Acropolis, an elevated and fortified part of an ancient Greek city, the so-called. upper city; fortress (shelter in case of war). The most famous is the Acropolis in Athens, where the main shrines of the city were located. The Athenian Acropolis, which is a 156-meter high rocky hill with a gentle summit (approx. 300 m long and 170 m wide), is the site of the oldest settlement in Attica. During the Mycenaean period (15-13 centuries BC) it was a fortified royal residence. In the 7-6 centuries. BC e. a lot of construction was underway on the Acropolis. Under the tyrant Pisistratus (560-527), the temple of the goddess Athena Hecatompedon was built on the site of the royal palace (that is, the temple is one hundred steps long; fragments of pediment sculptures have been preserved, the foundation has been revealed). In 480, during the Greco-Persian wars, the temples of the Acropolis were destroyed by the Persians. The inhabitants of Athens took an oath to restore the shrines only after the expulsion of the enemies from Hellas. In 447, on the initiative of Pericles, new construction began on the Acropolis; the management of all the works was entrusted to the famous sculptor Phidias, who, apparently, was the author of the artistic program that formed the basis of the entire complex, its architectural and sculptural appearance.
The sacred road, along which the procession of the Athenians moved from the agora to the temple of the patron goddess during the main holiday of the Great Panathenae, leads to the Propylaea, which has 5 passages and in ancient times was flanked by two equestrian statues of the Dioscuri. In the left, protruding wing, there was the Pinakothek (a collection of pinak paintings, brought as a gift to the goddess Athena), in the right there was a repository of manuscripts and a room for the gatekeeper and watchmen. To the right of the Propylaea, on the pyrgos (ledge of a fortified rock), there is a small, light and graceful temple of the Ionic order dedicated to Athena Nike, known as the temple of Nika Apteros (Wingless Victory; 443-420, architect Callicrates).
After the participants in the procession passed the Propylaea and entered the sacred territory, a panorama of the central part of the complex opened in front of them. In the foreground, just to the left of the road, was the colossal bronze statue of Athena Promachos (Warrior), cast by Phidias. Behind her, in the distance, was the Erechtheion (architect unknown), the temple of Athena and Poseidon at the site of the dispute between these gods for the possession of Attica. The temple has an asymmetrical plan, unique in Greek architecture; its three porticos are located at different levels: on the west side - a portico leading to the temple of Athena Poliada (City), on the north - the entrance to the sanctuary of Poseidon-Erechtheus, at the southern wall of the temple - the famous portico of the Caryatids; the entire building was surrounded by a frieze with overlaid white figures (not preserved). In the Erechtheion, the oldest sanctuary of Athens, was the sacred xoan of Athens (wooden statue),According to legend, the altars of Hephaestus and the hero Booth, which fell from the sky, are the tomb of the legendary Athenian king Cecrop, from the west adjoined the sanctuary of the Attic dew goddess Pandrosa. In the courtyard of the Erechtheion, there was a sacred olive tree donated to the city by Athena, and a salt spring beat out, which Poseidon carved with his trident.
The lightness of the forms, the special sophistication of the decorative finish and the complexity of the composition, the small-sized Erechtheion contrasts with the austere and majestic, emphatically monumental Parthenon (the Temple of Athena the Virgin; 69.5 m long and 30.9 m wide, the height of the columns is 10.5 m; 447 - consecrated in 438; architect Iktin with the participation of Callicrates), which is a Doric peripter. The building is perceived from the Propylaea in three quarters - the audience saw not one of its facades, but the entire volume of the structure, got an idea of its appearance as a whole, and before seeing the main, eastern facade, they had to go around the temple from the outside.
In the temple itself, in the naos, there was a chryso-elephantine statue of Athena Parthenos (Virgin) by Phidias, the opistodome kept the sacred money of the goddess and the treasury of the Athenian maritime union. The pediments housed sculptural groups depicting the most significant events in the cult of Athena - her birth and the dispute with the sea god Poseidon for the possession of Attica. The metope reliefs along the perimeter of the building depicted scenes of mythological battles. Architectural details, sculpture and reliefs were brightly colored. The plan and ordering of the Parthenon also differ from the traditional ones in a number of features: in front of the naos there was a hall - the maiden's palace (the Parthenon, which gave the name to the entire temple), along the wall of the naos there was an Ionic frieze depicting the Panathenian procession.
In front of the Parthenon, on the right side of the Propylaea, there were also the sanctuaries of Artemis Bravronia and Athena Ergana (Craftsman), the repository of weapons and sacred armor - Chalcotek (450). The open area of the Acropolis was occupied by numerous altars and gifts to the gods - statues, steles. The temple and theater of Dionysus (6th century BC - rebuilt in 326), the Odeon of Pericles (a covered circular building for musical competitions) (2nd half of the 5th century BC) adjoined the northwestern slope of the Acropolis.), Theater of Herodes Atticus (2nd century AD), the sanctuary of Asclepius, Standing (Portico) of Eumenes.
The Acropolis rises above all of Athens, its silhouette forms the silhouette of the city. In ancient times, the Parthenon rising above the hill could be seen from any end of Attica and even from the islands of Salamis and Aegina; the sailors sailing to the shore could already see the glint of the spear and helmet of Athena the Warrior from afar. In ancient times, the sanctuary was known not only as a famous cult center, but also as a monument of great art, confirming the glory of Athens as the "school of Hellas" and the most beautiful city. A well-thought-out composition of the entire ensemble, perfectly found general proportions, a flexible combination of various orders, the finest sculpting of architectural details and their unusually accurate drawing, close interconnection of architecture and sculptural decoration - make the buildings of the Acropolis the highest achievement of ancient Greek architecture and one of the most outstanding monuments of world art.
In the 5th century. The Parthenon became the Church of Our Lady, the statue of Athena Parthenos was transported to Constantinople. After the conquest of Greece by the Turks (in the 15th century), the temple was turned into a mosque, to which minarets were added, then into an arsenal; The Erechtheion became the harem of the Turkish pasha, the temple of Nika Apteros was dismantled, and the bastion wall was built from its blocks. In 1687, after a shell hit from a Venetian ship, an explosion destroyed almost the entire central part of the temple of Athena the Virgin; with an unsuccessful attempt by the Venetians to remove the sculptures of the Parthenon, several statues were smashed.
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At the beginning of the 19th century. the Englishman Lord Elgin broke a number of metopes, tens of meters of the frieze and almost all the surviving sculptures of the Parthenon pediments, the caryatid from the portico of the Erechtheion.
After the proclamation of the independence of Greece, in the course of restoration work (mainly in the late 19th century), the ancient appearance of the Acropolis was restored whenever possible: all late buildings on its territory were liquidated, the temple of Nika Apteros was re-laid, etc. Reliefs and sculptures of the Acropolis temples are located at the British Museum (London), the Louvre (Paris) and the Acropolis Museum. The sculptures that remained in the open air have now been replaced with copies.