It is perhaps this
portrait of which copies have come down to us. The best of these
is given in Fig 131. The features are, we may believe, the
authentic features of Pericles, somewhat idealized, according to
the custom of portraiture in this age. The helmet characterizes
the wearer as general.
The artistic activity in Athens did not cease with the outbreak of
the Peloponnesian War in 431. The city was full of sculptors, many
of whom had come directly under the influence of Phidias, and they
were not left idle. The demand from private individuals for votive
sculptures and funeral reliefs must indeed have been abated, but
was not extinguished; and in the intervals of the protracted war
the state undertook important enterprises with an undaunted
spirit. It is to this period that the Erechtheum probably belongs
(420?-408), though all that we certainly know is that the building
was nearly finished some time before 409 and that the work was
resumed in that year. The temple had a sculptured frieze of which
fragments are extant, but these are far surpassed in interest by
the Caryatides of the southern porch (Fig.
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