Classical Greece
In the Greek city-states the temple took its classical form: a room for the image of the god, surrounded by columns under a pitched roof and built according to the Doric or the Ionic order.
After the Persian Wars Pericles had the Acropolis in Athens rebuilt. The Parthenon, built in 447–432 BC by Ictinus and Callicrates with Phidias in charge of the sculpture, is a Doric marble temple in which almost no line is perfectly straight: the floor curves gently upwards and the columns lean slightly inwards. In the following decades the Propylaea, the gateway to the rock, and the Erechtheion were built, where female figures, caryatids, carry the roof of a porch.
The Temple of Hephaestus by the agora in Athens is one of the best-preserved Greek temples. The Temple of Apollo at Bassae, in the mountains of the Peloponnese, has the earliest known Corinthian column. The theatre at Epidaurus from the 4th century BC seats about 14,000 spectators and is famous for its acoustics.