The Odeion of Pericles and the triumph of transience

Abstract Pericles’ Odeion, a renowned venue in Athens originally built in the second half of the fifth century BCE, accommodated poetic and musical competitions during the Panathenaia festival. Its design was said to mimic the military tent of the Persian king Xerxes. The present article offers a comprehensive, critical review of the Odeion’s cultural history. It traces how ancient authors described the building and how, since the 17th century, modern scholars have sought, excavated and interpreted it. In doing so, the article aims to show how, in the face of laconic and contradictory textual and archaeological records, the Odeion has received extraordinarily varied functions, reconstructions and interpretations. It argues that the building’s tent shape not only recalled the Greek defeat of the Persians, but also symbolized the triumph of transience.