Camp J. The Archaeology of Athens
Подождите немного. Документ загружается.
Cave of Pan
Weller, C., et al. “The Cave at Vari.” AJA 7 (1903), pp. 263–349.
Wickens, J. “The Archaeology and History of Cave Use in Attica.” Ph.D. diss., Indiana Uni-
versity, 1986. Pp. 90–121.
Cemetery at Vari
Kallipolitis, B. Arch. Delt. 18 (1963), A⬘, pp. 115–132.
Papaspyridi-Karouzou, S. jAggei
±
a tou
±
jAnagurou
±
ntoı. Athens, 1963.
Theater at Euonymon
Alexandri-Tsakou, O. Praktika (1980), pp. 65–67.
318 SITE SUMMARIES
319
Border Areas
ELEUTHERAI
DESCRIPTION, HISTORY, AND SIGNIFICANCE
The town of Eleutherai lay on the northwest frontier of Athens (see fig. 146). At times
it belonged to Boiotia and at times to Athens, according to both Strabo and Pausanias:
Eleutherai is nearby, which some say belongs to Attica, others to Boiotia. (Strabo
9.2.31)
Beyond Eleusis, in the direction of Boiotia, the Athenian territory marches with
the Plataian. Formerly Eleutherai was the limit of Boiotia on the side of Attica,
but when the Eleutherians cast in their lot with Athens, Kithairon became the
boundary of Boiotia. The accession of Eleutherai to Athens was the result not of
conquest but partly of a desire to share the Athenian citizenship and partly of a
hatred of Thebes. In this plain there is a temple of Dionysos; it was from here
that the old wooden image was brought to Athens. The image now in Eleutherai
is a copy of it. (Pausanias 1.38.8–9)
The status of Eleutherai at any one period is by no means clear. It seems likely that the Athe-
nians had control late in the sixth century b.c., after they defeated the Boiotians in 506. It
would be about this time also that the worship of Dionysos Eleuthereus was imported to
Athens. There was no known attempt to include Eleutherai in the political structure of
Athens, however, and it never became a deme. In the fifth century, a man from Eleutherai
appears on an Athenian casualty list (IG I
3
1162), but otherwise the little evidence we have
suggests that it was under the control of Boiotia. Myron, the sculptor of the famous fifth-
century statue of the discus-thrower, was from Eleutherai and is referred to by Polemon,
writing in the second century b.c., as a Boiotian. In addition, a great deal of fifth-century
Boiotian pottery has been found on the site, including an incised dedication to Herakles in
Boiotian dialect. The town may well have passed back and forth more than once, as is the
case with Oropos on the northeast frontier.
The site is strategically located, on the principal pass leading north–south between
Mount Parnes and Mount Kithairon. Anyone passing from northern Greece to the Pelo-
ponnese had to come through this pass, and the town was on the main route from Athens
to Plataia. By the early fourth century the steep hill had been provided with a five-room
blockhouse with thick walls built in a polygonal style of masonry. Somewhat later, a proper
circuit wall was built, enclosing an area measuring roughly 100 meters north–south by 275
meters east–west. Well-built gates opened toward both the northwest and southeast. The
northwest gate bears a battered inscription indicating that it led out toward Plataia, which
indeed it does. A good long stretch of the northern wall stands well preserved, with square
towers every 30 meters or so.
The fort features in discussions of the defenses of Attica, though a case can be
made that it is actually Boiotian, built when Epaminondas led the Thebans to the hege-
mony of Greece between 371 and 362 b.c. The trapezoidal masonry in hard gray lime-
stone and the consoles used in the gates find their best parallels in Boiotia rather than At-
tica. A later period of construction can also be made out, in which squared blocks of
reddish conglomerate were used. In the plain below, the scant remains of a small Doric
temple of the fourth century b.c. have been excavated and tentatively identified as the
temple of Dionysos noted by Pausanias, though there is no trace of an earlier temple on
the site.
Across the plain to the southeast, at Mazi, stand the remains of a large tower, reaching
five stories high in places; and 2 kilometers farther east lies the fortified Attic deme of Oi-
noe, which had been walled by the start of the Peloponnesian War at the latest. Part of its
north wall, with four towers, stands fairly well-preserved (see fig. 123). To the east-north-
east, some 400 meters higher on Mount Parnes and overlooking the Skourta Plain, is the
Athenian border fort of Panakton, which was taken by the Boiotians during the Pelopon-
nesian War and demolished before it was returned to the Athenians as part of the settle-
ment of the Peace of Nikias in 421. Inscriptions from the Athenian garrison which manned
the fort in the fourth century have been found on the site.
320 SITE SUMMARIES
275
EXCAVATION
Eleutherai was excavated brief ly by E. Stikas in the late 1930s. Panakton has been the
subject of recent survey and excavation in a collaboration between the Thebes Ephoreia of
the Archaeological Service and the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Most of
the work on the northwest frontier has not involved excavation.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Camp, J. “Notes on the Towers and Borders of Classical Boiotia.” AJA 95 (1991), pp. 193–
202.
Munn, M. The Defense of Attica. Berkeley, 1993.
Ober, J. Fortress Attika. Mnemosyne Suppl. 84. Leiden, 1985.
Stikas, E. Praktika (1938), pp. 41–49, and (1939), pp. 44–52.
Vanderpool, E. “Roads and Forts in Northwestern Attica.” California Studies in Classical An-
tiquity 11 (1978), pp. 227–245.
Border Areas 321
275. Plan of the fort at Eleutherai, 5th to 4th century b.c.
OROPOS (AMPHIAREION)
DESCRIPTION, HISTORY, AND SIGNIFICANCE
The town of Oropos lay on the east coast, north of Rhamnous (see fig. 248). Squeezed
in between Athens and Thebes and across the straits from Eretria, the small city-state was
often under the control of one of these three larger states. Between 490 and the first cen-
tury b.c., the city is known to have changed hands twelve times, with short periods of inde-
pendence. Athenian inf luence was particularly strong in the fifth century until 411 and on
several occasions in the fourth century: 378/7–367/6, 338–322, and 304 until the 280s.
The principal sanctuary of Oropos was situated inland, well outside the city. It was
dedicated to Amphiaraos (see fig. 120), a healing deity similar to Asklepios who started life
322 SITE SUMMARIES
276
as a hero, one of the Seven against Thebes. He came to be regarded as a full-fledged god, a
status which had to be confirmed by the Senate at Rome, according to an inscription found
at the sanctuary (IG VII 413). In the 80s b.c., Sulla granted the area around the sanctuary
the usual tax-free status awarded a god, but soon thereafter the publicani, or tax-farmers,
tried to exact taxes from Oropos, on the grounds that Amphiaraos was only a hero and
therefore not entitled to special privileges. In 73 a delegation, which included Cicero, was
sent from Rome to look into the matter and determined that Amphiaraos was in fact a god
and therefore the town was tax-exempt.
The sanctuary lies in a wooded ravine, along the banks of a small stream near a sacred
spring. The earliest antiquities are two altars and a theatral seating area focused on the al-
tars, all dating to the second half of the fifth century b.c. Around the end of the century the
two altars were incorporated into a single large one, which was described by Pausanias
(1.34.2–3). Various sections were dedicated to different deities:
The altar is divided into parts. One part is sacred to Herakles, Zeus, and Paian
Apollo, another to heroes and wives of heroes; a third to Hermes, Hestia, Am-
phiaraos, and the children of Amphilochos. . . . A fourth part of the altar is sa-
cred to Aphrodite and Panacea, and also to Jason, Hygieia, and Healing Athena.
A fifth part belongs to the Nymphs and Pan and the rivers Acheloos and
Kephisos.
A stone plaque found at the altar inscribed with the names of Amphiaraos and Amphilo-
chos is taken as one of several labels used to designate which part of the altar was appropri-
ate for sacrifices to which deity.
Contemporary with this altar was a very small temple and a dormitory (koimeterion),
where suppliants would stay. A contemporary sacred law (IG VII 235) lists various rules and
regulations: The priest is required to be at the sanctuary for at least ten days a month dur-
ing the summer, and he cannot be absent more than three days in a row. The names of
those who are to sleep in the dormitory are to be posted on a board by the neokoros (custo-
dian of the temple). Women and men must sleep separately, the men in the part of the
building east of the altar (the larger part), the women to the west. There are fines for mis-
behavior. All meat from the sacrifices is to be consumed in the sanctuary.
To the middle years of the fourth century can be dated the large Doric prostyle temple,
a long stoa provided with benches, and men’s and women’s baths. A little later the Athe-
Border Areas 323
Opposite 276. Oropos, plan of the Amphiareion, with temple, altars, stoa, and theater.
nians built a fountain house (IG II
2
338) and, across the ravine, a monumental water clock,
virtually identical to the one erected in the Agora in Athens (see fig. 156) and presumably
designed by the same individual. In the Hellenistic period, when Oropos was largely inde-
pendent, numerous statues were erected in the area of the old dormitory to honor various
benefactors. In the second century b.c. the little theater with its well-preserved scene-build-
ing was erected.
The cult was a popular one, and the festival included musical and athletic contests.
The stadium seems to have run in front of the stoa, and there was a hippodrome in the val-
ley above. The Romans also maintained a considerable interest in the cult, and to honor
prominent benefactors the Oropians simply reinscribed many of the old statue bases with
new names; presumably the statues’ heads were also changed. Many of the surviving bases
therefore have a Roman name, such as that of Julius Caesar’s assassin Brutus, with the sig-
nature of an earlier, Hellenistic sculptor. The site was abandoned in the late Roman period.
EXCAVATIONS
The site was excavated between 1884 and 1929 by B. Leonardos for the Archaeologi-
cal Society. Work on inscriptions and the site was carried out by B. Petrakos in the 1960s.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Petrakos, B. The Amphiareion of Oropos. Athens, ca. 1974.
Petrakos, B. OiJ ΔEpigrafevı tou
±
ΔWrwpou
±
. Athens, 1997.
Petrakos, B. ÔO ΔWrwpovı kaiv to; iJerovn tou
±
ΔAmfiavraou. Athens, 1968.
Roesch, P. “L’Amphiaraion d’Oropos.” In Temples et Sanctuaires, ed. G. Roux. Paris, 1984.
Schachter, A. The Cults of Boiotia. London, 1981. Pp. 19–27.
SALAMIS
DESCRIPTION, HISTORY, AND SIGNIFICANCE
Salamis is an island lying just off the west coast of Attica, right outside the mouth of
the harbor of Peiraieus (see fig. 7). At its western end it is equally close to the territory of
Megara, and early in the sixth century Athens and Megara went to war over possession of it.
The island was sacred to Ajax. A passage in the catalogue of ships in the Iliad—perhaps
324 SITE SUMMARIES
277
*
added by the Athenians to strengthen their claim to Salamis—describes Ajax drawing up
his ships next to the Athenians at Troy.
According to Strabo, the early city faced southwest, toward Aigina, and Bronze Age
remains are reported along the southern coast of the island. A sub-Mycenaean cemetery
was excavated in the narrow waist of the island, not far from the Classical city, which lay on
the east coast, around the modern village and peninsula of Ambelakia. Though supposedly
acquired by the Athenians under the leadership of Solon—who was born on the island—
early in the sixth century b.c., Salamis was not fully incorporated into the Athenian state
during the Kleisthenic reforms at the end of the century. The island was never a deme and
seems rather to have been regarded as a possession. Athenian klerouchs, those who held a
share (kleros) of land, colonized the island, but they retained citizenship of some sort in
Athens. There was an archon, appointed and paid for by Athens, and Athenian military
commanders were in charge of some aspects of life on the island as well. Klerouchies be-
Border Areas 325
277. View of northwest Attika from the east, showing the island of Salamis lying just offshore.
(Watercolor by Peter Connolly)
[To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]
came a common feature of Athenian foreign policy following military conquest, perhaps
first used for Salamis. Despite the island’s proximity, the status of Salamis vis-à-vis Athens
was appreciably different from that of the rest of Attica.
Salamis is best known for the great sea battle which took place in the straits in late
September 480 b.c., when a vastly outnumbered Greek f leet based on the island destroyed
a Persian armada. The story is told by Herodotos (Book 8), Aischylos (Persai), and Plutarch
(Themistokles, Aristides). After the victory, the Greeks dedicated a captured trireme to Posei-
don at Cape Sounion (Herodotos 8.121), and others at the Isthmos and on Salamis. A tro-
phy to celebrate the victory was set up at the end of the long, thin Kynosoura peninsula
which extends eastward from the island toward Peiraieus; one or two worked blocks of the
base have been reported from the site, but otherwise nothing remains.
During the Peloponnesian War, the Athenians built a fort at Boudoron on the west
end of the island to blockade the harbor of Megara (Thucydides 2.93). Traces of its rubble
wall, extending for several hundred meters, can still be made out, although the remains are
suffering the effects of recent development of the area. In the Hellenistic period the island
was a pawn in the wars of succession among the Macedonian successors to Alexander.
A cave on the south coast near Peristeria has recently been excavated and can perhaps
be identified with the cave on Salamis where the playwright Euripides is said to have com-
posed his plays. Few other significant antiquities have been found on the island. Little re-
mains of what is known to be the principal sanctuary, dedicated to Athena Skiras. An inter-
esting metrical relief has been found built into one of the churches on the north side of the
island.
EXCAVATIONS
Except for the sub-Mycenaean cemetery, few systematic excavations or even surveys
have been carried out on Salamis. Rescue work around Ambelakia has recovered some
traces of the ancient town, and early travelers report having seen its circuit wall.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Dekoulakou-Sideris, I. “A Metrological Relief from Salamis.” AJA 94 (1990), pp. 445–451.
McLeod, W. E. “Budoron.” Hesperia 29 (1960), pp. 316–323.
Muller, D. Topographischer Bildkommentar zu den Historien Herodots. Tübingen, 1987. Pp.
692–713.
326 SITE SUMMARIES
Pallas, D. Praktika (1987), pp. 15–43, and Arch. Delt. 42 (1987), A⬘, pp. 169–230.
Taylor, M. Salamis and the Salaminioi. Amsterdam, 1997.
Wallace, P. “Psyttaleia and the Trophies of the Battle of Salamis.” AJA 73 (1969), pp. 293–
303.
Wide, S. “Gräberfunde aus Salamis.” Ath. Mitt. (1910), pp. 17–36.
Winters, T. “Literary and Epigraphical Testimonia of Salamis.” M.A. thesis, Ohio State Uni-
versity, 1983.
Border Areas 327