What the ancient sources say
Almost everything we know comes from three short passages. The fullest is in Plutarch’s Life of Pericles, written about five centuries later. Describing the building programme of Perikles, he calls Pheidias the general manager and overseer of everything, though the single works had great architects of their own. For the Parthenon, with its cella a hundred feet long, he names Callicrates and Ictinus. That is all he says about the temple’s design.
Two other writers add a little. The Roman architect Vitruvius, in the first century BCE, lists Ictinus with a certain Carpion as authors of a book on the Doric temple of Minerva, the Roman name for Athena, on the Acropolis. The travel writer Pausanias names Ictinus as the architect who built the Parthenon for the Athenians, while describing another of his temples in Arcadia. None of the three explains who drew the plan, who ran the site, or who decided the details.
Iktinos: the writer and the temple builder
Iktinos is the better documented of the two, mostly thanks to his other buildings. At Eleusis, near Athens, he built the cella of the sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone: Vitruvius calls it of extraordinary size, in the Doric manner and without columns on the outside. Plutarch, for his part, names other architects for the hall of the Mysteries at Eleusis: Koroibos began it, Metagenes raised the frieze and upper columns after his death, and Xenokles set the lantern over the shrine. The building was the work of several men over time.
In the mountains of Arcadia, at Bassae near Phigalia, Iktinos designed the temple of Apollo Epikourios, Apollo the Helper, now a World Heritage Site. And with Carpion he wrote about the Parthenon itself, a book that has not survived.
Kallikrates: walls and a small temple
Kallikrates appears in different jobs. Plutarch names him as the contractor for a long wall, one of the fortified walls that joined Athens to its harbour, which Perikles had proposed. On the Acropolis he is the architect of the Temple of Athena Nike, a small Ionic temple of about 425 BCE. So within a few decades the same man worked on a city wall, a Doric temple and an Ionic one.
So who did what?
Nobody knows for sure. Modern writers have proposed different divisions of labour, but these are guesses from their other careers. The ancient texts present the two as a pair. The Parthenon was also a team effort on a large scale: Pheidias oversaw the programme under Perikles, and teams of masons and sculptors built it in nine years.
The same programme employed other architects. Mnesikles built the Propylaia, the gateway of the Acropolis, in five years, and the Erechtheion followed in 421-406 BCE. Together with the other buildings on the rock, the Parthenon was one piece of a single project.
Where to see their work
The Parthenon and the Temple of Athena Nike stand on the Acropolis of Athens. The remains of the Telesterion, the hall of the Mysteries, are in the archaeological site of Eleusis, west of Athens. The temple at Bassae is in Arcadia, in the Peloponnese. Check opening times before you go.
Sources
- Plutarch, Life of Pericles 13.4-7, trans. B. Perrin (LacusCurtius, University of Chicago).
- Vitruvius, On Architecture 7, preface 12 and 16, trans. M. H. Morgan (LacusCurtius).
- Pausanias, Description of Greece 8.41.7-9, trans. W. H. S. Jones (Perseus Digital Library).
- Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports, Odysseus: Parthenon; Temple of Athena Nike; Erechtheion.
