Acropolis of Athens
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How it came to be
In 480 BC invading Persians burned the temples then under construction on the Acropolis. After the war, Athens rebuilt under Pericles, and work on the Parthenon began in 447 BC.
Designed by Iktinos and Kallikrates with the sculptor Pheidias, it was finished in 432 BC, followed by the Propylaia, the Temple of Athena Nike and the Erechtheion. In 1687 a Venetian shell ignited gunpowder stored inside the Parthenon.
Travellers who came here
- 1867-08
On 14 August the ship was refused landing at Piraeus because of cholera quarantine. Twain and three companions slipped ashore at night, got into the Acropolis, and in his notebook he described Athens spread out below the Parthenon by moonlight.
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