Phidias

About Phidias

Phidias, active in the mid-5th century BCE, was one of the most celebrated sculptors of classical antiquity, chiefly renowned for his monumental chryselephantine statues, particularly the massive Statue of Zeus at Olympia, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. His artistry defined the High Classical style in Greek sculpture, influencing subsequent generations of artists across the Mediterranean. MIT’s Pantheon project recognizes this profound, enduring cultural footprint by ranking him #713 in historical importance.

Despite this high historical ranking, Phidias currently suffers from a significant internet attention gap. His 2025 annualized Wikipedia pageviews stand at just 97K, resulting in an underattention score of -3x relative to his historical influence. To contextualize this, he receives notably less modern attention than figures from the same ancient period, such as Darius III (#954 importance) who garners 272K views, and even less than the slightly less important Tomyris (#983 importance) with 201K views. This suggests that his monumental historical achievements are not translating into comparable online search traffic in the modern era.

While his overall interest is low, Phidias shows a modest Year-over-Year change of +2.8%, indicating a very slight uptick in visibility. However, his 2025 Momentum data shows a sharp decline of -18% between Q1 and Q3, suggesting any recent interest is waning.