The Athenians largely did not pay for the Parthenon.
The Athenians of old could teach a few things to our savvy business and building developers of today. The Parthenon, for all of its glory and importance to Athens, was not actually paid for by the Athenian Empire despite being at its peak during these years. Instead, Athens had extracted various amounts of money from various city states under Athen’s protection during this time. These tributes were extracted and then used to fund the completion of the Parthenon. While Athens is notable, most people don’t realize just how powerful they empire was during this time. The Athenian Empire had just gotten done defeating the Persians and things were on the up and up.
The Athenians largely did not pay for the Parthenon
Transportation was the biggest expense when building the Parthenon.
Things were much different back then when it came time to construct a building of this size. Of course we use different materials now and we have the conveniences of modern man, but there was more to it than that. Scholars have amazingly found historical documents that detail the expenses that the Athenian Empire had to balance while building the Parthenon. As it turns out, the largest expense that they ever recorded involved the transferring of stone from Mt. Pentlicus to the Acropolis. The distance that this stone had to travel: 16 km or roughly 9.5 miles. Imagine moving all the stone needed to build the Parthenon with nothing but carts and the labor of workers. No trucks, no planes, no advanced technology.
The-Parthenon
