Primitive Athens as described by Thucydides

by Jane Ellen Harrison

JANE ELLEN HARRISON.

Newnham College, Cambridge.
18 January, 1906.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTORY.	[pp. 1-4]
CHAPTER I. THE ANCIENT CITY, ITS CHARACTER AND LIMITS.
Account of Thucydides. Its incidental character and its object. The scattered burghs. The Synoikismos. The definition of the ancient city. The fourfold evidence of its small size. The ancient city was the Acropolis of the times of Thucydides with an addendum ‘towards about South.’ Excavation of the plateau of the Acropolis confirms the statement of Thucydides. Natural features of the Acropolis. The ‘Pelasgic’ circuit wall. Analogy with other ‘Mycenaean’ burghs or fortified hills. Evidence of excavations North of the Erechtheion and South of the Parthenon. Mythical master-builders. Giants and Kyklopes. Pelasgoi and Pelargoi. The storks of the poros pediment. Pelasgikon and Pelargikon. The addendum to the South. The Enneapylai and the approach to the citadel. [pp. 5-36]
CHAPTER II. THE SANCTUARIES IN THE CITADEL.
The sanctuaries of the ‘other deities.’ The later Erechtheion built to enclose a complex of cults. Prof. Dörpfeld’s elucidation of its plan. The hero-tomb of Kekrops. Kekrops and the Kekropidae. The hero-snake. The snakes of the poros pediment of the Hecatompedon. The Pandroseion. Pandrosos. The ‘Maidens.’ The semeia. The sacred olive. The ‘sea.’ The trident-mark. Its primitive significance and connection with Poseidon. Poseidon and Erechtheus. Athena. Herakles. [pp. 37-65]
CHAPTER III. THE SANCTUARIES OUTSIDE THE CITADEL.
Meaning of the words ‘towards this part.’ The four sanctuaries (1) the Sanctuary of Zeus Olympios, (2) the Pythion. Their position interdependent. The site of the Pythion certain. Evidence from the Ion of Euripides. The Long Rocks. Evidence of Pausanias. Evidence of recent excavations. The cave of Apollo. Votive tablets dedicated by Thesmothetae. Apollo Patroös and Pythios. The two sanctuaries of Zeus Olympios. Deucalion and Zeus Meilichios. Zeus and Apollo. Ion and the Ionians. The cave of Pan. The Sanctuary of Aglauros. (3) The Sanctuary of Ge. (4) The Sanctuary of Dionysos-in-the-Marshes to be distinguished from the Sanctuary of Dionysos Eleuthereus. The two festivals of Dionysos at Athens. The two theatres and precincts. The orchestra in the agora. Evidence of excavations. The Iobakcheion and the earlier Dionysion. The earlier Dionysion a triangular precinct—containing wine-press, altar, temple. The Lenaion and the Lenaia. The Chytroi. The ‘other sanctuaries.’ The Amyneion. Amynos and Asklepios. Dexion. The sanctuary of the Semnae Theai. The sanctuary of Aphrodite Pandemos. Evidence of inscriptions. Oriental origin of the worship. [pp. 66-110]
CHAPTER IV. THE SPRING KALLIRRHOË-ENNEAKROUNOS ‘NEAR’ THE CITADEL.
The spring Kallirrhoë. The water-supply of Athens. Geological structure of the Limnae. Site of Kallirrhoë fixed in Pnyx rock. Efforts to reinforce water-supply before time of tyrants. Water-works of the tyrants. Polycrates at Samos. The conduit of Peisistratos from the upper Ilissos to the Pnyx. Comparison with conduit of Polycrates. The great reservoir. The Fountain-House. Water-works of Theagenes at Megara. Analogy between his Fountain-House and Enneakrounos. Evidence of vase-paintings. The central square in front of Enneakrounos. The Panathenaic way. The agora and its development. Argument resumed. [pp. 111-136]
CONCLUSION.	[pp. 137-158]
Critical Note	[p. 159]
Bibliography	[pp. 160-163]
Indexes
1. General	[pp. 164-167]
2. Of Classical Authors	[pp. 167-168]
Statue of ‘Maiden’ from the Acropolis	[Frontispiece]
Map ([Fig. 46])	[between pp. 136 and 137]

INTRODUCTORY.

The traveller who visits Athens for the first time will naturally, if he be a classical scholar, devote himself at the outset to the realization of the city of Perikles. His task will here be beset by no serious difficulties. The Acropolis, as Perikles left it, is, both from literary and monumental evidence, adequately known to us. Archaeological investigation has now but little to add to the familiar picture, and that little in matters of quite subordinate detail. The Parthenon, the Propylaea, the temple of Nike Apteros, the Erechtheion (this last probably planned, though certainly not executed by Perikles) still remain to us; their ground-plans and their restorations are for the most part architectural certainties. Moreover, even outside the Acropolis, the situation and limits of the city of Perikles are fairly well ascertained. The Acropolis itself was, we know, a fortified sanctuary within a larger walled city. This city lay, as the oracle in Herodotus[1] said, ‘wheel-shaped’ about the axle of the sacred hill. Portions of this outside wall have come to light here and there, and the foundations of the great Dipylon Gate are clearly made out, and are marked in every guide-book. Inside the circuit of these walls, in the inner Kerameikos, whose boundary-stone still remains, lay the agora. Outside is still to be seen, with its street of tombs, the ancient cemetery.

Should the sympathies of the scholar extend to Roman times, he has still, for the making of his mental picture, all the help imagination needs. Through the twisted streets of modern Athens the beautiful Tower of the Winds is his constant land-mark; Hadrian, with his Olympieion, with his triumphal Arch, with his Library, confronts him at every turn; when he goes to the great Stadion to see ‘Olympian’ games or a revived ‘Antigone,’ when he looks down from the Acropolis into the vast Odeion, Herodes Atticus cannot well be forgotten. Moreover, if he really cares to know what Athens was in Roman days, the scholar can leave behind him his Murray and his Baedeker and take for his only guide the contemporary of Hadrian, Pausanias.