Camp J. The Archaeology of Athens
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stroyed. Pausanias (3.16.8) tells us also that the cult statue of Artemis from Brauron was
carried off to Susa by the Persians.
Following the burning of the Acropolis, a great naval battle was fought and won
against the Persians off the island of Salamis, in 480. The victory, due in large part to
Themistokles and the Athenian f leet, established the preeminence of Athens as a naval
power among the Greek city-states. With the destruction of the Persian land army at Plataia
in 479, the Greek mainland was freed from the Persian threat, and the focus of the war
shifted to the eastern Mediterranean. As a result of the victories at Salamis and Plataia, two
cities laid claim to the hegemony of Greece: the Athenians at sea and the Spartans on land.
Their rivalry marks the rest of the fifth century.
58 EARLY AND ARCHAIC ATHENS
4
Classical Athens
After the Persian Wars the Athenians returned to rebuild their shattered city. The first
concern was a new defensive wall, which was built despite Spartan opposition. Themisto-
kles held the Spartans off with foot-dragging diplomacy, having instructed the Athenians in
the meantime,
[that they should raise] the wall to such a height as was absolutely necessary for
defense; and that the whole population of the city—men, women, and chil-
dren—should take part in the wall building, sparing neither private nor public
edifice that would in any way help to further the work, but demolish them all.
(Thucydides 1.90.3)
Thucydides describes the result as follows (1.93.1–2):
It was in this manner that the Athenians got their wall built in so short a time, and
even today the structure shows that it was put together in haste. For the lower
courses consist of all sorts of stones, in some cases not even hewn to fit but just as
they were when the different workers brought them, and many stelai from grave
plots and worked stones were built in. For the circuit wall of the city was extended
in every direction, and for this reason they laid hands on everything in their haste.
The German excavations at the Kerameikos in the area of the Dipylon and nearby dra-
matically confirm this account. A number of handsome pieces from Archaic funerary
59
monuments—some almost intact, many crudely trimmed—were
found built into the lowest courses of the city wall. The new circuit,
some 6.5 kilometers in length, became the basic line of fortified de-
fense for Athens, in use until the third century
A
.
D
. The line of this so-
called Themistoklean wall has been traced at numerous points un-
derneath the modern city, as well as the location of at least fifteen
gates.
After the walls, the Athenians began to rebuild the rest of the city.
Left untouched, however, were the temples and sanctuaries destroyed
by the Persians. Before the Battle of Plataia the Greeks are said to have
taken an oath not to rebuild the sanctuaries but to leave them in ruins
as permanent memorials of the Persian barbarism. A version of the
oath is preserved in a speech by the fourth-century orator Lykourgos
(Against Leokrates 81):
I will not hold life dearer than freedom nor will I abandon my
leaders whether they are alive or dead. I will bury all allies killed
in the battle. If I conquer the barbarians in war I will not destroy
any of the cities which have fought for Greece, but I will conse-
crate a tenth of all those who sided with the barbarians. I will not
rebuild a single one of the shrines which the barbarians have
burnt and razed but will allow them to remain for future gener-
ations as a memorial of the barbarians’ impiety.
Although the historicity of the oath of Plataia has been ques-
tioned since antiquity, the archaeological record seems to confirm its
account; the temples of the Acropolis and elsewhere in Attica were
left in ruins, not replaced for almost a generation. Eventually the
pieces of the two great sixth-century temples were built into the north wall of the Acropolis.
A long stretch of the architraves, frieze, and cornices of the old temple of Athena were set in
their correct positions relative to one another at the top of the wall, and, farther east, many
unf luted column drums from the half-finished older Parthenon were incorporated. Seen
from the Agora, they remain on display even today, a constant reminder of the destruction
of the Acropolis in 480.
60 CLASSICAL ATHENS
56
56. Archaic grave stele recut for use as a building block in the Themistoklean
wall of 479 b.c.
[To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]
In the 470s the Athenians and the Greeks continued to prosecute the war against the
Persians, though the scene shifted to the east. An alliance was formed with Athens as
leader, by virtue of the large f leet the city controlled. The Greek allies had the option of con-
tributing either money or ships to the fight. Most contributed money, which the Athenians
used to build and maintain their ships. The treasury of the alliance was originally located
on the island of Delos, Apollo’s sacred island and a traditional center of the Ionian Greeks;
we know the alliance therefore as the Delian League. Over time this league evolved gradu-
ally into an Athenian empire as Athens was able to compel the various cities to pay tribute.
Thus throughout the middle years of the fifth century
B
.
C
. Athens grew to be a large, rich,
and dominant city-state, in control of many sources of revenue.
The old leaders of the war against Persia passed on. Miltiades, the hero of the Battle of
Marathon in 490, had died soon after the battle. Themistokles, architect of Athenian naval
power and hero of the victory at Salamis, was ostracized around 472. A cache of 190 ostraka
all bearing his name but written by only a few individuals suggests that his fall was engi-
Classical Athens 61
57. Temple and altar of Artemis Aristoboule, originally established by Themistokles.
neered by intense party politics of the sort he had
himself used a dozen years earlier to remove
Xanthippos. One of the things which had an-
noyed the Athenians, according to Plutarch
(Themistokles 22), was his dedication of a temple
to Artemis Aristoboule (Best Counsel), an un-
subtle reference to his advice and leadership
during the Persian invasion. Remains of this lit-
tle sanctuary in the deme of Melite have been
found west of the Agora. It consisted of a small
temple, no more than 6 meters long, facing
west, like many other temples to Artemis (Eph-
esos, Magnesia, and Sardis).
Pursued by various enemies while in exile,
Themistokles eventually made his way to Asia
Minor and won the favor of the Great King. He
died in Magnesia, which claimed to have his
tomb; other sources suggest that his remains were brought back and buried, appropriately
enough, in Peiraieus:
Diodoros the Topographer, in his work “On Tombs,” says, by conjecture rather
than from actual knowledge, that near the large harbor of the Peiraieus a sort of
elbow juts out from the promontory opposite Alkimos, and that as you round
this and come inside where the water of the sea is still, there is a platform of
good size, and the altarlike structure on top is the tomb of Themistokles. He
thinks that the comic poet Plato is a witness in favor of his view: “The tomb is
mounded in a fair and sightly place; the merchantmen shall ever hail it with a
glad cry; it shall behold those outward and inward bound, and all the rivalry of
racing ships.” (Plutarch, Themistokles 32.4–5)
Pausanias (1.2) also claims to have seen the tomb there:
When Themistokles was appointed archon he made Peiraieus the port of
Athens, because it seemed to him to lie more conveniently for navigation and to
62 CLASSICAL ATHENS
57
58. Column marking the tomb of Themistokles at the
entrance to Peiraieus harbor.
[To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]
have three harbors instead of the single one at Phaleron. And there were ship
sheds there down to my time, and beside the largest harbor is the grave of
Themistokles. For they say that the Athenians repented of what they had done
to Themistokles, and his kinsmen took up his bones and brought them back
from Magnesia.
At the westernmost tip of the Akte Peninsula, on the right as one enters the largest harbor,
Kantharos, there are the remains of foundations of squared blocks and rock-cut tombs.
Immediately adjacent were found eight drums of a large unf luted stone column, and early
in the nineteenth century the traveler Edward Dodwell saw part of an Ionic capital. The col-
umn has been re-erected near the foundations, which stand on the property of the Naval
Academy, and these remains are thought to be from the tomb of Themistokles.
KIMON
Coming to the fore in the 470s was Kimon, son of Miltiades and the descendant of a
rich family. During his period of prominence he used his money and inf luence to rebuild
Kimon 63
58
59. The Agora and the northwest suburbs of Athens, showing the roads and general location of the
Academy. The Panathenaic Way, at upper right, leads out to the Dipylon Gate; the road continued some
3 kilometers to the Academy (upper right-hand corner). The Painted Stoa is at the extreme right.
(Watercolor by Peter Connolly)
[To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]
and refine Athens as a city. The oath
of Plataia precluded rebuilding tem-
ples, so Kimon’s energies were di-
rected elsewhere, to public buildings,
defenses, and new facilities for the
citizens:
He was also the first to adorn
the city with those spacious and
elegant places of public resort,
which not long after became
popular to the point of abuse; he
did this by planting the Agora
with plane trees and by trans-
forming the Academy from a
parched and barren wilderness
into a well-watered grove, which he provided with shady paths to walk in and
clear tracks for races. (Plutarch, Kimon 13.7–8)
The Academy, which takes its name from the sanctuary of a local hero, Hekademos,
lay outside the city to the northwest. A broad street, lined with tombs, led out to it, about 2.5
kilometers from the city walls. Here a gymnasium had been founded, which, as the
Plutarch passage suggests, was greatly improved by Kimon. Several stretches of the aque-
duct which brought fresh water out to the groves of the Academy have been excavated; the
water line is made up of terra-cotta sections, carefully collared at the joints to fit together
tightly. The Academy itself lies largely under the modern city, and though some excavation
has been carried out in the area, little can be associated for certain with the original build-
ings. The general area is identified, thanks to the discovery in 1966 of a stone in situ carry-
ing the inscribed text: “boundary of the Hekademeia” written in early letters.
Kimon was a successful general, and several of his campaigns—in Thrace, in Skyros,
and at the Eurymedon River—resulted in further adornment of the city. Large building proj-
64 CLASSICAL ATHENS
59
60
60. Ancient clay water pipes in the alley
behind the Stoa Poikile, looking
southwest. The large pipe at the right
leads toward the Academy and is dated ca.
470–460 b.c.
[To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]
ects were funded with the proceeds of enemy spoils taken in
battle. After defeating the Persians in Thrace and capturing
land along the Strymon River, Kimon was allowed to set up
three herms, which carried epigrams recording his success
though not mentioning him by name (Plutarch, Kimon 7).
Herms were primitive statues, used by the Athenians to mark
entrances. In fully developed form a herm consisted of a plain
square shaft carved halfway up with a set of male genitalia,
with a portrait of the god Hermes at the top. Sculpted herms go
back well before the time of Kimon, but the placement of these
three, with their verse inscriptions, seems to have been particularly influential. They were
set up at the northwest entrance to the Agora, which thereafter became the preferred venue
for other herms. Indeed, so concentrated were they that the whole area became known as
“the Herms.” Nearby was built a stoa (colonnaded building) where such monuments may
have been displayed; it was called, in any case, “the stoa of the herms.” It is first referred to by
the fifth-century orator Antiphon and then in several Hellenistic inscriptions down to the
third century
B
.
C
.; its remains have not yet been recognized.
Kimon’s next campaign, the capture and Athenian settlement of the island of Skyros,
resulted in the recovery of the bones of Theseus, as recounted by Plutarch (Kimon 8.5–6):
On learning that the ancient Theseus son of Aigeus had f led in exile from
Athens to Skyros, but had been treacherously put to death there by Lykomedes
the king, Kimon eagerly sought to discover his grave. For the Athenians had
once received an oracle bidding them bring back the bones of
Theseus to the city and honor him as became a hero, but
they did not know where he was buried since the
Skyrians would not admit the truth of the story nor
permit any search to be made. Now, however, Ki-
mon set to work with great ardor, at last discov-
ered the hallowed spot, had the bones taken on
his own trireme, and with great pomp and show
Kimon 65
61, 62
61. Head of a herm, found by the Stoa Poikile, ca. 470 b.c.
62. Red-figured fragment showing three herms.
[To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]
[To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]
brought them back to the hero’s own country after an absence of about four
hundred years.
The bones were installed in a sanctuary, the Theseion, which lay, according to Pausa-
nias (1.17) and Plutarch (Theseus 36), in the middle of the city. It has not been excavated, but
inscribed lists of victors in the games held in honor of Theseus suggest the general area of
its location in Plaka, several hundred meters east of the Agora. Pausanias describes the
paintings which decorated the walls of the sanctuary, executed by Polygnotos and others
recognized as the best painters of their day. The scenes are appropriate to Theseus: two
showed great battles in which he participated, the Amazonomachy and the Centauro-
machy, and a third depicted him recovering King Minos’ ring from the sea.
66 CLASSICAL ATHENS
63. The long walls joining Athens to the Peiraieus, first laid out under Kimon and completed under
Perikles, 460–440 b.c.
After his third great victory, at the Eurymedon River in the 460s, Kimon provided
Athens with sufficient funds from the booty to undertake further major fortification of the
city:
By the sale of captured spoils the people were able to meet various financial needs and in par-
ticular they constructed the south wall of the Acropolis with the considerable resources ob-
tained from the expedition. And it is said that, though the building of the long walls, called
“legs,” was finished later, their first foundations, where the work was obstructed by swamps
and marshes, were stabilized by Kimon, who dumped vast quantities of rubble and heavy
stones into the swamps, meeting the expenses himself. (Plutarch, Kimon 13.6–8)
The new fortification of the Acropolis was a considerable undertaking, for the citadel is in
fact a sharp spine of rock, falling steeply on the south side. The south wall, then, had to
serve as a massive retaining wall, holding up huge amounts of fill to create the broad, level
top we see today. The fabric of this early wall survives, though deeply embedded in the ac-
cretions of later times. The long walls to the Peiraieus, completed later under Perikles, were
Kimon 67
63
64. The Stoa Poikile, built along the north side of the Agora during Kimon’s tenure, ca. 475–460 b.c.
(Watercolor by Peter Connolly)
[To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]