The Athenian Prytaneion Discovered? 35
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HESPERIA 75 (2006) THE ATHENIAN Pages 33-81 PRYTANEION DISCOVERED? ABSTRACT The author proposes that the Athenian Prytaneion, one of the city's most important civic buildings, was located in the peristyle complex beneath Agia Aikaterini Square, near the ancient Street of the Tripods and theMonument of Lysikrates in the modern Plaka. This thesis, which is consistent with Pausa s nias topographical account of ancient Athens, is supported by archaeological and epigraphical evidence. The identification of the Prytaneion at the eastern foot of the Acropolis helps to reconstruct the map of Archaic and Classical Athens and illuminates the testimony of Herodotos and Thucydides. most The Prytaneion is the oldest and important of the civic buildings in to us ancient Athens that have remained lost until the present.1 For the or Athenians the Prytaneion, town hall, the office of the city's chief official, as a symbolized the foundation of Athens city-state, its construction form ing an integral part of Theseus's legendary synoecism of Attica (Thuc. 2.15.2; Plut. Thes. 24.3). Like other prytaneia throughout the Greek world, the Athenian Prytaneion represented what has been termed the very "life common of the polis," housing the hearth of the city, the "inextinguishable and immovable flame" of the goddess Hestia.2 As the ceremonial center was of Athens, the Prytaneion the site of both public entertainment for 1.1 am to the to a excellent for greatly indebted express my heartfelt thanks number suggestions improving this 1st Ephoreia of Prehistoric and Classi of scholars who have given generously article. over are cal Antiquities, under the direction of of their time the years, including All translations by the author for to unless Theodora Kyriakou, permission Raymond Van Dam, John Fine, and otherwise noted. examine the site at Aikaterini at 2. Agia Traianos Gagos the University of Hansen and Fischer-Hansen to and at For flame in Square and publish the excavated Michigan Anthony Karvallis 1994, p. 31. the sacred remains in the of a state I the see form plan. Ohio State University. especially Athenian Prytaneion, Suda, I am also to the director thank of the Uni s.v. very grateful John Papadopoulos nponaveiov; for this passage and of the Chara of California at Los its see Epigraphical Museum, versity Angeles, sources, Miller 1978, p. 182, lambos for assistance in whose own interest and on no. 264. more Kritzas, expertise For Athens generally, several of the is I see on studying inscriptions the topic considerable. Finally, Parker 1996, pp. 26-27; the site its am to see most from the and immediate neigh very grateful the editors and Athenian Prytaneion itself, In I to borhood. addition, would like anonymous Hesperia reviewers for their recently Robertson 1998, pp. 298-299. ? The American School of Classical Studies at Athens 34 GEOFFREY C. R. SCHMALZ a honored citizens and law court for homicide trials.3 In providing the sacred fire for all public sacrifices, the shrine of Hestia in the Prytaneion as served the starting point for many of the city's religious processions, or initiated the The pompai, including the eisagoge that City Dionysia.4 state Prytaneion, together with all of the buildings of early Athens, stood or next to the city's original civic center, the so-called Old Archaic Agora, use which remained in long after the foundation of the city's second agora, the Classical Agora of the Athenian democracy.5 At least for the poetically or was aristocratically minded Athenian, this the Kekropian Agora, the "sacrifice-celebrating omphalos of the city," and the site of the venerable Altar of Pity.6 As is the case with the Prytaneion, the location of the city's original never agora is unknown.7 Because this site apparently received any archi tectural or monumental embellishment, it will almost certainly remain most archaeologically invisible.8 Consequently, many of the important or as episodes aspects of early Athenian history?such Solon's resolute outcry against the loss of Salamis, Peisistratos's disarmament of the Athe nian populace, and the original setting of the Panathenaic festival?unfold across a blank map of the city.9 An understanding of the precise where abouts of the neighboring Prytaneion may, however, provide the best and perhaps the only topographical clue. The discovery of the Prytaneion itself, a an through the identification of preserved site, would also be important as contribution to the archaeological record of Greek prytaneia generally, Even only three of these buildings have been identified with certainty.10 more its im importantly, since the establishment of the Prytaneion, with 3. Aristotle (Ath. Pol. 3.5) refers to Basileion. The Boukoleion is recorded somehow decorated it under Cimon as "near" the in Anecd. Bekk. to be mistaken the official function of the Prytaneion: Prytaneion appears (Robertson some ? ?? ocpxcov [eixe] to Tcpuxave?ov ("the 1.19 (499). Pollux (8.111, cf. also 9.44) 1998, p. 297). This may reflect For the Basileion the Bou confusion with either the archon had the Prytaneion"). pub places alongside nearby in Plutarch conv. 7.9 = Anakeion or the Theseion Har lic xenia and si tesis the Prytaneion, koleion. (Quaest. (cf. Mor. of the Thesmothe s.v. Pindar's see, respectively, Poll. 8.140 and 9.40. 714B) speaks pokration, noMyvcoxo?). as a court sion and the cf. line 5 vision of a For the Prytaneion homicide Prytaneion together; (fr. 75, [Snell]) are (Poll. 8.120) in the case where no Dem. 21.85. The sources collected TTOcv?ai?oc^ov x' e\)K??' ?yop?v s.v. is known defendant was available (and inMilchhoefer [1891] 1977, p. box, ("well-adorned shining agora") prob as such somewhat to a and s.v. Thesmoth a evocation of its rather corresponding Boukoleion, p. xciii, ably poetic see see also 266 hallowed as modern coroner's court), Boege esion; Judeich 1931, pp. primitively atmosphere, discussion in nn. For recent see attested in Stat. Theb. 12.491-492: hold's Agora XXVIII, 268, 11,12. analysis, see also "a of marked the pp. 96,148-150; for full testimonia esp. Robertson 1986, pp. 159-168; grove gentle trees, by nos. 541-571. Shear Miller cult of the wool-entwined Agora III, pp. 166-174, 1994, pp. 226-228; 1978, venerable, olive." This Miller (1978, pp. 18-19) suggests that pp. 18-21,44-45; 1995, pp. 211-212; laurel and the suppliant was an annex 45-46. is in the law court housed in Wycherley 1978, pp. passage discussed byWycherley on liter 73. to the site. 6. See Schnurr 1995a the Agora III, p. from the evidence for the so-called Archaic 9.As 4. For religious processions ary Wycherley (1966, p. 285) see Pol. For the see Athens still eludes us Prytaneion, Arist. 1322b26-29; Agora. Kekropian Agora, notes, "early in Plut. Cim. almost Parker 1996, pp. 26,170. For the Pry Melanthius, preserved completely." 4.6. the see 10. See the most recent list in taneion and the Dionysia procession, On city's omphalos, Pind., see most 97. fr. fine 3 Hansen and Fischer-Hansen recently Wilson 2000, p. 75, (Snell), aoxeo? ?uxpoc?ov 1994, started On?evx'. For the 'E^?ou see S tat. 31. The of The Bendis procession also Bcou?c, p. prytaneia D?los, Lato, see Schnurr Theb. 12.481 and Demon. 57. and have been from the Prytaneion; Lucian, Olympia positively six others have been 1995b, p. 148. 7. Travlos 1960, p. 24; cf.Wycherley identified; identified "with some 5. See Ath. Pol. 3.5, where the Pry 1966, p. 291. probability," most that of taneion is described as being flanked by 8. The statement in Plut. Cim. 4.6 including, importantly, the Thesmothesion, Boukoleion, and that the famed painter Polygnotos Ephesos (Miller 1978, pp. 98-109). THE ATHENIAN PRYTANEION DISCOVERED? 35 Hephaisteion AGQfiA i )Tower of the Winds t N Eleusinion Theseion Areopagos Hill PROPOSED ACROPOLIS SITE OF THE PRYTANEION Sanctuary and Theater of Dionysos GCRS 2005 (Phaleron) 1. reconstruction of Figure Proposed movable sacred would have occurred in the initial formation southeastern Athens. G. C. R. Schmalz hearth, early us of the Athenian state, its discovery would afford the exciting possibility of uncovering the earliest layers of the city and its history.11 The present recover a study aims to significant part of the map of early Athens (Fig. 1), drawing together all possible lines of argument and evidence?historical, antiquarian, archaeological, and epigraphical?in establishing the location of the Prytaneion. monuments Given the detailed topographical account of the of ancient seem Athens that appears in the work of Pausanias, itmay surprising that never the location of the Prytaneion has been securely identified. Depending to on how Pausanias's text is read, the Prytaneion has been variably ascribed the northern or eastern/southeastern sides of the Acropolis. The scholarly consensus of the last two centuries favored a northern location. This view has changed since the 1980s, however, when the shrine of Aglauros, which was a cave on Pausanias placed directly above the Prytaneion, discovered in the eastern slopes of the Acropolis (Fig. 2).12Moreover, just below the site see new 283-284. 11.As Parker (1996, p. 27) has rion, Dontas 1983; the epi Papadopoulos 2003, pp. "were it useful to was of commented, speak graphical evidence initially treated Boegehold (AgoraXXVIII) speaks one a the as "at of 'the birth of the polis,' might in SEG XXXIII 115. For convenient Prytaneion standing generally as the eastern foot" or "on the east identify the birthday of the polis of summary of the scholarly response (p. 96) Athens that on which a common no means to this discov of the day (by uniform) slope" (pp.