But a priesthood, as a rule, was a political office like any other magistracy, and there was no exclusive tradition in the case of the chief cults of any Greek state to keep the point of view of the priests different from that of the people generally.

The tendency of state religion was, as a rule, conservative, for reasons that we have already noticed; innovations in the matter of ritual are dangerous, for the new rite may not please the gods as well as the old; and the same feeling applies to the statues that form the centres of ritual.

Pericles, for example, doubtless wished to make the Athena Parthenos of Phidias the official and visible representation of the goddess of Athens, and thereby to raise the religious ideals of the Athenians.

In this last part of his attempt he was successful; the statue became the pride and glory of the city in its fitting shrine, the Parthenon; but the old image was still preserved in the temple of Athena Polias, and remained the official centre of worship.

We are not told that Pericles meant to supersede it; but it is very probable that he intended to do so, and was only prevented by the religious conservatism that curtailed other plans of his for the beautifying of the Acropolis.