THE PERICLEAN EPOCH

Greece's Golden Age glowed brightest in Athens for the 30 years it had the leadership of the political genius whose bust is shown above. His city, of some 150,000 inhabitants, had two cores. One was made up of the great marketplace called the Agora and adjacent Pnyx Hill. The center of trade, schools and law courts, the Agora also harbored the offices of the world's first democratic government; the Assembly met on Pnyx Hill. The second core was the grouping of marbled temples, among them buildings the world has ever since counted its most beautiful, on top of the Acropolis, a rocky hill which was the heart of the city. The two Athenses—the city of creativity below and the one of beauty on the heights—made sober fact of Pericles' boast: "Our city is an education to Greece."

OF PERICLES The drawing on these pages shows the Athens Pericles built

Or helped plan. Rising above the rest of the city is the rocky Acropolis, with the structures whose ruins still inspire men: the Parthenon, the Propylaea, the temple of Athena Nike and the Erechtheum. Originally the Acropolis constituted the entire

Fortified city, but it spread down into the valleys. Destroyed in war, it was rebuilt. Great walls enclosed it. In the Agora stood stoas, or open-sided markets, where the philosophers taught; the Bouleuterion, where the 500-man council met; the mint; courts; and the Strategeion, or military headquarters.

THE SPEAKER'S PODIUM on Pnyx Hill faced a natural hillside amphitheater that seated 18,000. To ensure adequate attendance at a dull Assembly meeting, police with long ropes dipped in wet paint herded citizens to Pnyx Hill.