Phidias

Phidias was the greatest sculptor of classical Greece and none of his major works survives. Born in Athens around 480 BC, he was the son of a painter, and worked at the moment when the city, enriched by the Delian League, undertook the rebuilding of what the Persians had destroyed. Pericles appointed him general overseer of the building programme on the Acropolis, which made him responsible for the Parthenon's sculptural scheme — the pediments, the ninety-two metopes and the continuous frieze of the Panathenaic procession, over 160 metres long. He designed the programme and supervised the workshops rather than carving all of it himself. His two most celebrated works were chryselephantine, built on wooden frames with gold plates for drapery and ivory for flesh. The Athena Parthenos, about twelve metres tall, stood inside the Parthenon holding a figure of Victory; the gold was detachable so that it could be weighed and, if necessary, spent. The Zeus at Olympia, seated and around thirteen metres high, was counted among the seven wonders, and it was said that a man's life was incomplete if he had not seen it. His workshop at Olympia has been excavated, and a cup found in it is inscribed as belonging to Phidias. He was prosecuted at Athens, either for embezzling gold from the Athena or for impiety in including portraits of himself and Pericles on her shield. The charge was probably an attack on Pericles through him. Accounts of his end differ: exile to Olympia, or death in prison, around 430 BC.

• Lived: 480 BCE – 430 BCE
• Nationality: Greek
• Roles: painter