Classical Athens saw the rise of an achievement unparalleled in history. Perikles, Aeschylus, Sophokles, Plato, Demosthenes, Thucydides, and Praxiteles represent just a few of the statesmen and playwrights, ...
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 ...
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 (Fig. 4). It ...
Near the middle of the open square, somewhat to the north, lay the Altar of the Twelve Gods (Fig. 7), today largely hidden under the Athens–Piraeus railway (1891). A corner of the enclosure wall survives, ...
Lying just south of the railroad tracks, along the west side, are the remains of the Stoa of Zeus Eleutherios (Freedom) (Figs. 8, 9). This cult of Zeus was established after the battle of Plataia in 479 ...
Next to the Stoa of Zeus at the south are the remains of a small temple of Apollo Patroos (Fatherly), so-called because he was the father of Ion, founder of the Ionian Greeks, a tribe that included the ...
Overlooking the Agora from the hill to the west (Kolonos Agoraios), is the Hephaisteion, the best preserved example of a Doric temple in mainland Greece (Fig. 12). It was dedicated jointly to Hephaistos ...
The south half of the west side was given over to the major administrative buildings used to run the Athenian democracy (Fig. 14). The buildings are poorly preserved, but the identifications are secure ...
Just uphill from the Tholos was the Bouleuterion, meeting place of the boule, or senate. Five hundred Athenian citizens were chosen by lot to serve for a year, and met in this building every day except ...
The Metroon served two functions; it was both a sanctuary of the Mother of the Gods and the archive building of the city, a repository of official records (Fig. 19). The present remains date to the mid-2nd ...
