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Updated: May 28, 2025
The propylaea, or entrances to the Acropolis, were finished in five years' time, Mnesicles being the principal architect. A strange accident happened in the course of building, which showed that the goddess was not averse to the work, but was aiding and cooperating to bring it to perfection.
The most complicated Greek columnar buildings known, the Erechtheum and the Propylaea of the Athenian Acropolis, are simplicity itself when compared to a Gothic cathedral, with its irregular plan, its towers, its wheel windows, its multitudinous diagonal lines. The extreme simplicity which characterizes the general form of a Greek building extends also to its sculptured and painted ornaments.
The building was also called the temple of Athena Polias, because it contained a separate sanctuary of the goddess, as well as her most ancient statue. The building of the new Erechtheum was not commenced till the Parthenon and Propylaea were finished, and probably not before the year preceding the breaking out of the Peloponnesian war.
"Yes men say it is a rare thing to meet either Socrates or his robe lately returned from the bath," observed Eudora; "yet, in those three beautiful statues, which Pericles has caused to be placed in the Propylaea, the philosopher has carved admirable drapery. He has clothed the Graces, though the Graces never clothed him. I wonder Aristophanes never thought of that jest.
The exactness and finish of detail were as remarkable as the grandeur of the proportions. Another of the famous works of Phidias was a colossal bronze statue of Athene Promachos, sixty feet in height, on the Acropolis between the Propylaea and the Parthenon.
On passing through the Propylaea all the glories of the Acropolis became visible. It derived its name from its being the temple of Athena Parthenos, or Athena the Virgin, the invincible goddess of war. It was also called HECATOMPEDON, from its breadth of 100 feet. It was built under the administration of Pericles, and was completed in B.C. 438.
In the Propylaea or gateway of the Athenian Acropolis we even find the Doric and Ionic orders juxtaposed, the exterior architecture being Doric and the interior Ionic, with no wall to separate them. This is a circular building, surrounded by an Ionic colonnade. Still other types of building afforded opportunity enough for the employment of this style.
On the whole, it seems probable that it resembled the great propylaea at the head of the stairs leading from the plain rather than the central propylaea just described. Part of its ornamentation was certainly a colossal bull, though whether human-headed or not cannot be determined.
He also designed the Propylaea, a magnificent columned vestibule, fronting the broad flight of steps which led up to the western entrance of the Acropolis. But the most renowned of his works was the gigantic statue of the Olympian Zeus, wrought in gold and ivory, which was the chief glory of the temple at Olympia.
Projecting from the hill and hewn out of it, still stands a solid rectangular block, called the Bema or pulpit, from whence the orators addressed the multitude in the area before them. The position of the Bema commanded a view of the Propylaea and the other magnificent edifices of the Acropolis, while beneath it was the city itself studded with monuments of Athenian glory.
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