A source-book of ancient history - The Search For Mecca

i88 The Age of Pericles
Pheidiasand
other artists.
are repaid by the durable character of the result. And
this makes Pericles' work all the more wonderful, because
it was built in a short time, and yet has lasted for ages.
In beauty each building at once appeared venerable as
soon as it was finished; but even at the present day the
work looks as fresh as ever, for it blooms with an eternal
freshness which defies time, and seems instinct with an
unfading spirit of youth.
The overseer and manager of the whole was Pheidias,
although there were other excellent architects and workmen,
such as Callicrates and Ictinus, who built the Parthenon
on the site of the old Hecatompedon, which had been
destroyed by the Persians, and Coroebus, who began to
build the temple of initiation at Eleusis, but who lived
only to see the columns erected and the architraves placed
upon them. On his death, Metagenes, of Xypete, added
the frieze and the upper row of columns, and Xenocles,
of Cholargus, crowned it with the domed roof over the
shrine.
As to the Long Wall, about which Socrates says
that he heard Pericles bring forward a motion, Callicrates
undertook to build it. Cratinus satirizes the work for
being slowly accomplished, saying:
"He builds in speeches, but he does no work."
The Odeum.
The Odeum, which internally consisted of many rows of
seats and many columns, and externally of a roof sloping
on all sides from a central point, is said to have been an
imitation of the king of Persia's tent, and was built under
Pericles' direction. For this reason Cratinus alludes to
him in his play of the Thracian Women—
"Our Zeus with lofty skull appears;
The Odeum on his head he wears,
Because he fears the ostrakon no more."