Parthenon
ParthenonWow this is a nice day to be out in the agora wondering around the market places. I love walking past the Parthenon, you know this is the proudest building we Greeks ever built. If one-structure sums up our history and our superiority in architecture it's this building. These might have been some of the thoughts that ran through the mind of the Greeks during this time period. The one thing that gave the Athenians great pleasure was the temple they built, which was also a cause of envy and amazement. The Greeks enemy was even quoted saying, " the Greeks must be outraged," they cried. "They must consider this an act of bare-faced tyranny, when they see that with their own contributions, extorted from them by force for the war against the Persian, we are gilding and beautifying our city, as if it were some vain women decking herself out with costly stones and thousand talent temples." "Pericles' answer to the people was that the Athenians were not obliged to give the allies an account if how their money was spent, provided that they carried in the war and kept the Persians away. " All they supply is money," he told the Athenians, " and this belongs not to the people who give but to those who receive it, so long as they provide he services paid for." This is a good example of how the Greeks felt about themselves and their temples. The Paratheon is the best example of Greek's history and their architectural abilities.
The Greek temple, Parthenon, was like most it had a three-step platform. The columns enclosed an oblong interior chamber known as the naos. On the Front was a main room called the cella. At the west was a smaller chamber called the opisthodomus, meaning back room. The Parthenon combined two different styles of temple design, the Doric and the Ionic, which is the most important element of the Parthenon. The bulk of the Parthenon was designed in the Doric style, but the Ionic style was also used in variety parts of the temple. We get a good idea of these two different designs by looking at the naos of the Parthenon, which incorporates features of both Doric and Ionic modes. A pair of colonnades divides the cella at the east in three aisles. Wood beams support the inner part of the columns,...
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