Page:General History of Europe 1921.djvu/130

82 General History of Europe the reconstruction of the Parthenon, the most celebrated 'building in the world. The Parthenon was the temple of the patron god- dess Athena (87) and stood on the Acropolis. It had been destroyed by the Persians and was now rebuilt on a scale of beauty and magnificence hitherto unknown in the Greek world. Phidias, the greatest of the Athenian sculptors, designed the famous frieze, a band of carved marble reliefs extending clear around the building. This portrayed the people of Athens moving in a stately religious procession. The figures of the men and horses are of unrivaled beauty and grace. Inside the new temple rose the gigantic figure of the goddess Athena, wrought by the masterly hand of Phidias in gold and ivory. 124. The Drama ; ^Eschylus. In spite of the teachings of the Sophists, most of the Athenians still reverently believed in their gods, who they thought had raised Athens to the powerful posi- tion that she occupied. They listened with admiration and awe to the dramas of their first great playwright, ^Eschylus. He had fought against the Persians, and in his tragedy The Persians he told his fellow citizens of the mighty purpose of the gods in saving Hellas from the Asiatic invaders. We can picture a citizen in Pericles' time skirting the base of the Acropolis and reaching the theater to find the people already crowding the entrance. The play would seem strange enough to us, for there is little or no scenery ; and the actors, who are always men, wear grotesque masks, a survival of old days. The narrative is largely carried on in song by the chorus, but this is varied by the dialogue of the actors, and the whole is not unlike an opera. 125. Sophocles. A play of Sophocles is on, and the citizen's neighbor in the next seat leans over to tell him how as a lad many years ago he stood on the shore of Salamis, whither his family had fled, and as they looked down upon the destruction of the Persian fleet this same Sophocles, then a boy of sixteen, was in the crowd looking on with the rest. How deeply must the events of that tragic day have sunk into the boy's soul ! Because, like ^Eschylus, the first great writer of tragedies, he too sees