[Agora Webpage] AgoraPicBk 16 2003: Panathenaic Way

http://agathe.gr/guide/panathenaic_way.html

Panathenaic Way Numerous roads led in and out of the Agora square. By far the most important, however, was the broad street known as the Dromos or Panathenaic Way, the principal thoroughfare of the city ... It led from the main city gate, the Dipylon, up to the Acropolis, a distance of just over a kilometer, and served as the processional way for the great parade that was a highlight of the Panathenaic festival. ... Model of the Agora and northwest Athens in the 2nd century A.C., looking along the entire course of the Panathenaic Way from the Dipylon Gate (bottom) to the Acropolis (top); view from the northwest. The street is unpaved except to the south, as it begins the steep ascent to the Acropolis, where it was paved with large stone slabs in the Roman period.

[Agora Webpage] Overview: The Site before Excavation

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The Site before Excavation The Agora lies on sloping ground northwest of the Acropolis, below and east of the extraordinarily well-preserved Doric temple of Hephaistos, popularly known as the “Theseion” ... The Site before Excavation The Agora lies on sloping ground northwest of the Acropolis, below and east of the extraordinarily well-preserved Doric temple of Hephaistos, popularly known as the “Theseion” (a). ... The last destruction occurred in 1826, the result of a siege of the Acropolis during the Greek War of Independence.

[Agora Webpage] AgoraPicBk 16 2003: Late Roman Fortification Wall

http://agathe.gr/guide/late_roman_fortification_wall.html

Late Roman Fortification Wall East of the East Building and Mint we arrive once again at the Panathenaic Way, which in this area is lined along its eastern side by a massive wall built in the 3rd century ... The wall was constructed in the years following the sack of Athens by the Herulians in A.D. 267; it starts at the Acropolis with a new gate, runs north down the east side of the roadway, takes in the ruins of the Stoa of Attalos, and then turns eastward toward the Library of Hadrian.

[Agora Webpage] AgoraPicBk 16 2003: Southeast Fountain House

http://agathe.gr/guide/southeast_fountain_house.html

Southeast Fountain House The slight traces just south of the Church of the Holy Apostles have been identified as the remains of an early fountain house (Figs. 33, 34). The identification is based on a ... Pausanias identified this building as the Enneakrounos (nine-spouted) fountain, built in the 6th century B.C. by the tyrant Peisistratos, but Thucydides -- who presumably knew better -- locates that famous monument south of the Acropolis, below the sanctuary of Olympian Zeus.

[Agora Webpage] Overview: Photography

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Photography A photograph made using the traditional silver halide process is a visual record largely unaltered by the photographer. It is this quality of capturing a mirrored image of the scene that lends ... In the foreground is the newest area of the section to be opened up; the Church of Panagia Vlassarou is visible in the middle, the Acropolis behind. Waagé labeled the photograph as an “extracurricular photo of Acropolis.”

[Agora Webpage] AgoraPicBk 4 2004: The Agora and Pnyx

http://agathe.gr/democracy/the_agora_and_pnyx.html

The Agora and Pnyx Center of public activity, the Agora was a large open square where all the citizens could assemble (2, 3). It was used for a variety of functions: markets, religious processions, athletic ... The Agora is located immediately north of three rocky heights: the Acropolis, which was Athens’ citadel, sacred center, and treasury; the Areopagus, seat of Athens’ oldest and most august court; and the Pnyx, meeting place of the legislative Assembly (Ekklesia).

[Agora Webpage] Birth of Democracy: Factional Politics

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Factional Politics: The Ostracism of Themistokles A group of ostraka found together in a pit on the North Slope of the Acropolis is of special interest. There were 190 ostraka, mostly the round feet of ... Factional Politics: The Ostracism of Themistokles A group of ostraka found together in a pit on the North Slope of the Acropolis is of special interest.

[Agora Webpage] AgoraPicBk 16 2003: Odeion of Agrippa

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Odeion of Agrippa Late in the 1st century B.C. the Athenians were given money for a new marketplace by Caesar and Augustus, and the northern half of the old Agora square was filled with two new structures, ... (Philostratos, Lives of the Sophists 597) The loss of this odeion for concerts presumably prompted Herodes Atticus to build his handsome new odeion on the south slopes of the Acropolis in the years around A.D. 160.

[Agora Webpage] Birth of Democracy: Democracy

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Introduction Classical Athens saw the rise of an achievement unparalleled in history. Perikles, Aischylos, Sophokles, Plato, Demosthenes, and Praxiteles represent just a few of the statesmen and philosophers, ... During this century the Athenians fought and defeated the Persians, refined their democratic system under the leadership of Perikles, and built the great temples on the Acropolis. The last decades of the century saw them engaged in a terrible and costly war with Sparta, a war that was the democracy's harshest test.

[Agora Webpage] Overview: The Stoa of Attalos

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The Stoa of Attalos The Stoa of Attalos was originally built by King Attalos II of Pergamon (159–138 B.C.), as a gift to the Athenians in appreciation of the time he spent in Athens studying under the ... Oblique view of the Stoa of Attalos with the Acropolis in the background.

[Agora Webpage] AgoraPicBk 4 2004: Standard Weights and Measures

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Standard Weights and Measures The Controllers of Measures (Metronomoi) have also left us many samples of their work. One set of bronze weights (34), inscribed as standard weights of the Athenians, are ... These weights, found near the Tholos, probably belonged to one of the official sets that, as an extant decree provides, were deposited for public comparison on the Acropolis, in the Tholos, at Eleusis, and at Piraeus. 34.

[Agora Webpage] Overview: The Excavations

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The Excavations Excavations in the Athenian Agora by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens commenced in 1931 under the supervision of T. Leslie Shear. The systematic excavation of this important ... View of the Agora and Acropolis from the northwest.

[Agora Webpage] Birth of Democracy: The Athenian Aristocracy

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The Athenian Aristocracy Before democracy, from the 8th to the 6th century B.C., Athens was prosperous economically but no more significant than many other city-states in Greece. Silver deposits south ... Material wealth was displayed in the form of costly dedications made in sanctuaries such as the Acropolis of Athens or at Brauron, Eleusis, and Sounion.

[Agora Webpage] Birth of Democracy: The Ekklesia

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The Ekklesia (Citizens' Assembly) All Athenian citizens had the right to attend and vote in the Ekklesia, a full popular assembly which met about every 10 days. All decrees (psephismata) were ratified ... As a rule, the Ekklesia met at its own special meeting place known as the Pnyx, a large theater-shaped area set into the long ridge west of the Acropolis. In theory every assembly represented the collective will of all the male citizens of Athens, although the actual capacity of the Pnyx never seems to have exceeded 13,500, and for much of the Classical period it held only about 6,000.

[Agora Webpage] AgoraPicBk 16 2003: History of the Agora

http://agathe.gr/guide/history_of_the_agora.html

History of the Agora The excavations of the Athenian Agora have uncovered about thirty acres on the sloping ground northwest of the Acropolis (Fig. 3). Material of all periods from the Late Neolithic to ... History of the Agora The excavations of the Athenian Agora have uncovered about thirty acres on the sloping ground northwest of the Acropolis (Fig. 3). Material of all periods from the Late Neolithic to modern times has been excavated, shedding light on 5,000 years of Athenian history.

[Agora Webpage] Birth of Democracy: Theater

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Theater Western drama was an Athenian invention which developed late in the 6th century B.C. out of the festivals celebrated in honor of the god Dionysos. Originally held in the Agora, the plays were soon ... Originally held in the Agora, the plays were soon transferred to the South Slope of the Acropolis, where a theater holding close to 15,000 people was constructed.

[Agora Webpage] Birth of Democracy: Overthrow and Revolution

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Overthrow and Revolution In 514 B.C. the tyrant Hipparchos was stabbed to death. The murder, actually the result of a love feud, was quickly deemed a political act of assassination and the perpetrators, ... But the Council resisted, and the multitude banded together, so the forces of Kleomenes and Isagoras took refuge in the Acropolis, and the people invested it and laid siege to it for two days.

[Agora Webpage] Birth of Democracy: Practice of Ostracism

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Ostracism Soon after their victory over the Persians at the battle of Marathon in 490 B.C., the Athenians began the practice of ostracism, a form of election designed to curb the power of any rising tyrant ... Elected strategos (general) year after year, he diverted the funds of the Delian League, established for the defense of Greece, to magnificent building programs in Athens, among them the rebuilding of the Acropolis. He may often have been a candidate for ostracism but was never ostracized.

[Agora Webpage] Publications: Monographs

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Monographs Excavations in the civic and cultural center of classical Athens began in 1931 and have continued almost without interruption to the present day. The first Athenian Agora volumes presenting ... To these pieces are appended the 191 ostraka, almost all nominating Themistokles, found by Oscar Broneer in a well on the North Slope of the Acropolis. A large number of the Agora ostraka are illustrated with line drawings, a representative selection with photographs. ... There is a survey of the topography of the sanctuary and its environs on the North Slope of the Acropolis, and a discussion of its relationship to Eleusis and its position as a landmark within the city of Athens.

[Agora Webpage] Publications: Picture Books

http://agathe.gr/publications/picture_books.html

Picture Books The Athenian Agora Picture Book series, started in 1951, aims to make information about life in the ancient commercial and political center of Athens available to a wide audience. Each booklet ... A.Publication Date: 1973ISBN: 0876616139Picture Book: 13 Before the creation of the Agora as a civic center in the 7th century B.C., the region northwest of the Acropolis was a vast cemetery.