Primitive Athens as described by Thucydides

by Jane Ellen Harrison

Fig. 25.

Just below where the ancient road passes down from the West shoulder of the Acropolis, and at a level much higher than that of the road itself, the excavators came on a building of Roman date and indifferent masonry, which proved to be a large hall, with two rows of columns dividing it into a central nave and two aisles. To the East the hall was furnished with a quadrangular apse. Within this apse was found an altar[210] decorated with scenes from the worship of Dionysos, a goat being dragged to the altar, a Satyr, a Maenad, and the like. This altar would in itself rouse the suspicion that we are in a sanctuary dedicated to Dionysos, but fortunately we are not left to evidence so precarious.

Of far greater interest than the altar, and indeed for our purpose of supreme importance, was another discovery. In the apse, with the altar mentioned and other altars, was found the drum of a column ([Fig. 25]), which had once stood in the great hall; columns just like it are still standing, so that it belongs without doubt to the building. On it is an inscription[211], divided into two columns and 167 lines in length, which from its style may be dated about the third century A.D. Above the inscription, in a relief in pediment form containing Dionysiac symbols, two panthers stand heraldically, one to either side of a cantharus; above is the head of a bull. Inscriptions arranged in this fashion on columns are not unusual in the third century A.D.[212]

The inscription contains the statutes of a thiasos, or club of persons calling themselves Iobakchoi, who met in a place—the hall where the inscription was set up—called the Bakcheion. This is our quadrangular building marked Bakcheion on the plan ([Fig. 24]). The rules, which are given in great detail, are very interesting, but for the present one thing only concerns us—the name of the thiasos, the Iobakchoi. Iobakchos was a title of Dionysos, a title probably derived from a cry uttered in his worship, and, we remember ([p. 85]) with sudden delight, the Gerarae, the attendants of the Queen, promised in their oath to celebrate, in accordance with ancestral usage, the Iobakcheia.

But the building, and even the traces of an earlier structure that preceded it[213], are of late date; we are on the spot, and yet so far the sanctuary in the Marshes eludes us. But not for long. Digging deeper down, to the level of the ancient road, the excavators came on another and an earlier structure, the triangular precinct marked on the plan, and here at last evidence was found that settled for ever the site of the sanctuary of Dionysos-in-the-Marshes.

The sanctuary, for such we shall immediately see it was, is of triangular shape, and lies substantially lower than the roads by which it is bounded. The sides of the triangle face approximately, North, East and South-West. The precinct is surrounded by an ancient polygonal wall, a portion of which from the South end of the South-West side is shown in [Fig. 26]. The material is throughout blue calcareous stone, but the masonry is by no means of uniform excellence or of the same date. At various periods the wall must have undergone repairs. The space enclosed is about 560 square metres. Owing to the fact that the precinct lay deeper than the surrounding roads, sometimes to the extent of two metres, the wall is supported in places by buttresses, only one of which is of good Greek masonry; the rest seem to have been added shortly before the ancient precinct fell into disuse.

Fig. 26.

A notable point about this precinct wall is that there is no trace of any large entrance-gate. We expect a gate at the South-West side, where the precinct is skirted by the main road. Here the wall is well preserved, but there is no trace of any possible gate. The only feasible place is at the South end of the East wall, where there seems to have been a break, and towards this point, as we shall see, the small temple is orientated. Here, then, and in all probability here only, was there access to the precinct.

At the North-West corner the excavators came on a structure so far unique in the history of discoveries. They found a walled-in floor 4·70 m. by 2·80. This floor is carefully paved with a mixture of pebbles, stone, and cement, and is inclined to one corner at an angle of 0·25 m. At this lowest point there is a hole through the wall enclosing the floor, and outside, let into the pavement, is a large vessel, 0·50 m. in diameter, quadrangular above, round below. They had found, beyond all possible doubt, what they had never dared to hope they might find, an ancient Greek wine-press or lenos, and at the finding of that wine-press fled the last lingering misgiving. In [Fig. 27] is a view[214] of the wine-press, which shows clearly how it lies just in the corner of the triangular precinct, with its South-West wall (in the front of the picture) abutting on the Panathenaic way. The stucco floor of the wine-press comes out in dead white. In the background can be seen, to the right, the North aisle of the rectangular Bakcheion, and, to the left, the foot of the Areopagus rock.