Work on the Acropolis started at the beginning of the 460s B.C.. Up to that time, there had been no attempt to remove the ruins of earlier structures. They stayed there, as a reminder of Persian atrocities, since that was what all the Greeks had sworn to at Plataea. Once the area had been cleaned up, there was limited restoration work, to meet the immediate needs of religion. But the decision to build a great temple had evidently already been taken, and had been agreed to by all the political groupings in Athens. The start of work on the Parthenon came at the same time as a decision to transfer to the Acropolis funds amounting to 5000 talents from the Alliance treasury at Delos. As soon as the Parthenon (though not its decorative sculpture) was complete, work started on the Propylaea and the buttress on which the temple of Athena Nike was to stand. Once the temple was finished (not long after the Peace of Nicias), work started on the Erechtheum, which had been completed by the end of the Peloponnesian War.

At the same time as these major building works on the Acropolis were in progress, there were other smaller-scale operations, such as the remodelling of the frontage of the building north of the Propylaea and the layout of the area in front of the temple of Artemis of Brauron. There was also a new entrance to the area in front of the Chalcotheke, the storeroom for bronzes. This was a long large building with a portico. In it were stored bronze offerings to Athena. Lastly, the little precinct of Zeus Polieus was redesigned and the Garth of Pandion was rebuilt from scratch.