The story of Parthenon

Above you rises the Parthenon, the temple of Athena and a lasting symbol of ancient Greece and of democracy. It was built in thanksgiving for the Greek victory over the Persians: construction began in 447 BC, when the Delian League was at the height of its power, and the building was completed in 438 BC, though work on its sculptures continued until 432 BC. It also served as the city's treasury.

Its later history is long: in the last decade of the sixth century AD it became a church of the Virgin Mary, and after the Ottoman conquest in the fifteenth century it became a mosque. In 1687, during the Venetian siege, a bomb hit the gunpowder the Ottomans had stored inside, and the explosion badly damaged the temple. Between 1800 and 1803 Lord Elgin removed many of the surviving sculptures to England.

Restoration has continued since 1975. Walk slowly around it and take in the proportions that ancient writers praised for their beauty.