Construction of the Parthenon begins on the Athenian Acropolis
Under Pericles, Athens begins its most ambitious building program: a new temple to Athena Parthenos to replace the one burned by the Persians in 480 BC. The architects Ictinus and Callicrates design a Doric temple with deliberate optical refinements — the stylobate curves, the columns lean inward — while Phidias oversees the sculptural program.
Funding comes from the treasury of the Delian League, moved from Delos to Athens in 454 BC — which is why the building reads as politics as much as architecture: an empire's surplus turned into marble. The main structure is completed by 438 BC, the pediments by 432 BC.