Page:The story of Greece told to boys and girls.djvu/244

 The roof of the Odeon was pointed like a tent, and was made of the masts of ships that had been captured from the Persians.

This pointed roof was said by the wits of Athens to be like the helmet of Pericles, whose head was curiously formed, and who often wore a helmet to conceal its strange shape.

'Here comes Pericles,' says a comic poet of those days, 'with the Odeon set on his crown.'

Another great statue of Athene, called Athene Promachos, or Athena Foremost in Battle, stood just within the Propylaea. It was wrought in bronze and showed Athene in armour, holding shield and spear outstretched. This statue, also by Pheidias, was fifty feet high and stood on a pedestal that raised it twenty feet higher, so that it towered above the roofs of the temples. The golden plume on the helmet of the goddess was seen by sailors far out at sea.

With these and many other great works of art, Pericles adorned the city of his love. The Acropolis he said should be no longer a fortress, but a sanctuary.

Some of the Athenians, among them Thucydides, grumbled because Pericles spent the public money on these beautiful buildings.

Pericles heard that the citizens were discontented, and in the open assembly he rose and bade them tell him if they thought he used more money than he ought, to adorn the city.

'Too much a great deal,' was the speedy retort.

'Then,' said Pericles, 'since it is so, let the cost not go to your account but to mine, and let the inscriptions upon the buildings stand in my name.'

But the people, surprised at his generosity, and perhaps wishing to share in the glory of his work, were ashamed that they had complained. They bade him spend as much of the public money as he deemed right and 'spare no cost until all was finished.'

In 479 the Persians had reduced Athens to ruins.