Camp J. The Archaeology of Athens

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mation on the monuments and topography of the city. About 150 the traveler Pausanias vis-

ited Greece and wrote a detailed guidebook, describing buildings while they were still in

use. His tour of Athens is the single most important source we possess for a study of the an-

cient monuments.

Numerous other authors provide passing references to many of the buildings in the

city; this volume draws on no fewer than thirty-five ancient writers to help tell the story of

Athens. In addition, the Athenians had a tradition of recording tremendous amounts of in-

formation on stone: laws, treaties, public honors, dedications, epitaphs, financial transac-

tions, and inventories of all sorts. Well over twenty thousand inscriptions survive from

Athens, a source of information unparalleled anywhere else in the Greek world. All these

voices from the past supplement the archaeological record and help us determine who

built a given structure, when, and why. This book includes dozens of passages in transla-

tion to allow the reader easy access to the variety and richness of the documentary and lit-

erary evidence.

Like time, archaeological investigation marches on. It has been twenty-five years

since the last general account in English of the archaeology of Athens appeared, and many

recent discoveries and a large body of additional research are now available for considera-

tion. Since 1975 claims have been offered for the discovery of the Painted Stoa (from which

Stoic philosophy took its name), the Demosion Sema (the public burial ground for war ca-

sualties where Perikles delivered his Funeral Oration), and the Lyceum (the gymnasium

where Aristotle founded his school). In Attica, we now have reports of the arsenal in

Peiraieus, which housed the equipment of the mighty Athenian f leet, the tomb of the Plata-

ians who fought and died with the Athenians on the Plain of Marathon in 490

., and the

cave on Salamis where Euripides wrote his tragedies.

The excavations to build the new Athenian Metro throughout the 1990s have brought

to light several thousand objects, including hundreds of graves and inscribed or sculpted

grave markers. To these new discoveries can be added fresh insights on old monuments,

continually being subjected to investigation by an array of scholars devoted to the antiqui-

ties of Athens. Among these groups, though not limited to them, one thinks of the team at

work restoring the Acropolis monuments, the staff of the first, second, and third Ephoreias

of Classical Antiquities, members of the Archaeological Society, the faculty of the Univer-

sity of Athens, the German excavators of the Kerameikos, and the American excavators of

the Agora. Given the pace and huge volume of scholarly activity, a new overview should be

welcome whenever someone musters the energy to present one.

My own qualifications to do so have more to do with time and interest than ability. It

has been my good fortune to have excavated and lectured in Athens for more than thirty

years. I have taught the monuments at all levels: to casual visitors from abroad, to local so-

x PREFACE

cial and business clubs, to undergraduates at College Year in Athens, and to the highly

trained graduate students of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. I have

learned from all of these audiences, and much of this volume represents the results of re-

search done preparing those lectures or comes from discussions with colleagues and stu-

dents.

In my formal academic training I benefited from the expert instruction of Sterling

Dow (Harvard), T. Leslie Shear, Jr., Homer A. Thompson (Princeton), and Eugene Vander-

pool (American School of Classical Studies). In Athens, dozens of colleagues have enlight-

ened me in numerous ways, and it is a pleasure to record here my debt to, among others, A.

L. Boegehold, F. Cooper, D. Giraud, I. Jenkins, M. Korres, J. Kroll, M. Langdon, A. Mantis,

M. M. Miles, S. Miller, S. Rotroff, R. Stroud, A. Tanoulas, A. Walker, and S. Walker. Among

departed friends W. B. Dinsmoor, Jr., Alison Frantz, Virginia Grace, Lucy Talcott, and John

Travlos greatly added to my store of knowledge of things Athenian. Two Greek colleagues,

to my mind, deserve special mention for their contributions to Athenian studies: M. Korres

for his work on the Acropolis and B. Petrakos for his unparalleled presentation of Oropos,

Marathon, and Rhamnous. The final word of appreciation and admiration is reserved for a

scholar who has toiled ceaselessly for decades to unravel and share the complexities of

Athenian scholarship both ancient and modern, Judith Binder.

No volume of this scope can be free of errors or poor choices of interpretation. Several

colleagues have labored to eliminate at least some of its infelicities, and I am indebted to

J. Binder, R. Holloway, M. B. Richardson, H. C. Stroud, and R. Stroud for reading the book

in manuscript. They are in no way responsible for the errors which remain.

At Yale University Press I would like to thank editor Harry Haskell and manuscript

editor Susan Laity for their work in seeing the volume through production.

This book is dedicated to my wife, Elizabeth Ann Fisher, who has contributed to its

creation in every way imaginable, both direct and indirect. My hours spent in the library or

in the field were possible only through her unselfish devotion and care for both me and our

family, often at the expense of her own career.

The text is enlivened by numerous images drawn from a variety of sources. I am in-

debted to the following for their considerable help in providing photographs and for per-

mission to reproduce them: Craig Mauzy, Kyriaki Moustaka, and Jan Jordan of the Agora

Excavations at the Stoa of Attalos; Marie Mauzy, photo archivist of the American School of

Classical Studies and curator of the Alison Frantz collection; Hans Rupprecht Goette,

photo archivist at the Deutsches Archäologische Institut; and Mrs. I. Ninou and B. Pe-

trakos of the Archaeological Society of Athens. I am indebted also to Peter Connolly for per-

mission to reproduce many of his excellent watercolors of the ancient city.

There are two main approaches to an account of the monuments of Athens, topo-

Preface xi

graphical or chronological. Because the city developed over both time and space, either pre-

sentation should be acceptable. Most previous works have presented Athens monument by

monument (J. Travlos, Pictorial Dictionary of Athens [1971]) or in topographical order (I. T.

Hill, The Ancient City of Athens [1953]; W. Judeich, Topographie von Athen [1931]; R. E.

Wycherley, The Stones of Athens [1976]). For a change, therefore, I offer in Part I a descrip-

tive narrative of the monuments in their historical context, an account which makes up the

larger part of this volume. To assist the reader, however, I have supplied cross references to

other discussions of the monuments in question. I also include the monuments of Attica in

the discussion; they are an inseparable part of the story of the archaeology and history of an-

cient Athens. Part II, “Site Summaries,” is presented topographically to pick up loose ends,

present the monuments in their physical context, discuss antiquities or aspects not covered

in the narrative account, and provide notes and bibliography. So that each part can be read

independently I have retained some degree of overlap or repetition.

Ancient authors, often quoted in translation, are cited throughout the text, as are ref-

erences to relevant inscriptions, usually cited as IG for Inscriptiones Graecae, 2d or 3d eds.;

they are there to provide both students and nonspecialists access to our principal sources of

information on any given monument. In these translations I have retained the ancient ref-

erences to measurements in feet, which correspond roughly to the modern English mea-

surements (1 foot is roughly 0.3 meters). Acceptable consistency in the transliteration of

Greek names into English has proved awkward or elusive, and in each case I have chosen

whichever form makes the best sense to me. The dedicatory inscriptions on the buildings

at Labraunda give the proper spelling of Maussollos’ name, just as the silver coins minted

under his authority tell us how Mithradates preferred to have his name written.

The translations in this book are taken (with occasional minor updating) from the

Loeb edition (Cambridge: Harvard University Press).

xii PREFACE

THE MONUMENTS OF ATHENS

Introduction

The Physical Setting

Ancient Athens consisted of the city itself and the large triangular peninsula known

as Attica, which juts southward into the Aegean Sea. In antiquity Attica was settled with nu-

merous villages and towns (demes), whose inhabitants were full citizens of the Athenian

state. The city of Athens sits on a large coastal plain in northwest Attica, surrounded by

mountains. Running through the plain in a northeast-southwest orientation is a long lime-

stone ridge. Near its southwest end, this ridge comprises the Acropolis, a steep-sided, free-

standing crag which became the citadel and primary sanctuary of the Classical city. The

ridge ends at the southwest in two hills west of the Acropolis, the Mouseion (modern

Philopappos Hill) and the Hill of the Nymphs, with the Pnyx lying between them. It also

continues northeast of the Acropolis, for the most part lying outside the limits of the an-

cient city; the highest point, a conical peak which reaches 273 meters above sea level, is

known as Lykabettos, now a clear reference point rising above the sprawling modern city;

beyond, the ridge continues northeast as modern Tourkovouni (ancient Brilessos or An-

chesmos).

The Classical city of Athens developed around the Acropolis, which served both as the

principal sanctuary and as a fortified place of refuge. Numerous other sanctuaries were es-

tablished around the base of the hill (see figs. 239–242). Beyond, a circuit wall 6.5 kilome-

ters in length enclosed the lower city. On gently sloping ground to the northwest lay the

Agora, the great open square which served as the civic center and central marketplace

(see figs. 243–245). Around its sides were clustered the major public buildings needed to

run the city on a day-to-day basis: senate house, archives, magistrates’ offices, law courts,

2, 3

1. Plan of the ancient city of Athens.

2. The Acropolis seen from the Mouseion, with Tourkovouni visible in the left background.

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

bureau of standards, mint, and the like. Just to the east lay the center of town in the Roman

period, represented by the Roman Agora and a great building containing a library donated

by the emperor Hadrian. Some 500 meters to the northwest of the Classical Agora was an

area known as the Kerameikos (potters’ quarter; see fig. 246). Here a long section of the city

wall has been found, together with two of the principal gates: the Dipylon (double gate) and

the Sacred Gate. The roads just outside these gates were lined with tombs, and the Ker-

ameikos area served as the most prestigious, though by no means the only, cemetery of the

city.

Moving counter-clockwise within the city walls, we next encounter the ridge west of

the Acropolis which carried the Pnyx (see figs. 127, 148), the great theatral area cut from the

rock to serve as the meeting place of all the Athenians when they gathered in the assembly

(ekklesia). East of the Pnyx a rocky outrunner of the Acropolis rises up. Here was the origi-

nal meeting place of a council of elders which took its name from the hill: Areopagos (Hill

The Physical Setting 5

3. Classical Athens seen from the northwest. (Watercolor by Peter Connolly)

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

of Ares). The area to the southeast of the Acropolis was occupied by the largest temple of

Athens, the Olympieion, which was dedicated to Zeus. Individual monuments have been

excavated elsewhere, but for the most part the rest of ancient Athens lies buried under the

modern town. Outside the city walls were the three great gymnasia of Athens: the Academy,

the Lyceum, and Kynosarges. The port of Athens, Peiraieus, lies 7 kilometers away toward

the west, a low rocky peninsula with three well-protected, deep natural harbors: Mouny-

chia, Zea, and Kantharos (see fig. 260). These sheltered the great Athenian f leet, as well as

providing space for the huge volume of sea trade. Just beyond the Peiraieus lies the island

of Salamis, an Athenian dependency for much of antiquity.

6 INTRODUCTION

4. The Agora and Athens from the west. The Hephaisteion is at the left, with the Stoa of Attalos in the

center, and (left to right) Mount Pentele, Lykabettos, and Mount Hymettos.

Opposite 5. Athens and the Peiraieus, seen from the southwest, with the long walls connecting them. In

the center is the Kephisos River, which is joined by the Eridanos River from Athens; the Ilissos River is at

the right, paralleling the course of the separate long wall to Phaleron Bay. (Watercolor by Peter Connolly)

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

Three rivers pass through the plain, the two biggest lying beyond the limits of the an-

cient city. To the north, the Kephisos River rises in the foothills of Mount Parnes and makes

its way, for 27 kilometers, to the sea at Phaleron. To the south, the Ilissos winds along the

foot of Mount Hymettos to the southeast of Athens. Between them, the Eridanos rises on

the slopes of Lykabettos Hill and f lows north of the Acropolis, passing through the Agora.

It continues northwestward, exiting the city through the Sacred Gate, and disappears un-

derground several hundred meters farther on, at the edge of the present German excava-

tions of the Kerameikos. From that point it made its way to the sea. It was canalized by the

mid-fifth century

. for much of its length where it passed through the city. Ancient

sources indicate that pollution was a problem even in antiquity:

In his Collection of Rivers, Kallimachos says that it makes him laugh if anyone

makes bold to write that the Athenian maidens “draw pure liquid from the Eri-

danos,” from which even cattle would hold aloof. (Strabo 9.1.19)

The Physical Setting 7

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]