The Parthenon is a former temple on the Athenian Acropolis, Greece, dedicated to the goddessAthena, whom the people of Athens considered their patron. Construction began in 447 BC when the Athenian Empire was at the peak of its power. It was completed in 438 BC, although decoration of the building continued until 432 BC. It is the most important surviving building of Classical Greece, generally considered the zenith of the Doric order. Its decorative sculptures are considered some of the high points of Greek art. The Parthenon is regarded as an enduring symbol of ancient Greece, Athenian democracy and Western civilization, and one of the world’s greatest cultural monuments. To the Athenians who built it, the Parthenon, and other Periclean monuments of the Acropolis, were seen fundamentally as a celebration of Hellenic victory over the Persian invaders and as a thanksgiving to the gods for that victory.
Function
Although the Parthenon is architecturally a temple and is usually called so, some scholars have argued that it is not really a “temple” in the conventional sense of the word. A small shrine has been excavated within the building, on the site of an older sanctuary probably dedicated to Athena as a way to get closer to the goddess, but the Parthenon apparently never hosted the official cult of Athena Polias, patron of Athens: the cult image of Athena Polias, which was bathed in the sea and to which was presented the peplos, was an olive-wood xoanon, located in another temple on the northern side of the Acropolis, more closely associated with the Great Altar of Athena.
The colossal statue of Athena by Phidias was not specifically related to any cult attested by ancient authors and is not known to have inspired any religious fervor. Preserved ancient sources do not associate it with any priestess, altar or cult name. According to Thucydides, during the Peloponnesian War when Sparta’s forces were first preparing to invade Attica, Pericles, in an address to the Athenian people, said that the statue could be used as a gold reserve if that was necessary to preserve Athens, stressing that it “contained forty talents of pure gold and it was all removable”, but adding that the gold would afterward have to be restored. The Athenian statesman thus implies that the metal, obtained from contemporary coinage, could be used again if absolutely necessary without any impiety. Some scholars, therefore, argue that the Parthenon should be viewed as a grand setting for a monumental votive statue rather than as a cult site. It is said in many writings of the Greeks that there were many treasures stored inside the temple, such as Persian swords and small statue figures made of precious metals.
