Phidias (Gr. Pheidias), the greatest sculptor of ancient Greece, was born the son of Charmides, at Athens about 500 B.C. His instructor in sculpture was Ageladas of Argos. To Phidias came an opportunity such as falls to the lot of few artists: Pericles, having risen to the head of affairs in the Athenian state, resolved to adorn the city with temples and other public buildings fitting for the vanquisher of Persia, and he not only gave to Phidias a commission to execute the more splendid statues that were to be erected, but made him general superintendent of all the public works planned for the city. Plutarch tells us that Phidias had under him architects, statnaries, workers in copper and bronze, stonecutters, gold and ivory beaters, &c. He constructed the Propylæa and the Parthenon, the sculptured ornaments of which were executed under his direct superintendence, while the statue of the goddess Athena, of ivory and gold, was the work of Phidias himself. Fragments of the metopes, frieze, and pediments of the Parthenon were carried to England by Lord Elgin (see ELGIN MARBLES). Phidias executed a colossal statue of Zeus for the Olympieum at Olympia (q.v.), also of ivory and gold; this was reckoned his masterpiece. Accused of having appropriated to himself some portion of the gold destined for the robe of Athena, and of impiety in having introduced his own likeness and that of Pericles on the shield of the goddess, he was thrown into prison, and died there about 432 B.C., but whether of sickness or poison is uncertain. Other works by his hand were a statue of Aphrodite at Elis, of gold and ivory, a colossal bronze figure of Athena Promachos on the Acropolis at Athens, a gilt colossal Athena at Platæa, a monument of the victory of Marathon at Delphi, and numerous others. Their prevailing characteristic appears to have been an ideal sublimity, and even the imperfect relics that we possess are the most noble specimens of sculpture in the world. In 1888 there was dug out at Tanagra a red vase bearing what was believed to be the signature of Phidias. See SCULPTURE.
See A. S. Murray, Greek Sculpture (1880); C. Waldstein, Essays on the Art of Phidias (Camb. 1885); and Collignon, Phidias (Paris, 1886).