Sophocles' Athens
Photographs by Barbara Ferber
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The Acropolis. The ancient city-center had been totally devestated by the Persian Wars and so soon after 480, the city began an ambitious project to rebuild the Acropolis. Marble was quarried about 10 miles from the city and the fifty-year project began under the supervision of the scuptor Phidias. |
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The Parthenon. At the center of the Acropolis was the temple to the protectress of Athens, the goddess Athena, built between 447-432 B.C. |
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Erechtheum, part of the three buiildings that were constructed on the Acropolis during the mid-fifth century, is the perfect embodiment of the central maxim of Periclean Athens: Man is the measure of all things. |
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The Agora, from the word meaning "to assemble", was the center of Athenian democracy. |
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Bronze head |
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This mask is one of the treasures of Mycenae and preserves the world of Agamemnon and Menelaus in a golden mask dating from about 1500 B.C. |
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Poseidon. This bronze statue of the god Poseidon stands 82 inches high in the National Museum of Athens. It is a creation of the world of Pericles and Sophocles and dates from about 450 B.C. |
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Poseidon, detail |
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Octopus |
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Horse |
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The theater of Dionysius is carved out of the rocky promontory that hosts the Acropolis and nestles down below the Parthenon on the south side of the hill. Here Athens came to enjoy the plays of Sophocles which are still performed in the theater, 2400 years after Sophocles died. |
