Temple of Nike Apteros

The temple was built in 427-424 b.c. according to the project of the architect Kallikrates. The temple of Niki Aptheros has survived to this day, originally the temple was wooden, but was destroyed during the Persian invasion, but the altar was preserved. During the time of Kimon in the middle of the 5th century b.c. the temple was rebuilt in stone. Modest in size, the temple was considered one of the most elegant and beautiful. During the Christian era, statues of gods were removed from the facades, bright colors were erased and the temple was turned into a church. The Christians were replaced by the Turks, who turned the temple of Niki Aptheros into a mosque, and continued further by the Venetians, who began to dismantle the temple piece by piece to build fortifications out of marble, and melted lead fasteners into cannonballs and bullets. Fortunately, the Greeks were able to persuade the invaders to leave the temple alone and use other materials. Nevertheless, during this time the temple was seriously damaged. In 1935, the temple was dismantled due to the threat of collapse and dismantled only temporarily to strengthen the slope and reassemble it, replacing the missing blocks with new ones. The temple received its present appearance only in the early 2000s.