Callicrates

Callicrates was an Athenian architect active in the mid-5th century BCE; his birth and death dates are unknown. With Ictinus he was architect of the Parthenon on the Acropolis of Athens, begun in 447 BCE and largely complete by 432 BCE, while the sculptor Phidias directed its sculpture. Inscriptions name him as architect of the sanctuary of Athena Nike and of work on the Acropolis wall, and Plutarch records that he was contracted to build the middle of the three Long Walls joining Athens to its port at Piraeus.

The Parthenon is a Doric temple (the Greek order with plain, cushion-shaped column tops) built of marble from Mount Pentelicus. It has eight columns across each end and seventeen along each side, where most mainland Greek temples had six across the ends. Its builders added small corrections for the eye: the platform rises about 10 cm at the center over 70 meters, and the columns swell slightly before narrowing toward the top.

The Temple of Athena Nike (about 420 BCE) is a small Ionic temple, with scroll-shaped column tops, 8 by 5.5 meters, with a porch of four columns at each end. It stands on a bastion at the southwest corner of the Acropolis. Ottoman forces took it apart in 1686, and it was reassembled in 1834.