The Beauty of the Pantheon and the Parthenon

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The Beauty of the Pantheon and the Parthenon

If I showed you pictures of the Parthenon and Pantheon, would you get them confused? Well, I sure did at first, but then realized a lot of people do because they look almost alike. Well I am going to tell you today that they are two completely different, yet monumental pieces of architecture. To start off I want to look at the Parthenon and then finish with the Pantheon. So let's begin!

The Parthenon is a temple that towers above the city of Athens, symbolizing the Athenians' wealth and power. The temple is dedicated to Athena, a Greek goddess and the city-symbol of Athens. This temple served as a monument to Athena because they believed that she helped the Greeks conquer the Persian Empire in the Persian Wars. The Parthenon had a style new to that era and it was impressive to the eye. The Greeks had to the work diligently to create the Parthenon in perfection. It was built in the masculine Doric style with some Ionic elements. To me the Doric style provided the perfect look, which demonstrated the Athenian desire to be perfect god-like beings. Using this style, the Parthenon hardly incorporated a single straight horizontal or vertical line. This bulging of the columns gave the building a more masculine look and it made the temple seem perfect to the naked eye. This perfection was important at the time because the Greeks saw themselves as rising to the level of the gods and nearing perfection. The Greeks had just defeated the Persians, and they were feeling very confident. They built the Parthenon to show their dominance and strength. A key purpose of the Parthenon was to show their gratitude to Athena for helping them conquer the Persians. The statue of the god Athena that was built was 26 ft. wide and 13 ft. deep. It was made of wood, which supported ivory pieces on the top of the statue.

Sadly, the Parthenon was burned and suffered severe fire damage at a certain date that cannot be determined. In 1687 the Parthenon was blown up during a Venetian siege of the acropolis. Restoration work began in the early 20th century. Today the Parthenon remains as a symbol of the once great Greek culture, and the importance of the city of Athens.

Now I want to look at the Pantheon. Today's Pantheon ("Temple of All the Gods") is not the original.

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