Ancient Agora

In the mid-6th century BC, the Athenian Agora was established to the northwest of the Sacred Rock of the Acropolis, between the hills of Areopagus and the Agora Kolonos. For at least the next four centuries, it became the center of the city during the Classical and Hellenistic periods. In this space, the most significant public buildings and temples of the city were constructed, and intense administrative, political, judicial, commercial, social, cultural, and religious activity took place. The sequence of buildings in the Agora over time reflects the evolving path of the democratic system throughout the five centuries of the city’s existence as a city-state.

The earliest traces of human habitation in the broader area of the Agora date back to the Late Neolithic period (around 3000 BC) and consist of fragments of handmade pottery found in wells and pits. During the next two periods, the Late Helladic or Mycenaean (1550-1100 BC) and the Iron Age (1100-700 BC), the area served as a cemetery, with vaulted and chamber tombs in the first and cremations and burials in the second. At the same time, a small geometric settlement developed.

In the 6th century BC, the state undertook extensive modifications to transform this area from private to public, to house the Agora of the city. The first public buildings, the Southeastern Fountain and the Altar of the 12 Gods, were built around 520 BC, during the tyranny of the Peisistratids. After the change of government back to a democratic form in 508/7 BC, intense construction activity began in the Agora. The first buildings constructed were the Old Bouleuterion for the new council and the Royal Stoa, the seat of the Archon Basileus. Two stone boundary markers were also placed at its southwest corner to signify the sacred space.

The plundering of the Agora by Persian forces in 480/479 BC left many of its buildings in ruins. From the second quarter of the 5th century BC, intense rebuilding took place, continuing into the 4th century BC, directly related to the peak of Democracy. Among the new constructions were the Stoa of Attalus, the Tholos, the New Bouleuterion, the Stoa of Zeus Eleutherios, the N. Stoa I, the Mint, the Courts, the Temple of Hephaestus, the Temple of Apollo Patroos, and the Southwestern Fountain.

The political decline of Athens, brought about by the rise of Alexander the Great in the Kingdom of Macedonia, was followed by a cultural renaissance in the 2nd century BC. The Agora of Athens was transformed during this time with the construction of three major Stoic buildings: the Middle Stoa, the Southern Stoa II, and the Stoa of Attalus, a gift from King Attalus II of Pergamon in the birthplace of philosophy.

A great blow to the buildings of the Agora came from their looting by the army of Sulla in 86 BC, as punishment for the Athenians supporting King Mithridates of Pontus over the Romans. Despite the destruction, the city experienced a new peak during the reigns of Emperor Octavian Augustus (27 BC-14 AD) and Hadrian (117-138 AD). In the central square of the Agora, the Odeon was built to host musical events, and the South-Western and South-Eastern Temples were constructed for the worship of the imperial family. The Temple of Mars, moved from Pallene, was also transferred to the Agora.

In 267 AD, the invasion of the Herulians destroyed the buildings of the Agora to their foundations. During the next phase of the city’s reconstruction, the area was situated outside the new fortification wall, and luxurious urban villas from the 5th and 6th centuries AD were developed. It was here that Neoplatonism flourished for the last time. Successive attacks by barbarian tribes from the end of the 4th to the late 6th century AD, culminating in the Slavic invasion, again destroyed the buildings of the Agora, leading to the final decline of the area.

The buildings of the Ancient Agora of Athens were developed along the four sides of a square space enclosed by three hills: the Acropolis, the Areopagus, and the Agora Kolonos. The space is crossed from the northwest to the southeast by the Panathenaic Way, one of the main roads of the ancient city, measuring 12-20 meters wide. Every four years, the famous procession of the Great Panathenaic festival followed this road.

Near the northwest corner stands the Altar of the 12 Gods (522/1 BC), a sanctuary for suppliants and the starting point for the city’s road measurements. Along the western side of the Agora square, the most significant administrative buildings and sanctuaries of Athens gradually developed, such as the circular Tholos (470 BC), the seat of the prytaneis of the Council of 500, the New Bouleuterion (late 5th century BC), an amphitheater-like space for preparing bills before they were presented for a vote in the Assembly, the Register (2nd century BC), a four-room building with a colonnade on its facade for housing the sanctuary of the Mother of the Gods and the city’s archive, and the Monument of the Eponymous Heroes (350 BC), a long pedestal surrounded by a fence, on which stood the bronze statues of the mythical heroes of the ten Athenian tribes.

On the western side of the Agora, one can also find: the Temple of Apollo Patroos (325 BC), the founder of the Ionian tribe, with four Ionic columns at its facade; the single-chamber temple of Zeus Phratrius and Athena Phratia (350 BC), dedicated to the patron deities of the religious fraternities of the Ionians; the Stoa of Zeus Eleutherios, the liberator god who helped the Greeks expel the Persians in the Battle of Plataea (479 BC); and the Royal Stoa (500 BC), the seat of the archon basileus, responsible for religious matters and laws.

At the top of the Areopagus hill stands the Temple of Hephaestus (mid-5th century BC), known as the “Theseion.” At the southwest corner of the Agora square, around 500 BC, a marble boundary marker with the inscription “I am the boundary of the Agora” was placed next to the shoemaker Simon’s workshop, known from ancient writers as the place where Socrates met with his students. To the southwest, extending to the Pnyx, there is a valley where excavations uncovered the remains of ancient houses, shops, and workshops (“Industrial Area”). Here, the so-called Poros Building was uncovered, which was identified as the public prison of the 5th century BC, where Socrates was imprisoned and executed.

On the southern side of the Agora, public buildings such as the Southwestern Fountain (340-325 BC), the Aiacion from the early 5th century BC (previously identified with the Heliastic Court), the Southern Stoa I (430-420 BC), and its later extension, the Southern Stoa II (2nd century BC), the Southeast Fountain (530-520 BC), and the Mint (400 BC) were built. The Church of the Holy Apostles, dating from the early 10th century AD, belongs to the Byzantine settlement that developed in the area. In the middle of the open space of the Agora, the Middle Stoa was built in the 2nd century BC, likely intended for trade; in 15 BC, the Odeon, a gift from Agrippa to the citizens of Athens with a large concert hall and a facade decorated with colossal statues of Tritons and Giants, was erected; and the Temple of Ares, a Doric peripteral temple from the 5th century BC, was moved to the Agora from Pallene during the Roman period.

On the eastern side of the Agora stands the Stoa of Attalus (159-138 BC), restored to its original form to house the museum of the Ancient Agora, while the Northern side features the Painted Stoa (475-450 BC), decorated with painted panels.

On the Areopagus hill, a place linked to mythical and historical trials, excavations revealed four luxurious late antiquity residences (“philosophical schools”) on the northern slope, and on the southern foothills (“Doerpfeld excavations”), a neighborhood of the ancient deme of Kollytos with temples and houses.

Here is the translation of the text into English:

Monuments of the Site:

1. The Temple of Hephaestus

At the top of the hill of the Agora Kolonos, which marks the western boundary of the Ancient Agora of Athens, stands the Temple of Hephaestus, more widely known as the “Theseion.” It is one of the best-preserved ancient temples, partly due to its conversion into a Christian church. According to the traveler Pausanias (I, 14, 5-6), the temple was dedicated to Hephaestus, the protector of blacksmiths, and Athena Ergani, the protector of potters and craftspeople. The identification of the temple as “Hephaesteion” was confirmed by archaeological research with the discovery of metallurgical workshops in the broader area of the hill, thus overshadowing earlier views that identified the deities worshipped here as Theseus, Heracles, or Ares. The construction of the temple is thought to have taken place between 460-420 BC by an unknown architect, who is also credited with other temples in Attica with similar design.

The temple had a pronaos and an opisthodomos, both with two columns in antis. It was surrounded externally by a peristyle, a Doric colonnade with 6 columns on the short sides and 13 on the long sides. The entire structure, from the foundation to the roof, was made of Pentelic marble, while the architectural sculptures adorning it were made of Parian marble. Inside the cella, there was a double-columned structure in the shape of the letter “Π,” and at the back, a pedestal stood on which were bronze statues of Hephaestus and Athena, sculpted by Alcamenes, according to Pausanias, between 421-415 BC. The temple had a rich sculptural decoration. The metopes, which adorned the eastern side of the peristyle, depicting the twelve labors of Heracles, are particularly interesting. Continuing along the northern and southern sides, four labors of Theseus were depicted, which led to the popular name “Theseion” for the temple. The frieze did not run along all four sides of the cella, but only along the pronaos and the opisthodomos. On the pronaos, the victorious battle of Theseus against the 50 sons of Pallas, the contenders for the throne, was depicted, with six Olympian gods witnessing the scene. On the opisthodomos, the Centauromachy was depicted. The temple’s pediments also featured noteworthy sculptures. The western one depicted the Centauromachy, while the eastern one showed the reception of Heracles on Olympus or the birth of Athena. Some of these sculptures were found in fragments, such as the group of two female figures, one carrying the other on her shoulder as if trying to save her (“Supporting,” Museum of the Ancient Agora, inv. no. S 429), and the torso of a draped female figure with a pronounced sense of movement, possibly one of the temple’s acroteria (“Nereid,” Museum of the Ancient Agora, inv. no. S 182).

During the Hellenistic period, shrubs or small trees were planted around the temple in parallel rows in pots, which were uncovered during excavations. In the 7th century AD, the temple was converted into a church dedicated to Saint George Akamas and functioned as such until the liberation of Greece from the Ottomans. During the 18th century, many prominent Protestants who died in Athens were buried within the building. In 1834, a ceremony welcoming King Otto was held here. Since then, the temple has functioned as an archaeological museum until the beginning of the American School’s excavations in the Ancient Agora in 1930.

2. The Tholos

One of the most important public buildings in the Agora was the Tholos, a circular structure with six interior columns and a propylaeum added in the 1st century BC. It was the seat of the fifty prytaneis, the members of the executive body, representing one of the ten tribes created by the political reforms of Cleisthenes in 508/7 BC.

The prytaneis held office for a period of 35 or 36 days, after which they were replaced by an equal number of prytaneis from another tribe, so that by the end of the year, each tribe had been in power. The tribe in power was called the “prytaneuontes,” and its president, chosen by lot daily, was the “Epistates of the Prytaneis.”

During their term, the prytaneis were provided with meals in the Tholos, and one-third of them, or seventeen, stayed overnight in the building to handle emergency matters. The official weights and measures of the Athenian state were also stored in the Tholos. The Tholos was built on top of an earlier structure dating from the mid-6th century BC with a similar function and was abandoned around 400 AD.

3. The Bouleuterion

The New Bouleuterion was a rectangular building with a colonnade at the front. Its partial preservation, limited to the foundations, makes it difficult to reconstruct the layout of the seating in the interior. It served as the meeting place of the Council of the Five Hundred.

This council was made up of fifty annually elected citizens, the prytaneis, from each of the ten Athenian tribes, into which Cleisthenes divided the citizens in 508/7 BC. The Council of the Five Hundred, as a preparatory body, prepared bills that were later submitted for voting in the Assembly.

For a period, the New Bouleuterion functioned alongside the Old Bouleuterion, a neighboring building to the east, where the councilors initially met. The lack of available space in the Old Bouleuterion led to the construction of the New Bouleuterion for the council’s meetings, while the first was likely used as a sanctuary and for storing state archives.

In the second half of the 4th century BC, the entrance to the New Bouleuterion was provided with a monumental propylaeum in Ionic style, built immediately south of the Old Bouleuterion.