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About 450 b.c. a temple was erected on the south-west of the Acropolis to the honour of Athena Nike—the giver of Victory. A year or two later the colossal bronze statue of Athena was erected in front of the spot where the Parthenon was to be built in the following year.

In the early days of Athens the Acropolis had been a rocky eminence which served as a natural retreat, on which the dwelling of the chiefs was erected with the shrine of the tribal deity. Its precipitous cliffs enabled a body of determined defenders to keep an enemy at bay; so that those living at its foot soon obtained a commanding position among the village tribes of Attica from their ability to offer a place of safety in time of stress. In course of time these tribes became united in the common worship they paid to the Virgin Athena who gave her name to the leading settlement, and all offered their gifts at her shrine in the centre of the fortress when her inspiration gave them the victory. Now, however, Athens was to put the Acropolis to another use. Cimon levelled its rugged plateau, and, by building extensive walls around its slopes and filling in the gaps between the walls and the rock, considerably increased its area. On the top arose the buildings which were to make Athens one of the wonders of the world. The chief of these was, of course, the Parthenon—the temple of the virgin goddess Athena. On this all the genius of Attica was lavished. Ictinus, the greatest architect in Greece, furnished the design. Phidias was by common consent the most fitted to beautify the buildings with the marble groups and reliefs which were now the great feature of every public building in Greece. Under him were placed the most accomplished bronze-workers and stone-cutters of the day. Born about 500 b.c., Phidias was a boy when Miltiades and his eleven thousand Athenians and Platæans drove the army of Darius to its boats at Marathon. Like Sophocles, he may have borne arms at Salamis. He had grown up in an atmosphere saturated with his countrymen’s successes and ambitions. In temperament, the embodiment of the Attic spirit, Phidias was the very man to compose the pæan in marble which should cry his country’s prowess to the world when every Grecian voice was stilled. The others were to carry out his designs for the decoration of the temple, but his own work was to be the great ivory and gold statue of Athena which the Parthenon was to enshrine.