Maritime Union had been transferred to the city, which facilitated the solution of financial problems associated with construction. But there really were problems.
History has retained curious information. Pericles allocated 450 silver talents from the military budget for the work. The size of the amount can be judged by the fact that the construction of one warship in those years cost one talent. Consequently, the cost of building the temple is comparable to the cost of creating a huge navy consisting of 450 ships. When the scale of costs became known to the townspeople, they accused Pericles of wastefulness. To this the ruler answered them that he was ready to carry the expenses to his personal account, but in this case he reserves the right to perpetuate his own name on all elements of the structure . The people did not want to cede fame to the ruler and agreed to finance the project from the city treasury.
Who built the Parthenon?
This question arises, probably, for everyone who first sees the Athenian architectural masterpiece. The honor of its creation belongs to outstanding architects whose names have come down to us - Iktin and Kallikrath. According to some sources, Carpion and his assistants also took part in the work. The famous sculptor Phidias supervised the overall progress of the work, but his main duty was to create the sculptural decoration of the temple, which, with its grandiose size, was a very large-scale task. Thus, speaking about who built the Parthenon, one should not mean only one architect, but a whole group of co-authors.
Changes in the appearance of the temple
What the Parthenon looked like in its original form is now hard to say with complete certainty. The fact is that over the course of his long life he repeatedly changed appearance. Even in the 2nd century BC, a strong fire occurred in the temple, after which significant restoration work was required. His splendor also suffered from the evil will of the rulers. For example, in 298 BC, Lahar, who ruled at that time, went down in history as an unbridled tyrant, ordered to remove gold jewelry from Athena's sculpture.
The creator of the Parthenon erected a temple in honor of the pagan goddess. But in the history of Greece, a period came to be called Byzantine, and fate wished that in 426 AD a pagan temple would turn into a Christian church. It was originally consecrated in honor of St. Sophia. The architect of the Parthenon did not, of course, assume that his brainchild was destined to embody all the elements inherent in the architecture of Christian churches, but it happened just like that.
Reconstruction of the church according to Christian canons
According to the tradition established in ancient centuries, the entrance to the pagan temple was on the east side. The Parthenon architect in Athens, designing the building, took this requirement into account. But according to the canons of Christian architecture, the entrance is always made on the western side, and the altar is placed on the eastern side. This is the law. In the process of rebuilding the temple in accordance with new requirements, an altar apse was built on the site of the previous entrance, and the entrance, respectively, was moved to the west side. In addition, other changes were made to the layout of the building. In the southwestern part of the temple a bell tower was erected. The reconstruction was completed in 662 when the church was consecrated in honor of the Most Holy Theotokos. For almost eight centuries, Christian prayers were offered under its arches, until in 1460 the city was captured by Turkish troops.
Temple destruction
Together with the whole country, the Parthenon temple was going through hard times. Greece was under occupation, and the Christian shrine was turned into a Muslim mosque. After 27 years, the Venetian army under the command of F. Morozini tried to storm Athens. Defending themselves, the Turks used the Parthenon as a powder warehouse. This had devastating consequences for the building. The red-hot core released from the Venetian gun, breaking through the roof, caused a terrible explosion. As a result, the entire central part of the building collapsed. Repair work after this was not carried out. To top it all off, the locals smashed fragments of marble from which they burned lime.
The temple suffered final damage at the beginning of the 19th century. The British ambassador to the Ottoman court received permission to export the sculptures that were preserved in it. Since then, for ten years, the creations of ancient Greek sculptors left Athens to become part of the expositions of the largest museums in the world.
Restoration of the temple colonnade
In 1928, work began, the purpose of which was to establish in the same place the fallen blocks and columns of the Parthenon. To carry out the work, a scientific commission was created, which included experts from different countries. Their collaboration lasted two years. As a result, the northern colonnade was partially restored in the form designed by the architect Parthenon.
What did the temple look like in antiquity? It was built according to the canons of a classical ancient Greek temple - a rectangle surrounded by columns. Despite his massiveness, he looked elegant thanks to the strict thoughtfulness of his layout. The temple was decorated with sculptures of the great Phidias, and in the center towered a thirteen-meter sculpture of the goddess Athena, decorated with gold and ivory.
It is generally accepted that the Parthenon architect built the building, which is a masterpiece among Doric-style buildings. Once the Athenian ruler Pericles, convincing intractable citizens to fork out for the construction of the temple, predicted that he would be the pride of the Greeks for many, many centuries. His proof was proved by time.