Pheidias, Sculptor to the Gods

Chryselephantine, they called it. An ivory and gold statue of Athena the Protectress, measuring at least 33 feet in height (10.1 meters), residing in Athens' Parthenon. Another colossal chryselephantine sculpture, this one of Olympian Zeus and counted among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, held court in the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, the site of the ancient pan-Hellenic Games. Plus at least three more ivory-and-gold statues and an unknown number of bronze works scattered throughout Greece. All the product of one man, the sculptor who noted on the foot of his Zeus, "Pheidias, the son of Charmides, the Athenian, made me."

Reknowned as a genius, benefactor and confidant of the greatest politician in Athenian history, despised by his inferior colleagues, and exiled by enemies, Pheidias, as perhaps no other man, embodies the beauty, wealth, and power of Athens in its golden age-- the time when it created the first European empire, gave birth to Western philosophy, became the first state in the history of mankind to practice democracy, and garnered hate from those who could not resist its power or deny its glory.

But Pheidias was not just a sculptor. He invented the method which made colossal chryselephantine works possible. And he became part of the Athenian propaganda machine, creating awe-inspiring works of splendor and grandeur by using gold stolen from his motherland's allies.