THE DATE OF THE THIRD PERIOD OF THE PNYX (PLATEs77-80) Q~,N December 8 of 1930, Homer Thompson began a new archaeologicalinvestigation of the ancient Athenian Pnyx. Excavation within the assembly place proper would continue untilJune 13 of the following year, supervisedby Thompson and sponsored and advised by KonstantinosKourouniotes, then Director of the Greek ArchaeologicalService, who had sunk test trenches into the site earlier in the century. Although subsequentyears saw furtherexcavation on the hill, the only additionalwork done within the assemblyplace was conservation of walls and redistributionof fill to provide a more vivid picture of the monument's original appearance. Thompson's six months of work, analyzed and reported in detail in the firstnumber of Hesperiaa year later,1form the basisfor the modern conception of the meeting place of the Athenian Assembly. Kourouniotes and Thompson presented evidence for three distinct periods of the assemblyplace: the original phase, arrangedin the normal manner of a theater, with the seatingon the naturalslope of the hill; and two subsequentphases in which the orientationof the structurehad been reversed. Epigraphicaland literary evidence place the first phase in the first half of the 5th century,and constructionof the second phase can be dated near the end of the 5th century on the basis of pottery recovered from the associatedfill.2 The chronologyof the last phase, however,has proven a thornyproblem. Here, too, the primary evidence is pottery from the fill that was brought in to raise the level of the auditorium; but the story told by that pottery is anythingbut straightforward. The excavators encountered the fill of Period III almost everywhere they dug within the auditorium. They extracted about 150 basketsof pottery from their trenches, most of it dating within the 4th century B.C. But a fairly substantialminority of the material- 12 baskets (8%)-was Roman, and Roman lamps accounted for about 80 (13%) of the 600 lamps found. They noted that Roman material was concentrated in the area behind the megalithic wall that retained the fill, at the northern ends of their trenches A, C, and D (Fig. 1), but its position, deep below the surface and sometimes lying on the bedrock itself, persuadedthem that it was not intrusive,and they thereforeconcluded that the third phase of the monument was of Roman date. Additional support for this conclusion came from comparisons between the megalithic retaining wall and Roman masonry in Athens, and Kourouniotesand Thompson 1932. We would like to acknowledgethe work of SylvieDumont, who drew Figures2 to 21, and of Craig Mauzy, who took the photographs on Plates 77 and 78. The plan (Fig. 1) was drawn byJohn Travlos. We are also grateful to John Hayes, who examined the Roman pottery at our request, but is not to be held responsible for the dates and comparandagiven here. J.McK.C. is (further)indebted to ProfessorKathryn A. Morgan, from whom he learned much about the Pnyx when she was a student at the American School and with whom he firstexplored the walls of Panopeus. Authorshipof the varioussections of the articleis indicatedby initialsat the end of the section. Translationsare based on those of the Loeb ClassicalLibrary unless otherwisespecified. 2 See Kourouniotesand Thompson 1932, pp. 96-138 and, for Thompson's more recent thoughts,Thomp- son 1982, pp. 134-140. Hesperia65.3, 1996 American School of Classical Studies at Athens is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve, and extend access to Hesperia ® www.jstor.org - z -~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ .,~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~,1 s , J , THE PNYX _ PLAN OF EXCAVAT1 IO-4,. = TRENCHEfS -OF PREVIOUtS EXCAVATtOtS ;, _ ,/)ZD RESSED ROCUSURgFACE OF WALL BEDDINS*tSG H.A6 *' 't t FFLOOtI PE-RIOD I .. j Nt t7 e.s ARTH FILLING OF PEftIOD 2f?H$ ; _ ILOK,S- OF PERIOD I 1tS POSITIONs t> ?g?;l t /_ _ >P ERtIOD u _ ,Pe RlOb =X.iI- W ATI!Rt C.HANNrzl gm P 051t tOAW-~i WAlLLS OF POST-GLASSICAL PCRtOD q r . s_ tHE LP-V^IL. LIE AIMOVE OR INtDICAYrXD OFLOW(-OA-) 4 t <r-v z THC Of THE GSt%E^' BP-M Pr-IIO-D m .= 0,lASE_ (or FIG.1. Plan of the Pnyx, with trenchesof 1930-1931 excavation THE DATE OF THE THIRD PERIOD OF THE PNYX 265 from the excavators'understanding of the relationshipof the Sanctuaryof Zeus Hypsistosto Pnyx III. Primarilyon the basis of the Corinthianlamps, they dated the assemblyplace in the reign of Hadrian, on historicalgrounds a reasonableperiod for the construction of a large monument in Athens.3 Subsequently Thompson returned to the Pnyx to excavate the terrace to the south, where he uncovered the remainsof two unfinishedstoas and parts of the city wall. His work there convinced him that the stoas,which could be firmlydated to the 4th century,were part of a single projectwith the thirdphase of the assemblyplace. He thereforerevised his dating and, now taking the Roman material as intrusive,placed the constructionof the assembly place in the third quarterof the 4th century.4While most scholarshave accepted this dating, the possibilityof a Hadrianic date has remained open.5 Reexaminationof the pottery from the excavation now makes it possibleto discardthat possibilityonce and for all. TH EvIDENCE OF THE OBJECTS AND THE NOTEBOOKS Only a small part of the excavatedpottery is now availablefor study. Of the 150 baskets mentioned in the publication, 128 were listedin the notebooksat the time of excavation. In a note in the field books datingno earlierthan 1957, Thompson recordedthat the material"has been worked over repeatedlyand greatlyreduced in bulk"and listed twenty tins of material (probablythe tenekedestraditionally used for Agora storage, measuring 23 x 23 x 35 cm.): four of Greek fine ware, nine of coarse ware, two of Roman pottery, two of lamps, and three of loomweights. At some later time this materialwas reduced further and placed in wooden trays (measuring37 x 76 x 8 cm.): four trays of Greek fine ware, one of coarse ware, one small bag of Roman pottery,two trays of lamps, and two of loomweights. What remains comes to about 1100 fragmentsof fine ware and 485 of lamps; a rough estimate would suggest this is less than 1% of what was originallyrecovered. Nonetheless, restudy of this materialhas produced some surprisingresults. The most important observationcomes from the Roman objects. Here the evidence consistsnot only of the preservedceramics (fragments of thirty-ninepots and eleven lamps), but also of the many sketchesof objectsthat Thompson made day by day in the notebooks,as the material came to light, and of his analysisof the 128 lots of pottery mentioned above. OccasionalRoman or possiblyRoman sherdswere recordedin many of the trenches,but no more than might be expected in an area that had been disturbedby farming and repeatedly excavated over the course of the 19th and early 20th centuries.6 Heavy concentrationsof Roman materialin what were taken to be undisturbedareas were encounteredin only three locations: 3 Kourouniotesand Thompson 1932, pp. 181-190, 199-200. 4 Thompson and Scranton 1943, pp. 297-301; he continued to support a 4th-centurydate in Thompson 1982, pp. 141-145. 5 Mogens Hansen has recentlyexpressed support for the Roman date (Hansen 1989, p. 141; Hansen 1991, pp. 4, 128). 6 For a summaryof earlier excavationssee Kourouniotesand Thompson 1932, pp. 90-94. Plans showing some of the early trenches may be found in Kourouniotes 1911, p. 128, fig. 1 and Crow and Clarke 1888, opposite p. 207; the latter labels part of the west side as planted in wheat in 1876. 266 SUSANI. ROTROFFANDJOHN MCK. CAMP 1. In clearingthe top of the megalithicretaining wall. This earthwas apparentlyconsidered to be part of the fill of PeriodIII that had washed down the hill; the materialis described as "almostsolid Roman." 2. In the fill below (i.e., north of) the retainingwall. This seems to have been associated with the fill of PeriodIII on the assumptionthat the leveling of this area would have been contemporarywith the constructionof Period III or because the fill of Period III might reasonablybe assumed to have washed furtherdown the hill here. Every basket here contained a large amount of Roman material;the accounts suggest that at least 60% of the pottery was Roman. 3. At the northernends of trenchesA, C, and D. In all three of these areasRoman material was found from top to bottom, with some items lying on bedrock and among the large rocks that lie behind the retainingwall, stretchingsome twelve meters south of it. The concentration of Roman material in this part of Trench A was particularlystriking. Thompson recorded nine baskets of pottery from the area he described as "behind Great Wall" (baskets33-41) and three from "N. end of trench" (baskets 1, 7, and 9); all but two are described as almost purely Roman, with only a few Greek sherds (the two exceptions contained a few Roman sherds among mostly Greek ones). Thompson furtherasserted that he found "no differenceeither in the shapesor qualityof the Roman pottery at the differentlevels behind the Great Wall." In contrast,pottery found further south was almost purely Greek. The concentrationof Roman materialwas less marked in trenches C and D. In C there were only a few Roman pieces, lying among the large rocksbehind the retainingwall. In D there were somewhatmore, with Roman material describedas coming from "whatappears to be an absolutelyundisturbed section of the fill" (Pnyx notebook, p. 273) and a Corinthianlamp lying on the bedrock (ibid.,p. 318). Hellenistic and Roman materialhad also been found in the Greek excavations of 1910 that uncovered the retainingwall of Period II.7 It is easy enough to dismissthe Roman pottery found in clearingthe top of the retaining wall and in earth to the north of the assembly area, for the deposits in these areas do not constitutefill in situ.