A Walk Through The History: The Ancient Agora of Athens

The Ancient Agora of Athens

If you look outside your door maybe you would notice the houses around, the perhaps natural landscape of the field across the way, maybe it’s even your neighbors walking their dogs down the street. But I implore you to try to look out and picture what it would’ve been like in this place one hundred years, or even a thousand years. What would it have looked like do you see the horse draw carriages, the street markets of locals selling and trading for their daily wage, the kids running down the streets, or even people reaping the fields of their farmland. Now try to do the same in the Ancient Agora of Athens. This is what I will be helping you to do today, walking you through the history of the Agora and it’s architecture through its monuments. Hopefully through this paper you will be able to stand in the Ancient Agora of Athens and imagine how it would have looked over the hundreds of years in which it was occupied, starting in five hundred B.C. up until the end of the fifth century B.C.. Many of the monuments over these centuries were important to the history and the use of the Ancient Athenian Agora; however I will only be using four of them to show you the importance and the history of the Ancient Agora. The four monuments I will be speak to are the altar to the twelve gods, the Stoa of Attalos, the Odeion, and the Race Track.

The first monument of importance starts in five hundred B.C. and was in use we believe in until at the very least the end of the fifth century, the altar to the twelve gods. The Altar was constructed in 522 B.C. by Pisistratus during his reign.(Ministry of Culture and Sports) It was constructed of ash and the bone of other sacrifices on the site. When it was discovered it was two walls were found with the base of a marble statue dedicated by a man to the twelve gods, clearly identifying this as the exact place of the previously unknown site of the altar of the twelve gods. There are many reasons historically why the altar was so important being that it was a house of refugee for people that were running from those enforcing justice such as Pericles and Phidias.(Ministry of Culture and Sports) The Altar also served as time passed as the geographic center of Athens, a point by which all other structures are measured, this made the altar a place of great religious importance throughout the city, as it became the belly button of the whole city. (“Agora.”) This was one of the first structures within the boundaries of the Ancient Athenian Agora amongst temples, the Heliaia, the Eschara, and the Prytanikon. It went right up against the street of the Panatheniac Way and the grassy knoll which was scared ground on which nothing was supposed to be built. This was one of the most sacred spaces in the whole city, and with such an important site nestled right up against it makes the whole things of unmeasurable import to the city. With the Panathenaic Way right next to it as well the road upon which the whole city would walk up to the Acropolis on the Festival celebrating the birthday of the Patron goddess of Athens, Athena and the anniversary of the of the beginning of the battle between the gods and the giants.(Ancient Greece-The Acropolis) This all added to the prestige of the altar to the twelve gods. Being that it was then seen by everyone on their way to this festival and all those who would come from all around the city-state to participate in the Panthenaic games that were played once every four years.(Ministry of Sports and Culture) This lead to the increased prestige of the Athenian Agora as whole which lead to increased funds and increased building projects within the boundaries of the Agora. Over the next three hundred years the Agora would be completely built up surrounding the sacred space within the Agora and making boarders to it.

At the beginning of the third century B.C. the Agora as it was known would forever change, when the Macedonians conquer the Greek city-states and unite them under one territory. With the original purpose of the Agora now gone still it is being built upon and its prestige is continuing to grow despite the decline of the import of the city of Athens itself. The Stoa of Attalos was built by King Attalos of Pergamon, who ruled between 159 B.C. and 138 B.C., and was built as a gift to the city of Athens and all the Athenians for the education that King Attalos received in the University there.(Stoa of Attalos) The Desciption that can be seen near the boarder wall of the modern reconstruction states that the Stoa, or roofed in portico, was built and paid for by Attalos the second of Pergamon. So this Stoa was in a modern sense basically another alumnus paying for a new wing at the old alma mater.(Diamant) The Stoa when built would have been immensely more elaborate than many of the other buildings within the Agora or even Athens itself. Its immense size and location making it an important place within the Agora. (“Agora.”) It is at the East side of the Agora with its south end abutting the Panatheniac Way, it appear as a sort of wall to show the boundary of the Agora and align the sacred space to the gods in the middle upon which it looked. The building would have been incredible to look at for Athenians at the time. It was immensely large at its 115m by 20m and was two stories tall which was literally unheard of for monumental structures previously.(Stoa of Attalos) Meaning that the building itself would have been large enough and tall enough to look down on the rest of the Agora. You could look out from the second story of the building and most likely see everything that would have been happening in the Agora at any given time, the sacrifices, the debates, the classes of thought, even the court reigning down justice upon the cities criminals all would have easily been visible. (“Agora.”) The Stoa would have been in continuous use for many things, including shopping as well as socializing, up until its destruction in 267 A.D. during an attack by and eastern Germanic tribe.(Stoa of Attalos) With the building of the Stoa and the subsequent wall around the Agora that it created the whole look of the place within would have changed as it was now abutted by to such large stoas on either boundary. Then the subsequent construction of the Stoa would have created an ever increasing grandeur to the Agora.

In the second century B.C. the Romans defeated the Greeks and Athens was once again under the rule of a foreign hand. The city of Athens was declining massively at this point in its overall important other than being a tourist spot for many Romans to visit, but despite its ever decreasing lack of importance the best and most powerful kept building upon the Agora of Athens as a way of showing their power and their money. This is possibly the reason that the Romans decided it was now alright to build upon the previously vacant sacred land that was set aside for the gods, and allowed it to be filled in by the Odeon, the Temple of Ares, and the Altar of Zeus. The Odeon was a theatre built in 15 B.C. by Marcus Agrippa a general in the Roman army as a gift to the people of the city of Athens. It was a two story theatre at could have seated around 1,000 people, it had a raised stage and a paved orchestra.( “History of Greece The Roman Period.” ) It would have been one of the most extravagant building in the whole of the Agora with its incredibly massive and ornate Corinthian pillar capstones, and its underground system of corridors and walkways.(The Odeon of Agrippa) However due to the Ornateness of the building and its weight for the ceiling eventually caused part of the building to collapse in upon itself in 150 AD and was rebuilt to only seat 500 and contained a small lecture hall.( “History of Greece The Roman Period.” ) The sheer size and extravagance says something about what the Romans wanted to portray to the Athenians, the strength, power, and wealth it would take to easily be able to afford such building projects shows us nothing sort of the Roman prowess, as well as adding to the Athenians prestige.

When a Germanic Tribe invaded in 267 A.D. a majority of the Agora as it was previously known was destroyed including the Middle Stoa, the Stoa of Attalos, the Odeon, and many of the temples, thus in a way the Agora was wiped clean.(“Agora.”) All of it’s true import was lost as well as it’s prestige, and upon the sacred land of the gods in the center of the Agora was once again built upon with a Race Track. The Race Track was built by the Romans late during the third or fourth century A.D. It was 38m by 184m long, with its starting line for the race was located at its northern end. The track would have most likely been in use for the Athenians Panathenaic Games that took place once every four years.( “History of Greece The Roman Period.” ) The eventual decline in the import of the Agora was only natural in that there was no real city to protect it. With a city full of people who don’t have the same power that there inner circle of government. So the monumental buildings that had come to be a staple of the Agora were now gone from it completely leaving the Agora with only the boundary stones as its boarders and only shell of what it once was.

The altar to the twelve gods was constructed around five hundred B.C. and was in use we believe in until at the very least the end of the fifth century. The Altar also served as time passed as the geographic center of Athens, this made the altar a place of great religious importance throughout the city, as it became the belly button of the whole city. This lead to the increased prestige of the Athenian Agora as whole which lead to increased funds and increased building projects within the boundaries of the Agora. Then at the beginning of the third century B.C. the Agora as it was known would forever change, when the Macedonians conquer the Greek city-states and unite them under one territory. The Stoa of Attalos would have been in continuous use during this time from it’s construction in 159 B.C. for many things, including shopping as well as socializing, up until its destruction in 267 A.D. during an attack by an eastern Germanic tribe. In the second century B.C. the Romans defeated the Greeks, and Athens was once again under the rule of another country. The Odeon would have been one of the most extravagant building in the whole of the Agora with its incredibly massive and ornate Corinthian pillar capstones, and its underground system of corridors and walkways. When a Germanic Tribe invaded in 267 A.D. a majority of the Agora as it was previously known was destroyed. All of it’s true import was lost as well as it’s prestige, and upon the sacred land of the gods in the center of the Agora was once again built upon with a Race Track. The History of the Ancient Agora of Athens is a complicated and unusual one. Can you walk through the monuments and picture the agora as it would have been back then. Hopefully now you can see it in your mind and will be able to stand in the Ancient Agora of Athens and imagine how it would have looked over the hundreds of years in which it was occupied, starting in five hundred B.C. up until the end of the fifth century B.C.. Do you see the locals walking to trade at the markets, the men on their way to the mountain to vote, the people readying their sacrifices, the people piling into the Odeon theatre, or even the championship charioteer readying for his race in the Panatheniac way?