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I chose this time period because I have always had a strong interest in greek mythology because of my name! Another reason I chose this time period is because I find the artwork in this time period amazing and beautiful, especially the sculptures. It absolutely baffles me how intricate and detailed the sculptures are and they had no modern technology to assist them.

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An 'acropolis' is any citadel or complex built on a high hill. The name derives from the Greek akro, high or extreme/extremity or edge, and polis, city, translated as 'high city', 'city on the edge' or 'city in the air', the most famous being the Acropolis of Athens, Greece, built in the 5th century BCE. The Acropolis was originally seen as a fortress. It was meant to protect Athens from attacks. As the years went on, the people of Athens saw another purpose for the Acropolis, they wanted it to be a beautiful symbol of Athens. The Acropolis has many famous buildings that include the Parthenon, Erechtheion and the Temple of Athena Nike.

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The ruined Temple of Zeus that stands today in the archaeological site of Olympia was built to honor the chief of the gods. It was probably constructed at around 470 B.C when the ancient Olympic Games were at their peak. Its unusually tall columns and ambitious layout made the temple one of the largest ever built in the ancient world. Also the building housed, The Statue of Zeus at Olympia which is one of the classical Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

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The Discobolus is an exemplar of action statuary of the Classical period. The athlete is poised at the moment of highest tension, when he has swung his arm back and is about to fling the discus. The musculature of his body is beautifully incised and he looks like a coiled spring. His face, however, does not reflect this tension, but rather is expressionless. In the typical severe style, the facial features are simplified and emotionless. The statue is therefore exemplary of both Severe and High Classical attributes.The Discobolus was originally sculpted in bronze in about 450 BCE by Myron, but is known today only through marble Roman copies. The copies may or may not have been of the same quality as the original, and Roman artists may have taken some liberties when copying Greek words. The copyist also had to add a supportive trunk of marble because of the weight of the statue and struts between arms and body to keep the arms from falling off the figure.

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The Parthenon is a resplendent marble temple built between 447 and 432 B.C. during the height of the ancient Greek Empire. Dedicated to the Greek goddess Athena, the Parthenon sits high atop a compound of temples known as the Acropolis of Athens. The Parthenon was the center of religious life in the powerful Greek City-State of Athens, the head of the Delian League. The Parthenon was a symbol of the power, wealth and elevated culture of Athens and it was the largest and most lavish temple the Greek mainland had ever seen. Today, it is one of the most recognized buildings in the world and an enduring symbol of Ancient Greece.

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Doryphoros of Polykleitos is one of the best known Greek sculptures of classical antiquity, depicting a solidly built, muscular, standing warrior, originally bearing a spear balanced on his left shoulder. This marble sculpture is a Roman copy of a Greek original by Polykleitos, who was known for perfecting the contrapposto pose and developing a mathematical ratio for ideal proportions in the human body. With this sculpture, art became both more natural and more idealized, which reflected the perfect harmony in nature that the ancient Greeks thought could be expressed in mathematical terms. Also in a way, it may be said that the statue reflects the ancient Greek obsession with striving for perfection, though this was accompanied by the awareness of its impossibility.

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The colossal statue of the Athena Parthenos, which Phidias made for the Parthenon, was completed and dedicated in 438. The original work was made of gold and ivory and stood some 38 feet (12 metres) high. The goddess stood erect, wearing a tunic, aegis, and helmet and holding a Nike (goddess of victory) in her extended right hand and a spear in her left. A decorated shield and a serpent were by her side.The statue is nothing less than awe-inspiring and the richness of it - both artistically and literally - must have sent a very clear message of the wealth and power of the city that could produce such a tribute to their patron god and of the power of the goddess herself. Testimony to the statue’s lasting artistic legacy is the long line of contemporary and subsequent copies in Hellenistic and Roman times.

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Erechtheion was built to accommodate the religious rituals that the old temple housed.The elegance and delicate forms of the Erechtheion contrast sharply with the neighboring Parthenon that counter-balances the architectural complex with its majestic, Doric presence. The temple faces east and its entrance is lined with six long Ionic columns. To the north and west the wall of the temple drops dramatically to almost twice the altitude of the front and south side’s. The temple is unusual in that it incorporates two porches (prostaseis); one at the northwest corner which is supported by tall Ionic columns, and one at the south-west corner which is supported by six massive female statues, the famous Caryatids.The Caryatids have become the temple’s signature feature, as they stand and seem to casually support the weight of the porch’s roof on their heads. Their identification, or the purpose for such elaborate column treatment is lost through the centuries, but it was by no means a new feature in Greek architecture.

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The Temple of Athena Nike is the smallest structure on the Athenian Acropolis, but holds no less importance than its neighboring shrines. Built to honor Athena Nike, the goddess of victory, the site upon which the temple was constructed has ceremonial roots that date back to the Bronze Age. When the newer, Classical temple was built in the fifth century B.C., it no doubt did double duty: it stood as a shrine to Athens’ patron goddess, and also acted as a symbol of Athens’ military and political strength.It was built in Ionic order of beautiful white Pentelic marble, has columns at the front and back but not on the sides of the cella; this kind of floor plan is called an amphiprostyle. Because of the small size of the structure, there are only four columns on each side. The columns are monolithic, which means that each one of them was made of a single block of stone (instead of horizontal drums, as it is in the case of the Parthenon).As the name suggests, the temple housed the statue of Athena Nike, a symbol of victory. It probably had a connection to the victory of the Greeks against the Persians around half a century earlier. Nike usually had wings, but in this case we know that the statue had no wings, hence it was called Athena Apteros (without wings). The ancient Greek writer Pausanias later explained that the statue of Athena had no wings, so that she could never leave Athens. Lastly, the most famous Ionic frieze is, Nike Adjusting Her Sandal ,which presents the goddess in a simple, everyday gesture, perhaps adjusting her sandal (or maybe taking it off) as she prepares to enter the sacred precinct. Whatever she is doing, the relief is still charming in its elegance and simplicity. Both Nike Adjusting Her Sandal and parts of the frieze can be admired today at the Acropolis Museum.

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The “Aphrodite of Knidos” is the most famous of Praxiteles’ works, and perhaps one of the most famous sculptures of Classical Greece. The work inspired artists for centuries to come, from Roman times to the Renaissance. For the most part the statue of the goddess of love is so famous due to the fact that it is one of the first sculptures of a female portrayed completely in the nude, a practice which until that time had been reserved for portrayals of males. Women had been depicted nude in earlier Greek art such as pottery, but usually only courtesans or slave girls, not deities. Because of its sensuality and beauty, the work was one of the most erotic of the ancient world and it was even a tourist attraction in antiquity. Although the sculpture was considered especially erotic, the depiction itself is really not explicitly sensual. The goddess is simply caught in a moment in time, having just taken off her clothing and draped it over a kylix (modestly shielding her pelvis) to step into a bath.

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Probably the most beautiful and best preserved of its kind, the theater of Epidaurus was built by Polykleitos the Younger. Due to its excellent acoustics and condition, the ancient theater is still used today, most notably under the framework of the annual Epidaurus Festival. The theater seats about 13,000 spectators. It was built in two phases – one during the 4th century BC and the second in the mid-2nd century – and divided into two parts: one for citizens and one for priests and authorities. When the theater was rediscovered in 1881, it wasn’t in the condition it is today. Many of the sections, including the two theater gates, have been restored.

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The Dying Gaul portrays a Gallic warrior in his final moments, his face contorted in pain as he falls from a fatal wound to the chest and it is a deeply moving tribute to the human spirit. The Dying Gaul was found in Rome in the gardens of the Villa Ludovisi with another ancient marble sculpture, the Gaul Committing Suicide with his Wife. The two were probably unearthed during excavations for the villa’s foundation between 1621 and 1623. The sculptures were not immediately recognized as depictions of Gallic warriors. The earliest record of the Dying Gaul in 1623 describes it as a dying gladiator. Years later, the presence of a trumpet on the base led the German art historian and archaeologist Johann Winckelmann (1717–1768) to suggest that the subject was instead a Greek herald. At the turn of the 18th century scholars began to recognize that the figure depicts a Gallic warrior.

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Winged Victory is one of the few surviving examples of original Hellenistic sculpture, rather than a Roman copy. Despite its incomplete survival, in mastery, it rivals the pediments of the Athenian Parthenon and the Great Altar of Pergamon.Over the years many reconstructions have been attempted of the famous Nike of Samothrace. Not only the head and arms of the goddess are missing but also the feet, while the right wing is a mirror image cast in plaster from the left wing. As such, the present state of the statue still leaves much to the imagination. For instance, did Nike hold objects in her hands? It has been suggested that she may have held a wreath to honour the victor of a naval battle, a trumpet to signal the victory, or that she cupped her hand to announce the victor.

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It is the largest known Greek altar. Only a few traces remain on-site today: the altar was completely rebuilt, complete with its original reliefs, at Berlin’s Pergamon Museum in 1959. A high raised base set atop five steps, over another tall base and with projecting cornices, it is decorated in high relief with scenes depicting the Gigantomachy, the mythological battle between the gods and the giants, the symbol of the victory of the Attalid kings over the Galatians, the victory of civilization over barbarity. It thus had the same political-celebratory nature as the temenos of Athena. The raised base, on the western side, forms two avant-corps delimiting a large 20-meter staircase leading to a paved courtyard. On the raised base and in front of the staircase runs an elegant Ionic colonnade, the back wall of which is adorned with a frieze depicting scenes from the life of Telephus, the hero who founded Pergamon.

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This statue is one of art history's most significant sculptures, the Venus de Milo continues to captivate audiences today. The statue is located in the Louvre Museum, the marble masterpiece is celebrated for its Hellenistic artistry, renowned for its beauty, and famous for its absent arms. It was carved from marble by Alexandros, a sculptor of Antioch on the Maeander River. It was found in pieces on the Aegean island of Melos on April 8, 1820, and was subsequently presented to Louis XVIII (who then donated it to the Louvre in 1821).

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Laocoön and His Sons is a marble sculpture from the Hellenistic Period (323 BCE – 31 CE). Following its discovery in a Roman vineyard in 1506, it was placed in the Vatican, where it remains today and is one of many famous statues there. When the sculpture was excavated in 1506 Michelangelo was the first person on the scene,and when they finally got the sculpture out Laocoön himself was missing his right arm and a competition was held to determine who would design Laocoön’s missing arm. Michelangelo submitted a version of the arm that bent backward. Another artist, Jacopo Sansovino, won the contest, and they attached his arm to the sculpture. The focus shifted to this unnatural arm and destroyed the beauty of the Group. Michelangelo was so convinced he was correct that when he frescoed the Last Judgement, he showed Jesus Christ with his arm bent back over his shoulder in a sweeping motion, exactly like his version of the Laocoön arm. In 1906, an archeologist found a bent arm lying around in a builder’s yard and delivered it to the Vatican Museums. Fifty years later, they found it and attached it to the Laocoön Group.