Skip to main content icon/video/no-internet
icon backReturn to Entries

Acropolis

The word acropolis literally means the higher, fortified part of a city. While there may be many of these in Greece, when we speak of the Acropolis, most understand the reference to be to the Acropolis of Athens. The Acropolis sits more than 500 feet above the plain of Attica in the city of Athens, bordered on three sides by cliffs and accessible by foot on only one side. Its geography made it a natural fortress during the iron-age beginnings of Athens, and it functioned primarily as a fort until sometime after the end of the Persian Wars (479 BC).

Evidence of human habitation dates from the Neolithic. Through the centuries, the Acropolis has served the people of Athens as a place of residence, palaces, centers of worship, a citadel, and monuments to their gods and goddesses. One such temple was dedicated to Athena, the city's patron goddess, as early as 650 BC.

None
Source: © iStockphoto/Andy Didyk.

Major Monuments

On the Acropolis, major monuments include the Parthenon, the Erechtheion, the Temple of Athena Nike, and the Propylaea.

The Parthenon

Built around 440 BC and dedicated to the city's patron goddess Athena Parthenos, the Parthenon's creators were Pericles, the Athenian sculptor Pheidias, and architects Kallikrates and Iktinos. The cella or center of the temple was designed to shelter Pheidias's statue of Athena. On four sides of the Parthenon, a frieze of the Procession of the Panathenaea, one of ancient Athens's most holy religious festivals, depicts the figures of more than 300 human beings as well as gods and beasts in procession.

Through the centuries following its construction, the Parthenon has served as a Byzantine church, a Latin church, and a Muslim mosque. When the Venetians attacked the Acropolis in 1687, the Turks used the Parthenon to store gun powder during the seige. As the Venetians bombed the Acropolis, one of the bombs hit the Parthenon, destroying much of the structure.

The Erechtheion

Built about 20 years after the Parthenon, the Erechtheion sits on a sacred site of the Acropolis, the site where Greek legend claims the goddess Athena and the god Poseidon-Erechtheus battled over which would be the patron of the city. Athena won. The Erechtheion's main temple was divided so that Athenians could worship both Athena and Poseidon. The monument's most famous feature is the porch of the Caryatids or maidens, in which statues of maidens border the porch's perimeter. One of these was removed from the Acropolis by Lord Elgin and subsequently sold to the British Museum, where it remains. The other maidens are now housed in the Acropolis Museum, so the figures we now see decorating the porch of the Erechtheion are only copies of the original statues.

None

The Temple of Athena Nike

About the same time as the building of the Erechtheion, the architect Kallikrates constructed the Temple of Athena Nike. The small monument's walls are friezes depicting the meeting of the gods on one side and battle scenes on the three remaining sides. In 1686, the Turks dismantled the temple to use the site for a large cannon. The Greeks rebuilt the temple around 1840and again in 1936, when the platform on which it had been built was found to be crumbling.

...

  • Loading...
locked icon

Sign in to access this content

Get a 30 day FREE TRIAL

  • Watch videos from a variety of sources bringing classroom topics to life
  • Read modern, diverse business cases
  • Explore hundreds of books and reference titles

Read next

More like this

Sage Recommends

We found other relevant content for you on other Sage platforms.

close

Have you created a personal profile? Login or create a profile so that you can save clips, playlists and searches

close
close
close Signed In to profile You are signed in as:
close
Logged in Institution Institution