re from the Erectheum]

It was in the Parthenon, or Temple of the Virgin Goddess of Wisdom, at
Athens, that the Doric style found its highest expression, for in it
were combined the massive grandeur of the archaic period with the
refinements of construction, decoration, and lighting of a more
scientific but not less aesthetic age. It occupies the site of an earlier
building, the relics of which are referred to above, that was destroyed
by Xerxes, and it rises from the summit of the lofty rock of the
Acropolis that dominated the ancient city. It was built, it is supposed,
by the famous architects Ictinus and Callicrates about 440 B.C., under
the enlightened ruler Pericles, and its decorative sculptures, some of
which are now in the British Museum, were the work of Phidias and his
pupils, and, mutilated though they are, they still rank amongst the
greatest masterpieces of plastic art.

Before the Parthenon, after being long used as a Christian church, was
reduced to ruins by the explosion of a shell, when in 1687 it was
desecrated by being converted into a powder magazine by the Turks during
their struggle with the Venetians, it must have been one of the very
noblest buildings in the world, forming with other sanctuaries and
secular buildings on the world-famous hill a spectacle of surpassing
grandeur, the pride and glory of the whole Greek world.

[Illustration: Acanthus Ornament]

[Illustration: Corinthian Capital]

The Parthenon was 228 feet long by 101 broad, and 64 feet high; the
porticoes at each end had a double row of eight columns; the sculptures
in the pediments were in full relief, representing in the eastern the
Birth of Athene, and in the western the Struggle between that goddess
and Poseidon, whilst those on the metopes, some of which are supposed to
be from the hand of Alcamenes, the contemporary and rival of Phidias,
rendered scenes from battles between the Gods and Giants, the Greeks and
the Amazons, and the Centaurs and Lapithae.

Of somewhat later date than the Parthenon and resembling it in general
style, though it is very considerably smaller, is the Theseum or Temple
of Theseus on the plain on the north-west of the Acropolis, and at Bassae
in Arcadia is a Doric building, dedicated to Apollo Epicurius and
designed by Ictinus, that has the peculiarity of facing north and south
instead of, as was usual, east and west.

Scarcely less beautiful than the Parthenon itself is the grand triple
portico