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As we gaze on the ruins of the Parthenon as it was possible to see them at the time of Pericles, when it stood supreme, surrounded by other buildings, each an architectural masterpiece, what we see today is just the empty shell of the temple of Athena. ‘S more than a miracle that in a changing world has survived the test of time, fires, earthquakes, war and religious fanaticism, and that his honey-colored marble, softened by nearly 2,500 years of Athenian sun, still forms a link tangible with the past, reflecting the immortality of the human spirit.

While the Parthenon has been scrupulously respected by the Romans intolerance of the early Christians completely blinded them to the superlative beauty of Greek art, which saw only the evidence of paganism. During the first centuries of our era has been a common occurrence for Christians to maim or destroy completely priceless works of art.

After serving as the sanctuary of Athena for a thousand years, the Parthenon was essentially intact except for some repairs to the roof after a fire in the second century AD, when, in accordance with the edict of Emperor Theodosius concerning pagan temples was converted to Christian worship in the fifth century. The drastic structural changes involved in the transformation into the Byzantine church decorated with the Divine Wisdom (Hagia Sophia), later dedicated to the Virgin Mother of God (Theotokos) breached its beauty. To the east of the porch was largely destroyed to make way for an apse, the opisthodomos west became the entry and correct the Parthenon narthex. The partition between the empty cell and the proper Parthenon was pierced by three doors, interior columns were removed and replaced by a Byzantine colonnade, a vaulted roof replaced the coffered ceiling and walls covered with paintings. During alterations considerable damage was done to the sculptures, the birth of Athena represented in the eastern pediment was almost completely destroyed when the porch was pulled down.

In 1209 the first French king of Athens, Otto de la Roche, has adapted the Parthenon in Catholic worship and consecrated as the church of Sainte Marie in Athens. Later it was invaded in 1456 in Athens and the Parthenon was converted into use as a mosque, though fortunately without any further structural changes.

In 1674 the Marquis de Nointel, French ambassador to the Sublime Porte, was allowed to visit the Acropolis. Among the members of his entourage was the artist Jacques Carrey, who made a series of drawings of the Parthenon. These designs, four in number, are now in the National Library in Paris and is an invaluable record of the state of the sculpture at that time.

In 1676, the Acropolis was visited by two friends, the French physician Jacques Spon and Sir George Wheler, who were the last two travelers to see the Parthenon before it was severely damaged by fire in 1687. The book describes their journey to Italy, Dalmatia, Greece and Asia Minor appeared in 1678 and contained the first scientific description of the ruins of Athens.

On September 26, 1687 by a mortar shell crashed through the roof of the Parthenon Venetian, which the Ottomans used it as a powder. The tremendous explosion that followed, the naos, porch and fourteen columns of the peristyle were shattered. further violence has been done to the sculpture from the clumsy and unsuccessful attempt to lower Morosini chariot of Athena from the west pediment, Parthenon and the damage it even more when the Turks regained Athens the following year.

In 1787 the Count de Choiseul-Gouffier, French ambassador to the Sublime Porte, transported to Paris a part of the frieze of the exterior wall of the naos and two metopes, who had recovered from the mass of fallen masonry. Fourteen years after his example was followed, although on a scale infinitely larger, by Lord Elgin, British ambassador to Constantinople. Eighteen personality of the gables, almost half of the frieze and fifteen metopes of the Parthenon, one of the Caryatid Erechtheion and a column, some small pieces of sculpture from the Temple of Athena Nike, as well as a statue of Dionysos from choregic monument that Thrasyllus stood above the Theatre of Dionysus, were among two hundred and fifty precious marbles Elgin kidnapped Greek Acropolis and other places in Greece and sent to London between 1803 and 1812.

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