loyed a
number of unskilled labourers, so that, in a word, there would be work
for persons of every age and every class, and general prosperity would
be the result.

XIII. These buildings were of immense size, and unequalled in beauty and
grace, as the workmen endeavoured 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.
We are told that Zeuxis, hearing Agatharchus, the painter, boasting how
easily and rapidly he could produce a picture, said, "I paint very
slowly." Ease, and speed of execution, seldom produces work of any
permanent value or delicacy. It is the time which is spent in laborious
production for which we are repaid by the durable character of the
result. And this makes Perikles's work all the more wonderful, because
it was built in a short time, and yet has lasted for ages. 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 Pheidias, although there were
other excellent architects and workmen, such as Kallikrates and Iktinus,
who built the Parthenon on the site of the old Hekatompedon, which had
been destroyed by the Persians, and Koroebus, 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 Xenokles,
of Cholargos, crowned it with the domed roof over the shrine. As to the
long wall, about which Sokrates says that he heard Perikles bring
forward a motion, Kallikrates undertook to build it. Kratinus satirises
the work for being slowly accomplished, saying

"He builds in speeches, but he does no work."

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 Perikles's direction. For this reason Kratinus
alludes to him in his play of the 'Thrac