Note 103.1 — Chapter IV · THE THIRD PERIOD, 500-338 B.C.

Apart from this special fact, a phenomenon so momentous in the spiritual world as the flowering of this religious art in the fifth century claims prominent notice even in the slightest sketch of the whole history of Greek religion; for it must have worked an effect which no student of insight would be tempted to belittle upon the religious mood and thought of the people. Greek records sufficiently attest its religious working; even the alien Roman, Æmilius Paulus, when he approached the Pheidian masterpiece of Zeus Olympios felt the thrill of the ‘real presence’103.1; when Aristophanes fervently calls on Athena as “the Maiden who holdeth our city in her hand and alone hath visible power and might and is called the Warder of the Gate,”103.2 he is thinking of the bronze statue carved by Pheidias and set to guard the entrance to the Akropolis.