Camp J. The Archaeology of Athens

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thinking that the lecture was being

canceled. So it became necessary for

Alexander to come forward to give

his discourse before Herodes ar-

rived. (Philostratus, Vit. Soph. 2.5.4)

With the collapse and subsequent reuse of

the Odeion of Agrippa for lectures, there

would have been a need for the new

Odeion of Herodes. The restoration of the

Odeion of Agrippa included an elaborate

new facade, which was decorated with

huge piers in the form of colossal figures

of giants (with snaky tails) and tritons

(with fishy tails). Their torsos and some of

the heads are copies of the figures of Po-

seidon and Hephaistos in the Parthenon

pediments; it appears that artists had ac-

cess to the pediments, allowing them to

make drawings or casts at this time. Note

also that the small-scale copies of Parthenon pedimental figures used in Temple F at Eleu-

sis date to this same period.

Herodes served as archon at Athens and as consul at Rome and clearly spent time in

and owned properties in several places. We have no fewer than two hundred inscriptions

pertaining to his career or family. Not all his duties were onerous: he served as the presi-

dent of the Iobacchoi, a religious association in honor of Bacchos, god of wine. Their club-

house has been excavated in the valley west of the Acropolis; it is a large rectangular hall

measuring about 10 by 20 meters, with two smaller rooms adjoining. In its ruins was also

found a column which carries a long inscription (IG II

1368) preserving the minutes of the

meeting at which Herodes was elected president. The rules of the club are recorded and

make it clear that the proper worship of Bacchos required the membership to consume

large quantities of wine with some frequency. The regulations governing behavior at club

gatherings are accordingly reminiscent of those applying to a college fraternity:

218 ROMAN ATHENS

212

213

212. Giant from the facade of the rebuilt Odeion

of Agrippa, mid-2nd century a.d.

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

No Iobacchos who has not paid his contribu-

tions for the monthly and annual meetings

shall enter the gathering until the priests

have decided either that he must pay or that

he may be admitted. If anyone starts a fight

or is found acting disorderly or occupying the

seat of any other member or using insulting

or abusive language to anyone, the person so

abused or insulted shall produce two of the

Iobacchoi to state upon oath that they heard

him insulted or abused, and he who was

guilty of the insult or abuse shall pay to the

society 25 light drachmas.

One of Herodes’ private estates, in Kynouria, south

of Argos, has recently been excavated and has produced

a villa of extraordinary wealth in terms of mosaics, archi-

tecture, and sculptural adornment. In Attica, Herodes is

associated in particular with two demes: Kephisia and

Marathon. In Kephisia, parts of a villa have been found

together with inscriptions referring to Herodes, along

with a burial chamber with three marble sarcophagi

which seem to have been used by his friends or family.

These remains are only a small part of the luxurious es-

tate he maintained in the garden suburb of Kephisia; the Roman Aulus Gellius paints an

evocative picture of the rich lifestyle enjoyed there in the second century:

While we were students at Athens, Herodes Atticus, a man of consular rank and

true Greek eloquence, often invited me to his country houses near that city, in

company with the honorable Servilianus and several other of our countrymen

who had withdrawn from Rome to Greece in quest of culture. And there at that

time, while we were with him at the villa called Kephisia, both in the heat of

the summer and under the burning autumnal sun, we protected ourselves

Roman Athens 219

213. Rules of the Iobaccheion, presided over by Herodes Atticus,

ca. a.d. 170.

[To view this image, refer to

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against the trying temper-

ature by the shade of its

spacious groves, its long,

soft promenades, the cool

location of the house, its

elegant baths with their

abundance of sparkling

water, and the charm of

the villa as a whole, which

was everywhere melodi-

ous with splashing waters

and tuneful birds. (Attic

Nights 1.2.1–2)

Several monuments are

also associated with Herodes

in his home deme of Mara-

thon. Part of what seems to be his estate has been excavated on the seashore at the south

end of the plain. The remains include a large bathing establishment with a handsome

oval pool in the center. Nearby is a shrine of the Egyptian gods (Isis, Sarapis, and Anou-

bis), who were popular in Greece throughout the Hellenistic and Roman periods. The

foundations of a small podium temple survive, along with the enclosure wall and gate-

way. Two large Egyptian-style striding figures were found, together with a lintel block

decorated with a representation of a cobra. Portraits of Herodes and the imperial family

of Rome were found in the same area some two hundred years ago and are now in the

Louvre.

Other remains have been found farther inland on the plain. On a low ridge at the end

of the Avlon Valley, there is a long rubble wall enclosing a barren area with no view of the

sea: not prime real estate. Pottery and tiles litter the area, which was entered through a mar-

ble gateway. The gate takes the form of an arch, and inscriptions on either side inform us

that this is the “Gate of Immortal Harmony” and that everything on one side belongs to

Herodes and on the other to his wife, Regilla. The piers of the arch carry poems recording

220 ROMAN ATHENS

214

215

216

214. Bath and temple of the

Egyptian gods at Herodes’ estate

at Marathon, 2nd century a.d.

(Cf. fig. 47)

Herodes’ sorrow at the death of Regilla, and the gate-

way was once f lanked by two marble statues of seated

figures, presumably Herodes and Regilla.

Finally, at the deme of Oinoe, also part of the

plain of Marathon, there is an enigmatic marble build-

ing which may well have been the work of Herodes.

Only partially excavated, it is some sort of hydraulic es-

tablishment, drawing water from a nearby spring.

Large square piers and shallow rectangular basins or

dining couches form a series of bays which are sepa-

rated from the center of the building by thin parapets.

The whole installation is made of marble and carefully

built. It was probably the work of Herodes, though we

have no inscriptions or portraits to make the associa-

tion certain.

Around 178, according to Philostratus, Herodes

died at the age of about seventy-six, of a wast-

ing sickness. Though he expired at Mara-

thon and had left instructions to his freed-

men to bury him there, the Athenians

carried him away by the hands of the

ephebes and took him to the city; and every

age went out to meet the bier with tears and

cries, as would sons bereft of a good father.

They buried him in the Panathenaic sta-

dium. (Vit. Soph. 565–566)

Thus when Pausanias visited Athens, he de-

scribed a city at the height of its urban development,

full of famous old monuments next to magnificent

recent additions ref lecting the city’s role as the cul-

tural and educational center of the Mediterranean.

Adorned with handsome public buildings and filled

Roman Athens 221

215. Egyptianizing statue from Herodes’ estate at Marathon.

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

with philosophers and sophists

enjoying imperial favor, Athens

in the second century experi-

enced a period of well-being and

success unrivaled since the days

of Perikles.

222 ROMAN ATHENS

216. Fragment from the arch of the

Gate of Immortal Harmony, leading

into Regilla’s estate at Marathon, 2nd

century a.d.

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

Late Roman Athens

As the Roman Empire began its decline late in the second century

., Athens suf-

fered as well. Barbarian raids in Greece are attested to as early as the second century after

Christ, with an attack by the Costobocs mentioned by Pausanias (10.34.5) and in inscrip-

tions (IG II

3411 and 3639). Other invaders were in northern Greece by the 250s, and there

is a reference to repairs of the old circuit wall of the city during the reign of Valerian. Ath-

ens itself was first devastated during a raid by the Herulians in 267. Coming out of the

Black Sea and terrorizing Ionia and the Aegean islands, the Herulians completely de-

stroyed the lower city of Athens before they were eventually driven off by two thousand

Athenians under the command of the archon Herennios Dexippos. Dexippos himself

wrote an account of the invasion.

The archaeological evidence for the destruction is impressive. The extent of the dam-

age can be seen most clearly in the Agora, where many buildings were affected. The

Odeion of Agrippa, for instance, is first referred to in the excavation notebooks as “the

burnt building” from the heavy deposit of burned debris which covered the monument as

a result of the Herulian sack. The area of the Dipylon, the Metroon, the Stoa of Attalos, the

Middle Stoa, the temple of Ares, the Library of Hadrian, the Stoa of Eumenes, and numer-

ous private houses all show clear signs of the devastation. Less clear is the degree of dam-

age to the northwest part of the Agora and the great temples on the Acropolis.

The destruction completely altered the character of the city. The old, extensive The-

mistoklean circuit wall, appropriate when Athens was the most powerful city-state of

Greece in the fifth century

., made little sense when it was a small provincial university

223

town in the third century

., unable to maintain or garrison it. Within some fifteen to

twenty years after the Herulian invasion, the Athenians had laid out a new circuit on a

much more modest scale. The new wall started just outside the old Propylaia, where a sec-

ond gate was built, protected by two f lanking towers. It then followed the east side of the

Panathenaic Way down into the Agora, using the western stoa of the ruined Library of Pan-

tainos and the door-wall of the Stoa of Attalos for its line. At the north end of the Stoa of At-

talos it turned due east, incorporating the south wall of the Library of Hadrian. The library

enclosure projected beyond the northern line of the wall, perhaps as a separate fort. East of

the library the wall takes a jog to the south.

It has long been argued that the wall continued south, to hook up with the eastern end

of the Acropolis, but it now seems far more probable that it swung around the east end of

the Acropolis to enclose the area of the south slopes as well. The old Greek Agora was

clearly outside the circuit and no longer the center of town. The shattered remains of its

buildings were in fact reused as building material. Where the wall passes through the

Agora, it is composed almost entirely of architectural blocks, and the new gate of the Acrop-

olis is built in large part of the Doric elements of the choregic monument of Nikias. The

Late Roman Athens 225

217

218, 219

218. The post-Herulian wall where it passes along the east side of the Agora, with numerous reused

architectural blocks, including (extreme left) column drums from the “stoa” at Thorikos, ca. a.d. 282.

Opposite 217. Late Roman Athens, with the 3rd century a.d. wall as it runs north of the Acropolis.

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

wall is constructed of two good

faces of masonry with rubble

thrown in between; coins embed-

ded in the mortar indicate that

construction was begun in the

reign of Probus (276–282) and

suggest some delay in refortifying

the city after 267.

An inscription records that

some sections of the wall were

paid for by private contributions:

As Amphion raised the

walls of Thebes with the

music of his kithara, so now

do I, Illyrios, follower of the

sweet-voiced Muse, build the

walls of my home city. (IG

5199)

Much of the archaeological evidence for the late Roman city lies unexplored to the

east, hidden under the modern buildings of Plaka, and we have only indirect evidence from

such peripheral areas as the old Greek Agora and the Kerameikos. The literary sources in-

dicate one important fact for the economy of the city: the philosophical and rhetorical

schools continued to f lourish and to draw scholars and students from all over the Mediter-

ranean. The city’s relative prosperity and reputation are referred to in a passage written

around 359:

Corinth is very active in commerce and has an outstanding structure of an am-

phitheater. Athens has the centers of higher learning and ancient historical

monuments and something worthy of special mention, the Acropolis, where by

means of so many standing statues it is wonderful to see a so-called war of

226 LATE ROMAN ATHENS

219. Post-Herulian gate to the

Acropolis (late 3rd century a.d.), with

the reused Doric entablature of the

Nikias monument (320/19 b.c.).

[To view this image, refer to

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the ancients. (Expositio

totius mundi et gentium,

52)

This picture is borne out by the

evidence of numerous sub-

stantial villas built on the north

slopes of the Areopagos and on

the south slopes of the Acrop-

olis. These are large, well-

appointed establishments, with

marble peristyles, private baths,

mosaic f loors, and collections

of earlier sculpture. One might

Late Roman Athens 227

220, 221

221. Reconstruction of the philosophical school.

220. Plan of a philosophical

school(?) on the slopes of the

Areopagos, 4th to 6th century a.d.

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