NARRATOR: Ancient
Greece, the birthplace of Western civilization. For over 1000 years, this
strong and charismatic people devised the most advanced
technological feats the world had ever seen. GEORGE ZARKADAKIS: So
you have the appearance of a new generation of thinkers. And you have a reason to build
things, to understand nature, to create technology. NARRATOR: Feats
of engineering so amazing the ancients
believed they had been built by the gods. CLAIRY PALYVOU: One thing
that we should really wonder is how on earth these people
managed to lift these truly huge, gigantic stones. NARRATOR: These
technological wonders were fueled by leaders
whose thirst for greatness united a people and launched
them to the heights of empire. But this brilliant burst
of culture and creativity would fall victim to savage
battles that pitted brother against brother. A duel to the death
that would lead to the end of a golden age. [music playing] NARRATOR: September
480 BC, morning breaks over the Island of Salamis and
the thin mile-wide strait that separates it from
mainland Greece. The calm sea provides no
hint of the great battle that is about to begin here. By day's end, the Mediterranean
will be flowing red with blood. At stake is nothing less than
the future and independence of Greece, a country of
islands and city-states which lie just outside the
reach of the greatest empire in the known world, Persia. BARRY STRAUSS: Persia was the
world's superpower of its day, enormously wealthy
enormously self-confident. The greatest multi-ethnic,
multicultural empire of the world had seen. NARRATOR: A Persian invasion
force of epic proportions is on the horizon. As many as 700 ships
carrying 150,000 warriors determined to add
Greece to their empire. But one Greek is poised
and ready for battle. His name is Themistocles, an
Athenian admiral and statesman who has been preparing
for this moment for years. But going up against Persia,
the world's greatest superpower of the time, would be no day
at the beach with Themistocles. Hello, I'm Peter Weller. First of all, the Greek naval
fleet was out number two to one. Second of all, Themistocles
face the almost insurmountable problem of trying to
unite a completely disparate and contentious group
of warriors into one command. You see, the good news
about the civic development of ancient Greece
was the city-state. Each of these
city-states was sort of a self-contained,
self-reliant mini country within Greece. The bad news about the civic
development of ancient Greece was the city-state. Because in as much as each of
these city-states sort of spoke the same lingo,
worshipped the same gods, there was really no sense
of a national unity. And their only priority
was their own particular regional and cultural agenda. At best, they didn't get along. At worst, they were violently
at each other's throats. NARRATOR: If there was someone
who could pull the Athenians together, it was
Themistocles, a man who didn't come from the
aristocratic ranks and wasn't ashamed to let
his fellow Athenians know it. BARRY STRAUSS: He was
always an outsider and he saw himself
as an outsider. And he prided himself
on his lack of polish. He said that he might not
know how to tune a lyre or to sing well, but he
knew all you needed to know to make a city great and free. NARRATOR: Themistocles was no
stranger to facing the Persians in battle. 10 years earlier, a
smaller Persian force had invaded Greece
for the first time and fought the Athenians
and her allies at Marathon. Now Themistocles would bring
that experience to Salamis, and focus his strategy on
a fatal flaw he detected in the Persian war
machine, their navy. BARRY STRAUSS: He understood
that the water was not the Persian's natural element. Persia was a land power. In fact, Persian religion
considered salt water to be demonic. NARRATOR: Themistocles wanted
the Greeks to build a navy unlike any the
world had ever seen. Immediately, work began
at breakneck speed to build a fleet of 200
triremes, the deadliest ship in the ancient world. BARRY STRAUSS: Trireme's
about 130 feet long. It's light and sleek
and it's tipped with a wooden ram covered in
bronze at the water level. And that is the offensive
weapon of the trireme. I think of the trireme,
actually, as a guided missile. NARRATOR: The trireme consisted
of 170 rowers on three separate levels. 62 on the top level, 54 in the
middle, and 54 on the bottom. On the lowest level, rowers
were seated so deep in the ship that there oar ports were just
18 inches above the waterline. GEORGE ZARKADAKIS: So you
have a ship, a wooden ship, that is powered from the oars. It can go up to eight
knots or nine knots, it was an amazing speed
for the ancient world. And you can attack
like a missile. And the rowers, of course, have
to learn how to work as a team. They have to learn to row
together in unison, which is an easy thing to begin to
do, but a very difficult thing to master. NARRATOR: Themistocles's
fleet of triremes was finished in just a few
years and in the nick of time. In the spring 480 BC, Persia
launched a massive invasion of Greece. Themistocles knew that the
Persian fleet outnumbered the combined Greek fleet
by almost two to one. So he devised a simple
yet cunning plan to keep the Greeks together
and level the odds. GEORGE ZARKADAKIS: He had
to turn a disadvantage into an advantage,
the fact that he had fewer ships than the Persians. So he had to know that
Persians, if you like, into such a battleground
that they could not advance their whole ranks. So he can actually concentrate
their power and strike. So the best place
that he could do that was at the straits of Salamis. NARRATOR: Themistocles
would devise a ruse to lure the Persian fleet into
the narrow straits of Salamis. Themistocles was a very
cunning man, a great trickster. Themistocles knew that
the Persians preferred to win battles
through diplomacy, through intimidation, and
through buying traders. NARRATOR: On the
eve of the battle, Themistocles sent a trusted
servant across the straits to the Persian camp. The servant played
the role of a traitor, telling the Persian King
the Greeks were in disarray. And if the Persians sent
their ships in the night, they could surprise the
Greek navy in the morning. The Persians took the bait. BARRY STRAUSS: So at
dawn, the Persians discovered, to their shock,
that the Greek fleet, instead of being about to flee, was
getting into battle formation. On that day, the Persians
would have to fight. So it was a perfect setup
of a battle by Themistocles. Now 200 triremes, powered
by 34,000 Greek rowers, formed into a line. There was no room
for the Persians to maneuver in the
narrow straits. Themistocles had sprung
the perfect trap. The attacks raged all day long
as the Greek triremes encircled the Persian ships then pounded
them with their forward rams. BARRY STRAUSS: And
the Persian officers died in unusually
high proportions. NARRATOR: The battle was
so confused, chaotic, and unnerving, that
at the end of the day, the Greeks weren't even
sure that they had won. But thousands of lifeless enemy
bodies on the shores of Salamis revealed a decisive
Greek victory. Some historical sources
claim the Persians lost as many as 200
ships to the Greek's 40. Any Persians that didn't
drown were slaughtered by Greek soldiers
waiting on shore. GEORGE ZARKADAKIS:
Had the Greeks not won the battle of Salamis,
the Greek civilization or ancient Greece is values that
we all share in today's world, may never been there. NARRATOR: After the
stunning victory at Salamis, Themistocles was
hailed as a hero. But his personal
ambitions and greed began to add to his
many political enemies. It was only a matter of time
before the rage of the assembly boiled over. BARRY STRAUSS:
Athens, at this time, had a practice called ostracism,
an annual unpopularity contest in which the people would vote
for the politician who they felt was most disruptive,
most dangerous to the political process. And they would exile
him for 10 years. NARRATOR: In 471 BC,
Themistocles was ostracized. In a stunning irony, he was
forced to embrace the enemy he had fought so hard to defeat. He would never see Athens again. BARRY STRAUSS:
Amazingly, he was forced to flee to Persia itself,
where he found refuge and he ended his life
speaking Persian, working as an administrator
for the Persian King, helping the Persians
govern Western Asia Minor. NARRATOR: Themistocles had
played his part in an epic story of great power
and achievement that looked to a glorious
past for inspiration. The legendary tales
of the gods and heroes told in epics like the
Iliad and The Odyssey. The stories may be myth, but
the engineering achievements of these Greek
ancestors were very real and still stand today. In the Greek
city-state of Sparta, boys began their military
training at age 7. NARRATOR: By 1300 BC, a
people speaking an early form of the Greek language had
inhabited large portions of mainland Greece. They were known
as the Myceneans. And for years, their
wars and scandals, exploits and achievements
became the stuff of legend and laid the foundation
of Greek civilization. Their capital city of
Mycenae was surrounded by a massive citadel built
over the course of 150 years. According to myth,
it was from this city that the Myceneans were led by
a King named Agamemnon, whose epic struggles were written
down by the 8th century BC poet homer in two of history's
most famous tales, the Iliad and The Odyssey. GEORGE ZARKADAKIS: So the Iliad
was something like the Bible for ancient Greeks. It contained a moral story. It told you how you should live. It described gods, it describe
religion, but also described people and described situations. It gave ideals that
you should look upon. NARRATOR: The tales of
the Iliad and The Odyssey have become some of the
most famous in history. The abduction of Helen by
Paris, Agamemnon's 10-year siege of Troy, and the giant wooden
horse which the Greeks used to enter Troy and
destroy the city. Although Agamemnon's exploits
during the Trojan War may have been heroic, his
return home to Mycenae was far from a hero's welcome. He was murdered by his own wife. Scholars have debated for
centuries whether or not Homer actually penned
the Iliad and The Odyssey or whether he just collected
the folk tales of song or whether he had anything
to do with them at all. But if the ancient
Greeks came back today, they'd scoff at
this pithy harangue. Because of the ancient
Greeks, Homer wasn't just some top '40s folk singer, nor
was he the best selling hack writer of some piece of pulp
fiction, Homer was a historian. And these legends weren't
the bedtime stories to be whispered to the kiddies
before the oil lamps were blown out. These were accountable facts. This is what is left of Mycenae,
the capital city of which Homer writes and where many, including
me, would like to believe that Agamemnon really ruled. These ruins show us that, not
only were these early Greeks master builders, but they
were capable of some amazing engineering feats. CLAIRY PALYVOU: As
you approach Mycenae, first thing, of course,
that you will see is the fortification walls,
which are very impressive. And immediately you have
this feeling of awesome. NARRATOR: The citadel
walls of my CMA are buttressed by stone
blocks which weigh up to 10 tons apiece. They were engineered
with such precision that each stone fit perfectly
in place to its adjacent block. But for awe inspiring
visuals, nothing in Mycenae comes closer than the
colossal main entrance to the citadel, the Lion's Gate. PETER WELLER: This is the
Lion's Gate, the main gate to the citadel of Mycenae. It is one of the more
stunning structures of all early antiquity. It is an imposing
piece of symbolism. It is an imposing
piece of engineering. Two lions standing fully
upright, their paws on the base of a column. Their heads, which are missing,
would be turning outward. Anybody approaching this gate
would know that Mycenae stood for one thing, power. Structurally, the gate looks
to be a standard engineering practice of post and
lintel construction. These vertical elements
here, these massive piers, are the posts supporting the
lintel, the horizontal element, which weighs about 12 tons. But it is above the gate
where the lions lived that the engineers took
it one step further. If you look at this
triangle of indented stones right by the lions,
it develops an element that we call the corbelled arch. THEODOSIOS TASSIOS: Suppose
you have these four stones, and instead of piling them up,
you try to create a new opening from that side. And you steal a little bit of
space by putting them this way. This is corbeling. If we are a little bit more
ambitious because this is not sufficiently large and we
tried to displace further these stones,
still in carbeling, then we are running this risk
that this is falling down. So what is the little trick? It's simple, you start putting
counter-weight behind each of these corbelled stairs. CLAIRY PALYVOU: Now this
triangle, first of all, we should say that this is
a true Mycenean innovation. This is something that we
see for the first time, most probably, worldwide. So in that sense, we are
looking at something that's very innovative, very new. NARRATOR: The Mycenean engineers
took the corbelled arch one step further. They applied the idea to create
a revolutionary interior space called a corbel dome. The dome was used in only one
kind of construction, a tomb. Like the Egyptians, the Myceneas
built incredible structures to house their leaders
in the afterlife. These tombs are called tholos. Their construction departed from
anything the Mycenean engineers had ever done before. CLAIRY PALYVOU: And
with the circular form, it's completely absent in
the architectural minds of the Myceneans. The Myceneans worked
with straight lines and right angles. So the circle is just for
this kind of structure. So that makes the impression
and the symbolism of the circle as related to death
even stronger. NARRATOR: Building a tholos
was a giant engineering feat. The first step would
have been to hollow out the side of a hill. PETER WELLER: So
they dug this trench. And this trench would
form the dromos, which means in Greek, road or way. In this case, it's a
walkway to the tomb. And it's flanked on each side
by these beautiful almond stones set in lengthwise and edgewise. Now 3,200 years ago in 1200
BC, a visitor approaching would walk down
this dromos and then he would be confronted
by an unbelievably magnificent and stunning
sight, this massive doorway. The doorway would be flanked
by two fantastic columns carved out of solid green marble with
zigzag and spiral designs going all the way up. Each one of these massive
stones is 2 and 1/2 feet tall. And there are 33 rings
of these stones laid out in a conical shape. Now each layer of stone is laid
over the lower one in a sort of protruding fashion. That's what we mean
by the corbel style. And then they're shaved down
to make it all very smooth. CLAIRY PALYVOU: In order for
this structure to be stable, you need a constant pressure
from outwards inwards. Very much like a
burrow where you need this band, this metallic
band, around to keep the rings together. This pressure comes from
the addition of earth. As they build, they
add earth from around. And quite a lot of earth. And there comes a point
when they have finished the beehive structure inside. At the same, time they have
built a whole earthen mound on top. NARRATOR: Around 1100 BC,
this early Greek civilization suddenly and mysteriously
disintegrated and disappeared. GEORGE ZARKADAKIS: There's
lots of theories about that. I think the most dominant one
is new tribes, new barbarian tribes, came from the steps and
they attacked the civilizations of Egypt, they attacked the
civilization of Mesopotamia causing disruption
in the trade routes. But that became their fault. NARRATOR: With the
fall of Mycenae, Greece entered a dark age. Over 4 centuries, its culture
fell into a deep slumber. Then in the 8th century
BC, individual city-states began to develop and flourish. Each one forging
its own identity. Competing for economic,
military, and engineering prominence. One Greek island in
particular, Samos, would see the construction
of one of the most amazing engineering feats seen
in the ancient world, moving mountains to bring
water to the people. The ancient Greeks believed
Homer, the 8th century poet who wrote the Iliad and
Odyssey was actually blind. Sparta, Athens, Corinth,
Thebes, these are just a few of the more than 100 city-states
that emerged all around Greece 400 years after the
disappearance of the Mycenean civilization. Before the advent of
democracy in Greece, many of these city-states were
led by a single ruler called a tyrant in ancient Greek. Around 540 BC, a
tyrant named Polycrates came to rule over the
island city-state of Samos in the Aegean sea. CHRISTOHPER RATTE:
He was quite a player on the international scene. He made tactical
alliances, not just with the Persians, but also, for
example, with the Egyptians. He was an ambitious figure. NARRATOR: Polycrates saw that
the path to power for an island like Samos lay through the sea. He built a fleet
of 100 triremes, terrorizing neighboring
city-states and taxing ships that pass through
the surrounding waters. RICHARD BILLOWS:
Under Polycrates, Samosm his home island,
became the dominant sea power. And that was the basis
of his wealth and power. NARRATOR: With his
newly found riches, Polycrates built up defensive
walls around his capital city and set about to
solve a problem that plagued many cities in the
arid Mediterranean climate, drinking water. THEODOSIOS TASSIOS:
Samos was a very, very important and powerful city. They were needing
a lot of water. And they were short of water. NARRATOR: There was a
plentiful spring available. But it was separated from the
city by the 900-foot high Mt. Kastro. Somehow, Polycrates
and his engineers had to figure out how to
connect the city and the spring. Running an aqueduct around the
mountain was not an option. LOTHAR HASELBERGER: You could
construct a water supply system around the mountain. But the first thing
a besieging enemy would do to cut off
that water line. And there you are with your
wonderful fortification, with your wonderful new
walls, and you're drying out. NARRATOR: The solution required
thinking outside the box. Polycrates turned to an
engineer named Eupalinos. Eupalinos came up with a
solution that literally meant moving a mountain, a tunnel
running straight through Mt. Kastro. It would be a huge
project and a lengthy one. THEODOSIOS TASSIOS: The time
needed for such tunneling should be enormous. Therefore, the decision
was taken to drive tunnels from both sides. This is a mathematical
and a technical problem. NARRATOR: Like the engineers
of the modern day Chunnel under the English Channel,
Eupalinos dug tunnels from each side of the mountain
until they met in the middle. To succeed, Eupalinos
would have to be sure that each tunnel started
at the same vertical height on opposite sides
of the mountain. The tunnels also had to match
up on a horizontal plane. Otherwise, they would pass each
other like ships in the night. Without sophisticated
surveying equipment, it was a remarkable challenge
for an engineer to take on. One theory involves a short
walk around a large mountain. By forging a path
from the spring to the city in short
perpendicular lines, Eupalinos could measure
each small length in order to calculate two
sides of a right triangle. With two known sides
of the triangle, the hypotenuse became
the path of the tunnel through the mountain. What made this prodigious
feat of engineering even more amazing is that
it involved not one tunnel, but two. The main tunnel was dug at a
height and length of about six feet by six feet,
but was only used as a workspace to dig a
second tunnel adjacent and below the main
one, that would serve as the actual aqueduct. While the work tunnel was
dug on a straight plane, the aqueduct tunnel was dug
along the side and below. This second tunnel needed to
be angled on a slight gradient to allow the water
to flow gently downward toward the city. It was a matter
of life and death in the dark and dangerous
bowels of the mountain. LOTHAR HASELBERGER: Once the
they were in the mountains, the difficulties must have been
paramount because rock may be moving in unpredictable ways. Water may all of a sudden
splash up and cause havoc. This was probably
a constant danger. Apart from that, it was dark
and needed to be illuminated. And you needed to constantly
know where you are in order to keep your lines straight. NARRATOR: After
slight adjustments, the two crews met in the middle
almost exactly where Eupalinos had originally determined. The floors of each tunnel
connected with only 24 inches difference between them. A discrepancy of less than 1/8
of a percent of the tunnel's 3,500 foot length. This stunning
engineering achievement may have been the shining
moment of Polycrates's reign. But his political fortunes
would not prove so bright. RICHARD BILLOWS: The Persian
governor on the coast of Asia Minor decided that that degree
of autonomy that Polycrates enjoyed was unsuitable to the
development of Persian power. And he was arrested and
brutally tortured and crucified. NARRATOR: Polycrates was just
one tyrant among many who ruled the city-states
of ancient Greece between 800 BC and 500 BC. The rule of the
few over the many was the only form of government
humans had ever known. But that was about to change. The city-state of Athens
was going to change the course of world history. The visionary leader
who would make it happen was named Pericles. His legacy would be an
everlasting monument on the Athenian Acropolis
that rose above the clouds. An amazing piece of
precision engineering called the Parthenon. The word encyclopedia comes
from two Greek words meaning a circle of learning. In 480 BC, when Themistocles
defeated the Persians at the Battle of Salamis,
he saved, not only Athens, but also its young
democracy, which had been born about 25 years earlier. For Athens, the age of
the single ruler was over. Athens was rich in military
might, treasure, technology, and ideas. She was poised for
her golden age. And one man would
take her there. His name was Pericles, a
democrat and enlightened intellectual who
encouraged the arts. But Pericles would also
expand Athenian power through any means,
including threats, bribery, and naked force. RICHARD BILLOWS:
Pericles came from one of the old aristocratic
families of Athens. So he came from the kind
of family background in which a career of political
and military leadership was expected. NARRATOR: His rise to power
began when he was elected as a young man to the
position of strategos, one of 10 such men
who commanded the army and set foreign policy. A natural at politics
and a gifted orator, Pericles was soon Athens'
most influential and powerful statesman. Pericles was the typical
political animal, if you like. This guy was a politician. He was able to
speak and convince. He was completely
dedicated to what he did. NARRATOR: Pericles became
leader of Athens in 461 BC. Thanks to the fleet of triremes
Themistocles had built, the Athenian navy
held unrivaled power in the eastern Mediterranean. But despite the defeat of the
Persian empire at Salamis, the threat of another
invasion was always looming. In 478 BC, Athens, together with
the city-states of the Aegean, formed a mutual defense alliance
called the Delian League, the ancient world's
version of NATO. PETER WELLER: By 450
BC, Athens has become the undisputed leader of
the Delina League, which is nothing more than a money
faucet for the city-state. But Pericles, as undisputed
leader of Athens, finds ways to put this money
to the best possible use by building massive public
structures that best reflect the grandeur and
magnificence of Athens. Now legend has it that
Poseidon, god of the sea, and Athena, goddess of wisdom,
each came to the Acropolis to compete for the
patronage of the city. The outcome to be decided
by the inhabitants. Poseidon struck the
ground with his trident and up popped the spring. Athena struck the
ground with her spear and up came an olive tree,
which, not only suggested sustenance for the Greeks,
but a possible outlet for commercial venue. Thus Athena became the
patron goddess of the city. Over the centuries, there were
several temples to Athena, most of them destroyed. But we leave it to Pericles
to give the world the most remarkable piece of architecture
in all of Greek antiquity, the Parthenon. NARRATOR: Pericles decided
to rebuild the Parthenon on the Acropolis using
the crumbling foundations of an older Athenian temple. It would take thousands of
laborers and skilled craftsmen to create this
magnificent temple. And it would cost more than any
building the Greeks had ever engineered, 30 million drachmas. In our terms,
billions of dollars. LOTHAR HASELBERGER: That's an
amazing, an amazing amount. But keep in mind that was
a huge state enterprise. NARRATOR: Construction on the
gargantuan building project began in 447 BC. The Parthenon was to be about
2/3 the length of a football field. Its outer dimensions, 228
feet long by 101 feet wide. The first challenge was
to cleave the marble from a mountain
quarry 10 miles away. In all, about 30,000 tons
of the fine white stone would be needed. In the quarry, workers used
the natural cracks of the stone to separate giant marble
slabs from the mountainside. THEODOSIOS TASSIOS: The first
step is to locate these cracks and calculate if
this piece of marble is sufficient for
my specific purpose. The second step is to
put within these cracks, both horizontal cracks and
vertical cracks, wedges, iron wedges. Why? Because an enormous energy was
given by hammering all these wedges simultaneously. So that the brittleness
of the material makes further cracking. NARRATOR: Once the giant
slabs were ready, gangs of men used levers, ropes, and
pulleys to maneuver the marble and prepare the stone
for transportation to the Acropolis. But accidents often happened. THEODOSIOS TASSIOS: There
was an enormous risk that this big block would slide
further down, killing people underneath. NARRATOR: But cutting and
transporting the marble from the side of the mountain
was only half the battle in the construction
of the Parthenon. Engineers now had to
answer the question of how to lift these 10-ton
marble behemoths and erect the greatest temple
the world had ever seen. No medals were awarded
in the ancient Olympics. A winner received an
olive wreath on his head. July 447 BC, construction
began on a magnificent temple on the Athenian Acropolis. The Parthenon was the
vision of Pericles, a dynamic and ambitious
leader who would take Athens into a golden age never
before seen in ancient Greece. GEORGE ZARKADAKIS:
It was a statement. We are the most powerful city. We are the caldron of
democracy and free thinking. We have the best people. We have the best
army, the best navy. We are the leaders. NARRATOR: The Parthenon would
differ from most temples of the day, which consisted
of a hexa-style construction. Featuring six columns on
one end and 13 on the side. The Parthenon would be a
larger octa-style, with 8 by 17 columns. CHRISTOHPER RATTE: That makes
the building very different because they all have
basically the same proportions. When you make them larger, you
simply scale up everything. To make it wider was to
give it an extra dimension. NARRATOR: The columns
provide the main support for the structure. Each column consisted of 11
separate drums stacked one on top of the other
like checkers. They were carved so that
they would perfectly fit when laid together in a column. To do this, the top of
each drum was divided into four concentric circles,
with each ring either smoothed or roughed out, depending
on the amount of grip needed to interlock with the next drum. In the center of each drum,
masons cut a rectangular notch measuring about four to six
inches square and three to four inches deep. Carpenters then
inserted wooden plugs into the notches, which served
to align and center each drum with the one above it. The next challenge
was in lifting the enormously heavy
drums, especially those for the upper
sections of the columns. A single column of the Parthenon
could weigh between 63 and 119 tons. A crane is an
extremely simple device. You have just the boom and then
you have a series of pulleys, which, as we know, just give
you the possibility of taking up a weight of, say, 10 tonS by
pulling down only 100 kilos. NARRATOR: Engineers
attach the stone to the crane in one
of several ways. The method most often used
was to tie the end of the rope to the top part
of a metal S hook, fasten shorter ropes to
the bottom of the hook, and then loop these around small
protruding knobs called bosses that had been left
uncut from the marble for this very purpose. Typically, four bosses would
be left surrounding the drum or stone block, evenly
distributing the force needed to hoist the object. The walls enclosing
interior spaces had to be laid down
with extreme precision since the builders
did not use mortar. To hold the ends of
each block together, builders hollowed out the
ends in a double T design. Then iron rods were inserted
to clamp them together. After the columns and
blocks were put in place, the bosses used to lift them
were chipped off and smoothed over. There's a saying that
there are no straight lines in the Parthenon. Now what's meant by this
is that the architects incorporated a series of
sort of optical illusions when they built it. It starts with the stairs,
goes up to the columns, all the way up to the
top of the building, the pediment, that triangular
element at the top. So let's take a
look at the stairs. They seem to be
straight, but no. Closer look, they
bow in the center and they go back
down at the end. Now this conceit, if you
will, continues right up to the columns. This column is of the doric
order, there's no base. It seems to grow right
up out of the stone. Each column has 20 flutes,
which makes the columns sort of undulate as you look around it. And then the column
bows out in the center and bows back up at the top. This is a process
called entasis. CLAIRY PALYVOU: Such long
lines which are, more or less, at the level of your
horizon, tend to curve. So in order to
extinguish this effect, they curved them the other way. So the result, again, is more
harmonious than you see just being straight. Because if it was all straight,
perfect, right angles, then you will see it like that. NARRATOR: The
Parthenon's main function was to provide shelter for the
monumental statue of Athena. CHRISTOHPER RATTE: Parthenon
was an extremely expensive building. But the statue inside of
it was almost equal in cost to the building itself, if
not even more expensive. LOTHAR HASELBERGER: Athena's
statue was about 10, 11 meters high. That means 30 to 35 feet or so. And it was of the
materials gold and ivory. NARRATOR: Hundreds of sculptors
created lifelike figures that proved the craftsmanship wasn't
simply in the engineering. The most famous carving in
the declaration of the temple is the frieze running
on the interior walls of the Parthenon. It was carved in a low relief
just inches off the stone and depicts the
Panathenaia, a celebration to the goddess Athena held
in Athens every four years. CHRISTOHPER RATTE: What survives
on the side of the Parthenon today are the white marble
remains of the building. In antiquity, not only the
sculptures, but also many other parts of the building were
richly decorated with paint. NARRATOR: But not every
citizen was enthralled by the Parthenon. Some saw Pericles's pet
project as an Athenian eyesore and simply a monument
to his own glory. GEORGE ZARKADAKIS: Now many
athenians hated the Parthenon, the temples. They thought it was disgusting. They thought it was terrible. Plato didn't like it at all. For many Athenians, what they
saw in their holiest of holies, if you like, those new
buildings coming up. Buildings that had
incorporated novelties. Buildings that were making
the break from the past. NARRATOR: The whispers
of discontent in Athens weren't limited
to the Parthenon. As Pericles continued to
expand Athens's domination, his rivals began to
conspire against him. Soon, they lashed out and
attacked his close associates. At the top of the list was
an elegant and educated woman named Aspasia, a member of the
elite hetaerae social caste and Pericles' consort. Hetaerae were high
class courtesans, often compared for example to
geishas in Japanese culture. Hetaerae moved in
the top circles in Athenian and
Greek cultural life. NARRATOR: In classical
Athens, a woman's role lay under the dominion
of men, but as Aspasia was the exception to the rule. Pericles treated
Aspasia as an equal, and his consort quickly became
part of the Athenian elite. But they became a
well known couple, and to the sort of
astonishment and some scandal of the Athenian people, Pericles
was even to be seen actually kissing Aspasia publicly. And of course, public
displays of affection were not anything
that one expected to see in classical Athens. NARRATOR: By 432, after nearly
15 years of construction, the Parthenon was completed. This temple to Athena did
just what Pericles wanted. It advertised the power
of Athens to the world. Ironically, the supremacy
the Parthenon symbolized was already waning, and
Athens' longtime enemy Sparta was on the rise. Once Athens had established
this great alliance system, or as some people put
it, this Athenian Empire, and arguably that's
what it became, the Spartans began more
and more to look askance, as it were, at the Athenians,
and eventually, by the 430s, to feel threatened
by the Athenians. NARRATOR: In 431 BC,
Sparta moved on Athens. For two long years, Athens held
out against the Spartan siege, but Pericles' shining city
was about to come under attack by an invisible enemy. After a couple of years,
because of the overcrowding in the city of
Athens, disease that seems to have come
originally from the Near East attacked the Athenian people. It's known as the
Great Athenian plague. Large numbers of Athenians
died in this plague. NARRATOR: Pericles, now in his
early 60s, survived the plague, but was physically weakened
and bore the brunt of the blame for the city's misfortune. In 429, with plague and war
overshadowing his beloved city, Pericles died. The bloody and brutal conflict
between Athens and Sparta known as the Peloponnesian War
continued for another 25 years, until finally, in
404 BC, Athens fell. With the end of the
Peloponnesian War, the time of Pericles and the
dominance of Athens was over. Great marvels of Greek
culture and Greek engineering would live on, and the irony
was that the two men, the two purveyors of the fantastic
legacy of the Classical Age of Athens, were
not Athenians at all. The names of these two
men would be synonymous not only with conquest
but with Hellenism, the spreading of the Greek
ideal of culture and value throughout the world right
on up to our own modern day. These two men were
Philip II of Macedonia and his son, a man
who would be the envy of every single general and
emperor from Julius Caesar and Napoleon to George Patton,
a man who would traverse most of his known world in
his short 33 years, that student of Aristotle and
self-proclaimed god, Alexander the Great. I'm Peter Weller for
the History Channel.
