Pericles’ Career – 3

The building of the temples, by which Athens was adorned, the people delighted and the rest of the world astonished and which now alone prove that the tales of the ancient power and glory of Greece are no fables.

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Time: 444 BC
Place: Athens

The building of the temples, by which Athens was adorned, the people delighted and the rest of the world astonished and which now alone prove that the tales of the ancient power and glory of Greece are no fables, was what particularly excited the spleen of the opposite faction, who inveighed against him in the public assembly, declaring that the Athenians had disgraced themselves by transferring the common treasury of the Greeks from the island of Delos to their own custody. “Pericles himself,” they urged, “has taken away the only possible excuse for such an act — the fear that it might be exposed to the attacks of the Persians when at Delos, whereas it would be safe at Athens. Greece has been outraged and feels itself openly tyrannized over, when it sees us using the funds — which we extorted from it for the war against the Persians — for gilding and beautifying our city as if it were a vain woman and adorning it with precious marbles and statues and temples worth a thousand talents.” To this Pericles replied that the allies had no right to consider how their money was spent, so long as Athens defended them from the Persians; while they supplied neither horses, ships, nor men but merely money, which the Athenians had a right to spend as they pleased, provided they afforded them that security which it purchased. It was right, he argued, that after the city had provided all that was necessary for war, it should devote its surplus money to the erection of buildings which would be a glory to it for all ages, while these works would create plenty by leaving no man unemployed and encouraging all sorts of handicraft, so that nearly the whole city would earn wages and thus derive both its beauty and its profit from itself. For those who were in the flower of their age, military service offered a means of earning money from the common stock; while, as he did not wish the mechanics and lower classes to be without their share, nor yet to see them receive it without doing work for it, he had laid the foundations of great edifices which would require industries of every kind to complete them; and he had done this in the interests of the lower classes, who thus, although they remained at home, would have just as good a claim to their share of the public funds as those who were serving at sea, in garrison or in the field. The different materials used, such as stone, brass, ivory, gold, ebony, cypress-wood and so forth, would require special artisans for each, such as carpenters, modelers, smiths, stone-masons, dyers, melters and moulders of gold and ivory painters, embroiderers, workers in relief; and also men to bring them to the city, such as sailors and captains of ships and pilots for such as came by sea; and, for those who came by land, carriage builders, horse breeders, drivers, ropemakers, linen manufacturers, shoemakers, road menders and miners. Each trade, moreover, employed a number of unskilled laborers, so that, in a word, there would be work for persons of every age and every class and general prosperity would be the result.

These buildings were of immense size and unequalled in beauty and grace, as the workmen endeavored to make the execution surpass the design in beauty; but what was most remarkable was the speed with which they were built. All these edifices, each of which one would have thought it would have taken many generations to complete, were all finished during the most brilliant period of one man’s administration. In beauty each of them at once appeared venerable as soon as it was built; but even at the present day the work looks as fresh as ever, for they bloom with an eternal freshness which defies time and seems to make the work instinct with an unfading spirit of youth.

The overseer and manager of the whole was Phidias, although there were other excellent architects and workmen, such as Callicrates and Ictinus, who built the Parthenon on the site of the old Hecatompedon, which had been destroyed by the Persians and Coroebus, who began to build the Temple of Initiation at Eleusis but who only lived to see the columns erected and the architraves placed upon them. On his death, Metagenes, of Xypete, added the frieze and the upper row of columns and Xenocles, of Cholargos, crowned it with the domed roof over the shrine. As to the long wall, about which Socrates says that he heard Pericles bring forward a motion, Callicrates undertook to build it. The Odeum, which internally consisted of many rows of seats and many columns and externally of a roof sloping on all sides from a central point, was said to have been built in imitation of the king of Persia’s tent and was built under Pericles’ direction.

The Propylaea, before the Acropolis, were finished in five years by Mnesicles the architect; and a miraculous incident during the work seemed to show that the goddess did not disapprove but rather encouraged and assisted the building. The most energetic and active of the workmen fell from a great height and lay in a dangerous condition, given over by his doctors. Pericles grieved much for him; but the goddess appeared to him in a dream and suggested a course of treatment by which Pericles quickly healed the workman. In consequence of this, he set up the brazen statue of Athene the Healer, near the old altar in the Acropolis. The golden statue of the goddess was made by Phidias and his name appears upon the basement in the inscription. Almost everything was in his hands and he gave his orders to all the workmen — as has been said before — because of his friendship with Pericles.

Continued.

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