The Parthenon rises over Athens

Under Pericles, Athens rebuilt its acropolis in marble after the Persian wars; the Parthenon became the emblem of the city's democracy and empire.

Why it matters

Its architects used deliberate optical refinements — curved stylobates, swelling columns — showing that Greek builders treated construction as applied geometry. The building has anchored Western ideas of civic architecture ever since.

People

Pericles · Phidias · Iktinos · Kallikrates

Related events

• 470 BCE – 399 BCE

  Socrates questions Athens

  Socrates wrote nothing; he walked and talked, pressing Athenians to define justice, courage and the good — and died for refusing to stop.

  Philosophy · europe

• c. 440 BCE

  Herodotus writes the first history

  Herodotus' Histories investigated the Greco-Persian wars through travel, interviews and comparison of customs — explicitly including Persian, Egyptian and Scythian perspectives.

  Knowledge · europe

• 431 BCE – 404 BCE

  The Peloponnesian war destroys the Greek balance

  Twenty-seven years of war between Athens and Sparta exhausted the classical Greek world; Thucydides chronicled it as a study of power, fear and miscalculation.

  Wars & conflicts · europe

Sources

• Encyclopædia Britannica — Parthenon