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192 Geeek Sculpture. Munich ; the latter in the Temple of Theseus at Athens. Both are supposed to date from a very early age. 2. Second Period, 490-400 B.C. We now come to the age of the final development of Greek art, with which the name of Pheidias is inseparably connected. The Persian wars destroyed the last remnants of Oriental despotism, and ushered in, alike in politics, literature and art, the golden age of Greece. The great statesmen Cimon and Pericles encouraged genius of every kind ; the tragic poets iEschylus and Sophocles refined the public taste, and inspired sculptors and architects with their glowing fancies ; and for a time Greece, with Athens for its capital, became the leading country of the world. Pheidias, the master-artist of this golden age, was born about 500 B.C. He learnt the rudiments of his favourite art of Hegesias of Athens, and completed his studies under Ageladas. When Pericles assumed the reins of government Pheidias was about thirty-seven years old, in the prime of his genius, and he became the chief co-operator of that great statesman in his restora- tion of Athens. Under Cimon, the predecessor of Pericles, Pheidias sculptured the colossal bronze statue of Athena Promachus (the defender), which stood on the most prominent part of the Acropolis (Fig. 22). As superin- tendent of public works in Athens, Pheidias had under him a whole army of architects, sculptors, workers in bronze, stone-cutters, gold and ivory beaters, and other artists, and although he may not have had any per- sonal share in sculpturing the famous marbles of the Parthenon, he probably designed many of them, and it