The Eridanos Valley and the Athenian Agora

The Eridanos Valley and the Athenian Agora Author(s): Albert J. Ammerman Source: American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 100, No. 4 (Oct., 1996), pp. 699-715 Published by: Archaeological Institute of America Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/506674 . Accessed: 21/03/2011 17:09 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=aia. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Archaeological Institute of America is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to American Journal of Archaeology.

http://www.jstor.org

The Eridanos Valley and the Athenian Agora ALBERTJ. AMMERMAN Abstract The northwest corner of the Agora was one of the key nodes in the ancient city of Athens, the place where the Panathenaic Way passed between the Royal Stoa and the Painted Stoa. Two water courses in underground channels met there as well. Previous studies have been limited by the high modern water table in the area. In the course of four seasons of fieldwork, the natural relief in this part of the city has now been mapped. In all, 41 cores were taken by hand. They make it possible to reconstruct for the first time the size and shape of the Eridanos Valley, which turns out to have been a larger feature on the landscape than previously recognized. A major transformation of the original setting was required to fill in the valley, install the underground water channels, and build the well-known complex of monuments and roads in the northwest corner. Consideration can now be given to the possible connection of the Eridanos project and the relocation of the Agora

to the political transformation of Athens at the end of the sixth century B.C.* INTRODUCTION The Agora of ancient Athens has been the object of highly productive for more than investigations 60 years.' The excavations carried out there, in combination with the ancient sources (in particular, the account by Pausanias), have made it possible to work out in considerable detail much of the topography of this area of the ancient city.2 There are still aspects of the Athenian Agora, however, that have received little attention, including the environmental setting of the site. In this article I present the results of fieldwork recently carried out in the northwest corner of the Agora to reconstruct the size and shape

* I would like to thank the directors of the excavations in the Athenian Agora, Leslie Shear, Jr., andJohn McK. T. Camp II, for their support and encouragement over the course of this study. For his collaboration on mapping in the field, I am grateful to Richard Anderson, the architect of the Agora Excavations. Special thanks go to Nicola Terrenato of the Universita di Roma, who served as my field assistant in all four seasons, and also to Laura Motta of the Universita di Pisa for her contribution to the sieving of soil samples in 1993. I wish to thank the Greek Archaeological Service for permission to make the hand borings in the northwest corner of the Agora. Support for the investigation was provided in part by a grant from the National Geographic Society and a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation. For their generous advice and help at various points in the study, my appreciation is extended to Kevin Clinton, Laura Gadbery, Homer A. Thompson, and Rhys Townsend. An early, shorter version of this article was presented as a paper at the Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America in December 1994 (AJA 99 [1995] 339, abstract). The following abbreviations are used: H.A. Thompson and R.E. Wycherley, Agora XIV Agora XIV: TheAgora ofAthens (Princeton 1972). Camp 1986 J.M. Camp, The Athenian Agora. Excavations in the Heart of Classical Athens (London 1986). Camp 1994 J.M. Camp, "Before Democracy: Alkmaionidai and Peisistratidai," in W.D.E. Coulson et al. eds., The Archaeologyof Athens and Attica under the Democracy(Oxbow Monograph 37, Oxford 1994) 7-12. Immerwahr S.A. Immerwahr, AgoraXIII: TheNeolithic and Bronze Ages (Princeton 1971). American Journal of Archaeology 100 (1996) 699-715

Shear 1971

T.L. Shear, Jr., "The Athenian Agora: Excavations of 1970," Hesperia 40 (1971) 241-79. Shear 1973a T.L. Shear, Jr., "The Athenian Agora: Excavations of 1971," Hesperia 42 (1973) 121-79. Shear 1973b T.L. Shear, Jr., "The Athenian Agora: Excavations of 1972," Hesperia 42 (1973) 359-407. Shear 1975 T.L. Shear, Jr., "The Athenian Agora: Excavations of 1973-1974," Hesperia 44 (1975) 331-74. Shear 1978 T.L. Shear,Jr.,"Tyrants and Building in Archaic Athens," in Athens Comes of Age (Princeton 1978) 1-19. Shear 1984 T.L. Shear, Jr., "The Athenian Agora: Excavations of 1980-1982," Hesperia 53 (1984) 1-57. Shear 1994 T.L. Shear, Jr., "'Ioov6jiouq "''A0fivaq The Agora and the Deenotrloitrv: mocracy," in W.D.E. Coulson et al. eds., TheArchaeologyofAthensand Attica under the Democracy (Oxbow Monograph 37, Oxford 1994) 225-48. H.A. Thompson, "Buildings on the West Thompson Side of the Agora," Hesperia 6 (1937) 1-226. Townsend R.E Townsend, Agora XXVII: The East Side of the Agora: The Remains beneath the Stoa of Attalos (Princeton 1995). 1 For general accounts of the Agora excavations with bibliography, see Agora XIV; and Camp 1986. 2 Paus. 1; for commentary on the relationship between the ancient sources and specific sites in the Agora, see R.E. Wycherley, Agora III: Literary and Epigraphical Testimonia (Princeton 1957). 699

700

ALBERT J. AMMERMAN

of the original Eridanos Valley. A further aim is to discuss some of the wider ramifications of the work for the early development of the Agora as a civic space. This area of the Agora is well known as the place where the Panathenaic Way passed between the Royal Stoa and the Painted Stoa (fig. 1).3 The Stoa Basileios was the small public building that served as the headquarters of the king archon, the second in command of the Athenian government; it was also a place where oaths were taken by magistrates (at the lithos) and where a copy of the law code (on kyrbeis) was set out for view.4 The Stoa Poikile, a larger building on the opposite side of the street, took its name, as we are told by Pausanias, from the paintings on wooden panels (with scenes of famous military exploits such as the Athenians against the Lacedaemonians and the Battle of Marathon) that were on display there.5 Excavated only in part, this building with its severe Doric order outside and a row of Ionic columns inside was first brought to light in 1981.6 In the northwest corner, one also finds the Altar of Aphrodite Ourania, the Crossroads Enclosure, the final stretch of the Great Drain, and the pair of covered, underground channels through which the Eridanos River flowed.7 Already by the first quarter of the fifth century B.C., this place had become one of the key nodes in the network of streets and roads in the city. In addition to the well-known Panathenaic Way, the broad street running from the Dipylon Gate toward the Acropolis (used each year for the procession of the great festival in honor of Athena,

3 The results of the excavations here are reported by Shear 1971;1973a;1975;and 1984. For an overview on the area in the sixth and fifth centuries B.C.,see Camp 1986, 35-150. 4 For the archaeology of the Royal Stoa, see Shear 1971, 243-55; and AgoraXIV, 83-90. On the lithos, Shear 1971, 259-60; Shear 1994, 242-45. On the question of the law code on kyrbeis, see R.S. Stroud, The Axones and Kyrbeisof

Drakonand Solon (Berkeley 1979); N. Robertson, "Solon's Axones and Kyrbeis and the Sixth Century Background," Historia35 (1986) 147-76; and Shear 1994, 240-45. 5On the paintings, Paus. 1.15.1-4. 6 For the excavationof the Painted Stoa, see Shear 1984, 5-19; also Camp 1986, 66-72. Note that in their earlier reconstruction of the area, Thompson and Wycherleyhad placed the Stoa of Herms in this position and the Stoa Poikile just to the east; AgoraXIV, pl. 5. 7 For the archaeology of the Altar of Aphrodite Ourania, see Shear 1984, 24-33; and Camp 1986, 55-57. For the first plan that shows the Great Drain feeding into the Eridanos in its channeled and covered form, see Shear 1973a, fig. 1. For the archaeology of the Crossroads Enclosure, see Shear 1973b,360-69; and Camp 1986,78-82. The outcrop of rock at its center is indicated by point IV in

[AJA 100

the Panathenaia), other roads led off to the north and south as well as to the east from this point.8 Along the south side of the Panathenaic Way, near the Royal Stoa, was another monument of importance, the Altar of the Twelve Gods. This small sanctuary was dedicated by the younger Peisistratos in 52211 B.C., and soon came to mark a focal point not only for the Agora but also for the city of Athens and even the whole of Attica." By way of introduction, it is worth noting two practical problems that one has to face in the study of the northwest corner of the Agora. They help to explain why previous knowledge of the natural setting there has been so limited. The first problem is the more obvious one. As shown in figure 2, the area is crossed by two modern obstructions: the AthensPiraeus Electric Railway and Hadrian Street. In fact, the railway originally defined the northern boundary of the concession of land for the Agora Excavations.10 Only since 1970 has fieldwork expanded to the north of this line. The two obstructions not only limit access to a significant portion of the area but they also make it difficult for the archaeologist to visualize how it formerly looked. In short, it takes some effort today simply to imagine an open landscape in this place. The second problem is even more serious: the high level of the modern water table in the northwest corner. During our first two field seasons (1991 and 1992), the point below which the ground was saturated with water was found at an elevation of ca. 51 masl." What this meant in the case of the Royal Stoa, for

fig. 2; see infra n. 34. Thompson and Wycherley suggest that this shrine may represent the Leokorion: Agora XIV,

121-23; H.A. Thompson, "SomeHero Shrines in EarlyAthens," in AthensComesof Age (Princeton 1978) 101-102. 8For a recent treatment of the festival, and bibliography, see J. Neils ed., Goddessand Polis: The Panathenaic Fes-

tival in AncientAthens(Princeton 1992). On the early roads in the area, see infra n. 48. 9"AgoraXIV, 129-36; Camp 1986, 40-42; and H.A. Shapiro, Art and Cult under the Tyrantsin Athens (Mainz 1989)

133-34, who notes that the Altar of the TwelveGods comprises one of the cornerstones of the modern rediscovery of the Agora. "~AgoraXIV,222-24. The railwaywas built in 1891 and it did not reach the bedrock over most of its course in our area (except just to the north of point A in fig. 6); there was apparently only limited documentation of the archaeological remains that were exposed at the time. 1 The high modern water table is due to a combination of factors: the buildup of the ground level of the city over the centuries, the hydrology of the north slope of the Acropolis, and the leakage of water lines and drains. With new pumps installed at the site (in light of the results of the

cores made in 1991 and 1992) and fully running during

1996]

THE ERIDANOS VALLEY AND THE ATHENIAN AGORA

701

ROMAN TEMPLEE F'4?oEARLY o of

?~MIN

LED 0 1 No::::;

?;: ?..::::':.::: :::`v V:-':.:: .?. C),-nocr7-3n 47:: -

: ,:

40 ~ :-l:~--~::r::~I::i i?~::--?:::? i c).-?' C)~ ?l:?-: 0 2 10?? ~~I:i: ~i-

WD,. 1818

Fig. 1. Restored plan of the northwest corner of the Agora. (Shear 1984, fig. 3) example, was that the water table stood only 75 cm below the level of the stylobate.'2 In effect, such wet conditions prevented the excavators from going much below the ground level associated with this building. It was for this reason that little or no information was available on the height of the bedrock in the immediate vicinity of Hadrian Street (fig. 2). By taking a series of hand borings, however, it is possible to document buried, natural land surfaces that oc-

cur as much as 3 m below the modern water table. Work of this kind now offers the chance to meet the serious challenge posed by modern conditions in the northwest corner of the Agora. Of the two rivers that flowed on the north and south sides of the Acropolis, the Eridanos and the Ilissos, respectively, the former remains the less well known. A basic account of the Eridanos is given by Travlos, who shows its course to run more or less

the field season in 1993, the water table could be lowered temporarily by about 1 m to an elevation of ca. 50 m. In the excavations at the Stoa Basileios, mention is made of the wet conditions by Shear 1975, 365. The water table is

shown in Shear 1984, fig. 14 as standing at ca. 50.8 m in section C-C at the Altar of Aphrodite Ourania. 12The top of the stylobate is given as 51.756 m in Shear 1973a, fig. 1.

[AJA 100

ALBERT J. AMMERMAN

702

A

AGORA

ATHENIAN

,

Northwest

N

corner

N

? I

CORE

@

41

bedrock

reaching

EXCAVATION to bedrock 50 m 51 52

e e o

oa o

az 53

1 ;

54

[

1

37

@

39

?16 15

e?

@

? 30g

16

el

?7

14

17

8

11

S

0

25

?6

26

9

10

1

-

13

31

e e

e

e

e

oe

e )

ee

38

,

8

34

36

reE

O

/4 40/

// l/

ee19

28

*

I-acria

2340

E),4

2 7n

29

/ 5

33 (g@22

/b 9e6 c1

,5

0 0

I

IV .O 2012 21

;d

f

/c I

`e

I

A'

O

ad

20m

\

0\L O

o

Fig. 2. Plan of the northwest corner of the Athenian Agora showing the locations of the cores taken (see table 1 for the elevations associated with each core). The smaller symbols indicate those places where the excavation has reached the natural land surface (elevations are displayed to the nearest meter); points a-f and I-IV are discussed in the text and in note 25. For spatial orientation, the locations of the Altar of the Twelve Gods (near core 18), the Royal Stoa (near core 2), and the Altar of Aphrodite Ourania (near core 8) are indicated by broken lines.

1996]

THE ERIDANOS VALLEY AND THE ATHENIAN AGORA

on an east-west line from the area near Syntagma Square in the modern city to the Sacred Gate at the Kerameikos cemetery.13 Recent work on the Athens subway system confirms the presence of the riverbed beneath Syntagma Square.14 My purpose here, however, is not to trace the entire course of the river, but to examine more closely the situation near the Agora. Modern exploration of the Eridanos in this area goes back to the early 19th century when Ross and Forchhammer visited the underground water course passing near St. Philip's Church.15 At the time, they seem not to have realized that they were exploring part of the canalized Eridanos. The first person to make this connection was D6rpfeld.16 In 1888, he reviewed the ancient sources on the river, which include Plato, Strabo, and Pausanias, and he then went on to identify its course as passing through the area of the Dipylon Gate. Subsequent scholarship has followed his lead. Thus,Judeich, on his map of the ancient city, has the Eridanos pass above the Agora, in a position some 30 m to the north of Hadrian Street.17 Similarly, Travlos placed the river's course on the north side of Hadrian Street in 1971.18In Immerwahr's monograph of the same year the Eridanos is shown to have a somewhat different course (one that runs closer to Hadrian Street).'9 On both Travlos's and Immerwahr's maps, the 50-m contour line is somehow drawn across the river valley instead of reflecting its geomorphology (cf. below, fig. 6). The year that saw the publication of the volumes by Travlos and Immerwahr was also to mark a significant turning point in knowledge about the Eridanos in our area. Work on the Great Drain during

I1For a bibliography on the Eridanos, see Travlos301.

He shows its course in figs. 213, 217, and 219, where it is identified as no. 214 on various maps of the city (the Ilissos is no. 215). In fig. 5, Travlos also gives in more detail the

course that he proposes for the Eridanos in the northwest

corner of the Agora. 14S.P.M. Harrington, "Athens Underground," Archaeology 47:5 (1994) 18. " Shear 1984, 7; for the early references, see B. Schmidt, Die Thorfragein der TopographieAthens (Freiburg 1879) 36-37. '6W. D6rpfeld, "Der Eridanos," AM 13 (1888) 211-20. 17 W. Judeich, Topographie von Athens2 (Munich 1931). Hoepfner, in his more recent description of the area near the Pompeion, gives an elevation on the order of 44 m for the riverbed of the Eridanos: W. Hoepfner, Kerameikos X: Das Pompeion und seine Nachfolgebauten (Berlin 1976) 9; for the course of the river (fig. 7), he follows Travlos, fig. 5. In a more recent treatment, U. Knigge, The Athenian Kerameikos(Athens 1991) fig. 1, places the river closer to Hadrian Street in the northwest corner but proposes a course too far to the south between the Agora and the

703

the new cycle of excavations that started in 1971 made it possible to enter the channels below Hadrian Street.20 This now meant that the Eridanos - at least in its later, canalized form--had to be relocated to the south. In addition, if one considers more closely the actual course of the pair of channels, the pronounced bend in front of the Royal Stoa does not look natural (fig. 1).21 Indeed, it was the artificial character of this bend that first drew my attention to the question of the Eridanos Valley,22leading me to ask the following questions: To what extent had the original course of the river near the northwest corner of the Agora been intentionally modified by human intervention? At an even more basic level, what was the original size and shape of the Eridanos Valley? If there had once been a more open valley in this place, the landscape must have been transformed in a significant way in preparation for the installation of the complex of buildings and roads that are now well known to us. Was there any evidence for such an early project or a series of related projects to change the original setting of the northwest corner? It was with such questions in mind that plans were made to conduct a new kind of fieldwork in this part of the Agora. NATURAL RELIEF

In order to establish the original relief of the northwest corner of the Agora, a series of cores were taken down to the bedrock at 41 different points. The locations of the cores are shown in figure 2 and a summary of the results with specific regard to the elevation of the natural land surface is given in table 1. All of the borings were done by hand using a Dutch

Kerameikos cemetery (unlikely, given the relief of the Kolonos Agoraois). 18 The contour lines for 50 m and 55 m are given in Travlos, fig. 5. There has long been the belief that the original valley was quite small in size, e.g., Agora XIV, 19. 19 Immerwahr, pl. 91. Note that this map is also used as the base map in Camp 1986, fig. 7. 20 This date is first mentioned explicitly by Shear 1984, 7; see also Shear 1973a, fig. 1. 21 As shown, e.g., in Shear 1984, fig. 2, the river flows parallel to the south side of the Painted Stoa directly toward the higher relief of the Kolonos Agoraios (before making a sharp bend at the Royal Stoa). 22Having carried out an earlier study of the Forum in Rome (A.J. Ammerman, "On the Origins of the Forum Romanum," AJA 94 [1990] 627-45), I first had planned to compare the environmental settings of the Forum and the Agora, using information in the archives of the Agora Excavation; initially, I did not intend to conduct fieldwork in the Agora. Once the problem of the high water table was recognized, this all changed.

ALBERT J. AMMERMAN

704

[AJA 100

Table 1. Summary of Cores Taken in Northwest Corner of the Agora, with Elevations (m) Given for Starting Point and Natural Land Surface Core

Start

Blocked

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

51.58 51.35 51.37 51.67 51.70 51.30 51.19 51.08 51.10 51.82 51.06 52.08 51.33 51.24 51.30 51.10 51.11 52.29 51.13 51.05 52.50

50.64

Natural 50.58 49.18 48.90 48.73 50.70 50.68 50.01 49.44

50.21 49.80 49.38 49.38 50.22 50.07 50.80 48.66 51.45 49.94 49.90 51.14

Core

Start

22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41

51.87 51.23 51.39 51.27 51.12 51.89 49.77 50.13 50.50 51.20 50.32 50.08 50.94 51.03 50.39 52.19 50.18 51.91 50.24 52.85

Blocked

Natural 49.07

50.27 49.87 48.44 49.83 49.77 49.59 49.61 50.33 49.38 49.90 48.77 50.40 49.53 48.59 50.64 49.26 51.01 48.43 51.63

soil auger.23 Each core requires making a series of "cuts"(with each cut the auger bit reaches a greater depth in the ground; the depth obtained by a particular cut will depend on the type of auger bit used and also on the kind of sediment encountered). The soil sample recovered from a given cut is described in terms of its color, texture, and archaeological inclusions. Attention is paid to the recognition of individual strata in the archaeological sense and also to the identification of the boundaries between different horizons in the soil profile. In the case of core 9, which began at the ground level associated with the Altar of Aphrodite Ourania, it took, for example, a sequence of 11 cuts to reach a depth of 1.7 m; the top of the bedrock, a white silty sediment, was reached at an elevation of 49.44 masl (figs. 3-4). At the time this core was made in 1991, such an elevation represented a position 1.6 m below the water table at the site. Initial fieldwork revealed that in

certain places (see, e.g., core 5 at the north end of the Royal Stoa), bedrock was as much as 3 m below the modern water table. Since it is very difficult to excavate down to this depth under such conditions, the natural land surface in the deepest part of the valley can only be documented on the basis of cores.24 The success of a study of this kind hinges on the careful selection of individual sampling points and their spatial pattern over the site. It is not advisable on a complex, deeply stratified site such as the Agora to try to make a large number of cores on a fixed grid all at one time. It is better to adopt a more sequential approach to sampling: that is, to follow a strategy where the work is done over several seasons, so that what is learned in one year can be used in planning the coverage of the next field season. At the same time, there are practical advantages in following the lead of the excavation itself. The lowest

23For the equipment used, see G.G.L.Steur et al., "Methods of Soil Survey in Use at the Netherlands Soil Survey

need to work rapidly and make several entries over a short time in taking a given core. As we learned from previous experience in Rome and Venice, this can be achieved by using, in sequence, several long, narrow bits (each one successively smaller in diameter). On the results of some of the work in Rome and Venice, see A.J. Ammerman, "Morfologia della valle fra Palatino e Velia,' Bollettino di archeologia 14-16 (1992) 107-11; Ammerman, M. De Min, and R. Housley, "New Evidence on the Origins of Venice," Antiquity 66 (1991) 913-16; and Ammerman et al., "More on the Origins of Venice," Antiquity 69 (1995) 501-10.

Institute," Boor en Spade 11 (1961) fig. 1. The locations of

the cores were recorded on the site plan at a scale of 1:100. Photographs were taken of the soils and sediments recovered in the auger bit as part of the documentation of the work (fig. 4). For the description of soil colors, we used the Munsell Soil Color Charts (Baltimore 1975). 24 One

of the problems in working below the water

table is that the hole in the ground tends to collapse as its walls are exposed to water over time. Thus, there is a

1996]

THE ERIDANOS VALLEY AND THE ATHENIAN AGORA

705

.... .....

Y! Oil jj?............. -----.....

04'0?:-:::

i~:-ii-i

Fig. 3. Work in progress on core 9, located on the south side of the Altar of Aphrodite Ourania places to be excavated will present, in general, the best opportunities for reaching the buried, natural land surface. By starting at a low position in the ground, one can reduce the chances that a given core will be blocked (by structural remains or large inclusions in a fill deposit) before it reaches the bedrock. Since one of our goals was to reconstruct the profile of the Eridanos Valley, another consideration

in the sampling design was to produce a transect across the site. This involved making cores at a number of points along the line from A to A' shown in figure 2. Priority was given to developing this transect of sampling points during the first two field seasons. Once the basic profile began to take shape, emphasis shifted to filling out the spatial pattern so that contour lines showing the natural relief could be eventually drawn on the site plan as well (see be-

:--i~~"'WOO,

77as~

-461a~

; -~ ~~~6:i~~ Iva?;;--::-?i;-a--~~~--:c-~ OM W!" T ?~~~~~ ~i~~;-~i-; ;-~-: ~::~~-: --:-:-:i1'I"-

Fig. 4. Detail of sediment in the auger bit of the lowest cut in core 9, showing the boundary to the natural land surface (white silt) in the tip. Scale in centimeters.

706

ALBERT J. AMMERMAN

[AJA 100

low, fig. 6). In generating both the profile and the contour map, it was important to integrate what was already known about the natural relief from the excavations. A systematic review of the sections drawn in the excavation notebooks yielded information on the height of the bedrock.25 The availability of such information falls off rapidly as one approaches Hadrian Street; as seen in figure 2, very few excavation symbols are observed, on either side, within 15 m of the street. We thus paid comparatively less attention to those areas already well documented by the excavations and devoted our main sampling effort to the area near Hadrian Street. We also found it useful to duplicate a few of the cores as a means of quality control (e.g., core 33 was made near core 5 to confirm the elevation of bedrock in this location; see table 1). It is instructive to outline the course of development of the work over the four field seasons. At the start in 1991, there was still some uncertainty about whether or not hand borings could be made below the water table in the soils and sediments at the Agora, which are sometimes extremely dense in anthropic inclusions (for instance, rock fragments in fill deposits and road metal). Thus, the first season was seen essentially as a trial. A total of 11 cores (1-11) were taken with most of them occurring along the line from A to A' in the vicinity of Hadrian Street. Although the anthropic sediments, as expected, were not easy to bore through, we were able to reach depths as great as 3 m when necessary. In the case of core 5, it took a series of 19 cuts before the natural land surface was encountered at an elevation of 48.73 m, corresponding to a position in the ground 3.03 m

below the stylobate of the Royal Stoa.26 It was heartening to find that the boundary to the natural soil or bedrock was usually well defined.27 One of the observations of archaeological interest in 1991 was the presence in core 3 of some 60 cm of road metal with its top at an elevation of ca. 50.7 m (that is, ca. 105 cm below the level of the stylobate of the Royal Stoa), in agreement with the findings of a nearby excavation.28 On the basis of the positive results of the first season, a more ambitious round of fieldwork was planned for 1992. An attempt was made to complete the transect of sampling points across the valley. In all, 16 new cores (12 through 27) were taken at the site, increasing substantially the sampling coverage. As we gained more experience working in Athens, we refined the descriptions of the archaeological inclusions occurring in the soil samples. For example, in core 25, black-glaze sherds were found in two soil samples taken from positions below 50 m in elevation.29 Given that such pottery is not earlier in date than the sixth century B.C., one could infer that the valley had remained essentially open down to the end of at least the seventh century. By the completion of the second field season, there was already a basic sense of what the valley looked like in cross section.3o" Emphasis in the last two field seasons then shifted to filling out the sampling coverage. In particular, it was of interest in 1993 to establish the course of the river on the south side of the future site of the Painted Stoa; three of the eight cores taken in the third season were located there (28, 29, and 35, all starting near the base of the artificial channel).3" At

25The results of this search are summarized in fig. 2, where the smaller symbols give the elevation of the bedrock to the nearest meter (taking,by convention, the highest local point shown in a given section). More specific information is given here for six places identified by the letters a through f (severalof these fall on or near the line

nian schist by P. Gaitanakis, Athinai-Piraieus Sheet, Geological Map of Greece(Athens 1982); see also I.K. Trikkalinos, Die Geologieder Akropolis kleintektonisheUntersuchungen(Athens 1972). 28 Shear 1975, 366-69 suggests that this road crossed the area from northwest to southeast. The lack of road metal in core 19 would support the idea that the road did not run in an east-west direction. 29 Given the small sizes of the soil samples recovered from a hand boring, one would not normally expect to recover datable material from a core. A list of the blackglaze sherds from low positions in eight of the cores made in 1992 is given in table 4 of the unpublished preliminary report on the second field season, "Environmental Studies in the Northwest Corner of the Athenian Agora," 1992. "• Table 2 in the same preliminary report (supra n. 29) lists the elevations of the natural land surface for 10 points along the line from Hastings Street to the Stoa of Zeus. "' With the new pumps in full operation (supra n. 11), the water table was lowered to about 50 m, and the excavations could be taken down to a deeper level; the cores

from A to A' in fig. 2): a) ca. 52.0 m and 52.1 m, see notebook BE (1982) 3,022 and 3,024, respectively; b) ca. 51.0 and 51.3 m, see notebook BF (1973) 2,320 and 3,046; c) ca. 52.8 m, see section A-A in Thompson, fig. 3; d) ca. 52.1 m, see section C-C in Thompson, fig. 3 (the relief rises to ca. 53.6 m at the square-shaped symbol located further to the west in my fig. 2); e) ca. 51.9 m and 52.2 m, see L.M. Gadbery, "The Sanctuary of the Twelve Gods in the Athenian Agora: A Revised View," Hesperia 61 (1992) figs. 6 and 9; and f) ca. 51.8 m, 52.25 m, and 52.35 m, see notebook BF (1971-1973) 1,644, 2,774, and 3,012, respectively. 26 For the elevation of the stylobate, see supra n. 12. 27The natural sediment at the base of a soil profile (the C horizon) commonly takes the form of a firm, white silt (Munsell 5Y 8/1 moist). The bedrock is classified as Athe-

1996]

THE ERIDANOS VALLEY AND THE ATHENIAN AGORA

707

another point in this area (point II in fig. 2), we observed a local outcrop of bedrock (itself probably artificially cut down at the time of the installation of the channels) that stood at an elevation of ca. 50.1 m. This comparatively high elevation implies that the course of the original valley must have run more to the south. In short, the stretch of the pair of channels passing just along the south side of the Painted Stoa did not follow the natural course of the valley but crossed it on a diagonal line from the north bank to the south bank. This placement of the channels, as we shall see below, would allow the Panathenaic Way to cross the area as a broad street; it would also insure that the Great Drain fed into the canalized Eridanos at a suitable angle.32 With the water table lower at the site than previously (closer to 50 m with several pumps in operation), the north end of the Royal Stoa could now be excavated to a deeper level. The new work led to the exposure of bedrock at point III (next to core 19 in fig. 2) at a height of ca. 50.5 m, where it marks the upper part of the south bank. As mentioned above, core 33 was taken as a control on the results previously obtained from core 5.33 In retrospect, it is remarkable that core 5 had managed to penetrate the thick deposit of rock fill used to support the northern end of the Royal Stoa (fill now exposed in section down to the starting point of core 33). As we began to gain a better sense of the natural relief of the smaller, lateral valley at the foot of the Kolonos Agoraois, which drains into the Eridanos (see fig. 6; it would one day serve as the course of the Great Drain), attention returned to the outcrop of bedrock upon which the Crossroads Enclosure is centered.34 With its highest part reaching an elevation of ca. 51.6 m, this harder mass of isolated rock with a bluish color (point IV in fig. 2) once stood almost 1.7 m above the immediately surrounding natural relief at the north end of the lateral valley. This notable feature on the landscape had formed over geological time as a consequence of processes

of erosion in the lateral valley. In the third season we also sieved soil samples taken from the lower part of several cores.35 This was done with the aim of recovering very small pieces of sherd residue in order to demonstrate that the lower part of the valley had remained open down through the time when pottery was in use (that is, the last few thousand years as opposed to older geological time). A short field season in the summer of 1994 completed the project. Only six new cores (nos. 36-41) were taken at this time. There was also the chance to examine the well-developed paleosol that had formed on top of the bedrock at point I (fig. 2) and that was exposed by the new excavation there?' In addition, it was possible to complete core 35, which had been blocked by the dense rocky fill below the Panathenaic Way the previous year."3 Cores 36 and 38 contributed to the further definition of the north bank of the Eridanos Valley. At the northwest corner of the Royal Stoa, where two previous attempts had been blocked (cores 23 and 31), core 40 now contributed another low point along the south bank. Finally, core 41 augmented our knowledge of the natural relief at the far northern end of the transect. Turning to the results of the four seasons as a whole, an elevation of 50 m or less was reached in a total of 24 cores (see table 1). Of these, seven had to go down below 49 m before the natural land surface was encountered. All seven of the cores are located near Hadrian Street. The profile of the Eridanos Valley is reconstructed in figure 5, where the vertical scale is shown at four times the horizontal scale. It is based on 21 points whose locations on the site plan are given in figure 2. Starting at the northern end, the natural relief slopes down gradually from an elevation of around 52 m (core 41 and point a) to just above 50 m on the upper part of the north bank itself (cores 8 and 11). This slope entails a fall of only about 2 m in height over a distance of some 40 m. The relief then slopes down more steeply, as reflected by core 25 in the profile (see also

could thus start from lower positions in the ground. Cores 28 and 29, for example, were made in the base of the south channel. We had hoped to make hand borings inside the channel below HadrianStreet (to document the lowest,central part of the valley) but this did not prove possible for reasons of safety. 32 In terms of hydrology, the angle is important for a good flow of water at the point where two courses meet. I"Core 33 was able to start from a lower position (50.08 m) as some 1.2 m of rock fill had been removed since core 5 was made in 1991. This permitted the use of a wider bit in making core 33 and made it possible to examine its lower soil samples for sherd residues (see infra n. 35).

'4This mass of rock has a diameter of roughly 2.5 m; see Shear 1973b, fig. 2. 35 It involved the water-sievingof samples and the use of sieves at mesh 18 and 35. In the case of core 33, a series of nine soil samples down to an elevation of 48.96 m all yielded sherd residue (very small pieces of worn ceramics). 6 This point is located near the Archaic wall shown in

Shear 1984, fig. 3. The texture of the soil, which is some 24 cm thick and rests directly on the bedrock, is a sandy silt; it has a yellowish-brown color (Munsell O1YR5/4 moist). 7 Core 35 was blocked by dense rock fragments at 50.65 m in 1993; see infra n. 48 on the early road levels of the Panathenaic Way and the fills observed below them in 1994.

708

ALBERT J. AMMERMAN 16

41 a

14

8 11 26 25

Hadrian Street

9

54

405

[AJA 100 1911 24 2

Railway

d

C

54

53 52

51

51

50

50

49

49

48

48 "_

47

47 10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

11r0m

Fig. 5. Cross section showing the natural relief of the Eridanos Valley.The profile runs on the line from A to A' in figure 2. The vertical scale is presented at four times the horizontal scale. The points used in reconstructing the profile are indicated along the top of the figure. cores 17, 36, and 38, which are not displayed in fig. 5). The low, central part of the valley- between core 25 on the north side and cores 5 and 40 on the south side - has a width of ca. 20 m and originally rested below 49 m in elevation. The full depth of the lowest part of the valley, the area immediately beneath Hadrian Street, is still not well defined; it may once have been as low as 48 m.3s The bank on the south side again has a fairly steep slope-one rising from ca. 48.4 m at core 40 to ca. 50.5 m at point III (that is, a rise of 2 m over a distance of 5 m). Beyond this point, the profile continues to increase more gradually in elevation, reaching close to 53 m at the southern end of the transect. The natural relief of the south bank stands somewhat higher than what is observed on the north bank. In summary, the original valley had a width of approximately 30 m between points on its opposite banks that stood at 50 m in elevation. Clearly, the Eridanos Valley was once a major feature on the landscape of early Athens. Figure 6 is a contour map of the natural relief, using the information that is now available. To provide better definition to the contour lines and to place the natural relief in wider context, the frame of the map has been enlarged to include most of

the north side of the Agora (lines indicating the frame of fig. 2 are included for purposes of reference). The sources for the height of the bedrock in the wider area are given in table 2.39 In selecting the archaeological sections (lines with double letters in fig. 6) and other points (triangles with single letters) to be used for the contour map, emphasis was placed on the east and west sides (to anchor the respective contour lines) and on the area that runs immediately along the south side of Hadrian Street (the area closest to the river).40 The contour lines for 49 m and 50 m, which run more or less parallel to one another on both sides of Hadrian Street, reveal the main course of the Eridanos. Again, the lower part of the valley, as noted above in the profile (fig. 5), has a width of about 30 m. Another feature on the landscape that is clearly shown in figure 6 is the lateral valley at the foot of the hill on the west side, Kolonos Agoraios. The confluence of the two valleys- the area between the future sites of the Altar of the Twelve Gods and the Royal Stoa-was formerly a low spot. Moreover, when the two valleys provided drainage for the area in their original, open forms, it would have been periodically a wet place at those times of year with heavy rainfall. Looking back then on

38 One expects a valley to be deepest in its central part. So far it has not been possible to make cores in the area immediately below Hadrian Street (supra n. 31). 39In table 2, the sources of the information are given in the following two summary forms: author, publication, year, and figure; or excavation notebook, year, and page. Again, by convention, the highest point of the bedrock in a given section is used for the local value of the elevation in generating the contour lines (this treatmentreduces the effects of artificial decapitation of the bedrock). Under E in table 2, see also Thompson, fig. 126. 4) The area of particular interest for our present pur-

poses is the northwestcorner (shown in the inset box). For the wider area, no attempt is made to capture local, smallscale changes in the natural relief. The purpose of this first approximation is to show the basic pattern of the contour lines for the larger area. Note that much of the central area of the Agora, especially near the Odeion, and the bedrock on the lower part of the east slope of the Kolonos Agoraios have been locally decapitated by various human activities over the centuries. There is less evidence for decapitation of the bedrock in those areas of the Agora closer to Hadrian Street.

1996]

THE ERIDANOS VALLEY AND THE ATHENIAN AGORA

the early situation in the northwest corner of the Agora, we begin to appreciate that this area did not offer ideal conditions for one day becoming a key node in the city. If anything, the opposite would appear to have been the case; together the two valleys presented an obstacle to lines of communication, and their confluence, in particular, offered a poor building site (fig. 7). In hindsight, one can now realize that it must have taken a considerable effort to transform this unfavorable setting into something quite different. DISCUSSION new understanding of the nature of the ErValley invites reconsideration of the formathe northwest corner of the Agora. The aim final section is to examine some of the implications that arise from the fieldwork. There is an extensive literature on the Athenian Agora, and it is not my intention here to survey all of the positions that different scholars have taken or to review all of the topics that remain at issue.4' My purpose in this article is a more limited one: to introduce a new dimension in discourse on the early development of the Agora- the important role played by the purposeful transformation of the environmental setting. There are three main parts to the argument that I develop in this section. First, I compare the elevation of the natural land surface and the ground level associated with early buildings and streets in order to establish the basic set of relationships between the two. This contributes a sense of scale to the modifications of the land surface that took place. Second, the individual structures involved in the project in the northwest corner are identified and I consider how they fit together as a whole, in effect, looking at what happened in the area from a functional point of view. The term "project" is used here in the singular merely for the sake of exposition; Our idanos tion of of this

41 To mention only a few contributions to the literature not cited above, J.S. Boersma, Athenian Building Policyfrom 561/0 to 405/4 B.C. (Groningen 1970); F Kolb, "Die Bau-,

Kultur-und Religionspolitikder Peisistratiden,"Jd192 (1977)

99-138; Kolb, Agora and Theater, Volks-und Festversammlung (Berlin 1981). Two issues of particular relevance concern the date the Royal Stoa was first built (see infra n. 55) and whether or not building F in the southwest corner served as a residence for the Peisistratids (see infra n. 58). 42The problem stems in large measure from the wellknown shortage of ancient sources for the sixth century B.C. For recent commentary on this issue, see, e.g., B.M.W. Knox, "Literature," in Athens Comesof Age (Princeton 1978) 43-52; F.J. Frost, "Towards a History of Peisistratid Ath-

709

it should be fully understood that the work on separate parts may have been carried out at different times and that the final result may well have been the consequence not of a master plan but of a sequence of lesser projects or interventions. And third, difficult as this may be, it is important to try to place the transformation of the northwest corner in historical context.42 We know that in the early part of the fifth century B.C., the ground level at the base of the step of the Royal Stoa had an elevation of approximately 51.3 m (that is, it stood ca. 45 cm below the level of the stylobate).4" This level corresponds more or less with the base of the lithos as well. Given the values for the natural land surface, as observed in cores 5, 33, and 40 (table 1), there was then a total buildup of just over 2 m at the north end of the building. In contrast, at the south end, the foundations were laid directly on top of the bedrock, and the ground level outside the structure at the time of its construction was essentially that of the natural land surface itself.44 On the north bank of the Eridanos, we find a similar situation beneath the Altar of Aphrodite Ourania, where thick fills are observed on the south side, becoming thinner on the north, the higher part of the bank. At the time of its construction about 500 B.C., the ground level (which is equated with the narrow band of rough stone that projects along the bottom of the base) stood at approximately 50.9 m.45 On the monument's south side, in light of the values of the natural land surface observed in cores 9, 25, and 26, the difference (with much local variation; the natural relief falls off from east to west) is in the range of 1.1-2.5 m. On the north side, the change in the land surface, as expected, is somewhat lesson the order of 0.8-1.1 m. In the case of the Painted Stoa further to the east on the same bank, the ground level at the time of its construction (ca. 470-460 B.C.)

ens," in J.W. Eadie and J. Ober eds., The Craft of the Ancient Historian (Lanham 1985) 66-70; and Shapiro (supra n. 9) 1-5. 43The elevation of the stylobate (supra n. 12) is used in combination with the restored elevation of the building (Shear 1971, fig. 3) to obtain the ground level at the base of the step; see also Shear 1975, 365-70; and T.L. Shear, Jr., "The Persian Destruction of Athens: Evidence from Agora Deposits," Hesperia 62 (1993) 428-29. Already by ca. 450 B.C., the ground had risen to the level of the step itself (ca. 51.4 m); Shear 1975, 368. 44See point b in fig. 2 (supra n. 25) as well as Shear 1975, 365. 45Shear 1984, 26 and fig. 14.

F

G

I

H

K

J

N

--N

L

M

O

N

AGORA EXC

52-

ATHEN

CORE reachin

0 *

Scc

3-'

•'

/

•

t

showing

T-•--o

B\

i

\ ",\ / •

\~

o

t

\

\:\

\

/"--

E

Cr

I

0I

A/

o

A0

*

* \\

bed

OTHER INFOR

t49

5 -*-+-

EXCAVATION

ARCHAEOLOG

-

-'- '

4

8

P

G

57 / //

/

/ /

I--*•-*

I

/I

,

I

000m

/ ---A-.--

Fig. 6. Map showing the natural relief in the northern part of the Athenian Agora. The inset box in the upper left indicates t 2. The contour lines are drawn at an interval of 1 m. See table 1 for elevations and table 2 for references.

1996]

THE ERIDANOS VALLEY AND THE ATHENIAN AGORA

711

Table 2. Sources for Sections and Places Illustrated in Figure 6 Section

Source

Place

Source

AA BB CC DD EE FF GG HH

Notebook MM (1939) 1,002 Notebook MM (1939) 775 Notebook MM (1939) 791 and 1,143 Notebook BT' (1972) 744; see also 140 Thompson, fig. 3: section AA Thompson, fig. 3: section CC Thompson, fig. 3: section BB Thompson, pl. 4: section DD Thompson, pl. 4: section CC Thompson, pl. 7: section CC Thompson, pl. 7: section DD Thompson, pl. 7: section BB Thompson, pl. 7: section AA Thompson, Hesperia 19 (1950) pl. 18 M. McAllister, Hesperia 28 (1959) pl. A: section AA Notebook BF (1973) 3,012 Notebook BA (1972) 1,864 Notebook BA (1971) 1,393 Notebook BA (1971) 1,661 Notebook BA (1971) 1,755 Townsend, pl. 60: section BB Townsend, pl. 59: section DD Townsend, pl. 60: section CC Townsend, pl. 59: section EE

A

Field observation (1994): point 3 at 56.82 m Field observation (1994): point 2 at 57.97 m Field observation (1994): point 4 at 57.90 m Field observation (1994): point 1 at 59.69 m Notebook H' (1955) 2,189-90 E.D. Townsend, Hesperia 24 (1955) fig. 2 (tomb J7:2) T.L. Shear, Jr., Hesperia 39 (1970) fig. 1: west elevation Notebook BA (1972) 1,954 Notebook BA (1972) 1,950 Notebook BA (1971) 1,387 Immerwahr, pl. 79: grave 07:11 Immerwahr, pl. 83: tomb 07:5 Immerwahr, pl. 79: tomb 07:2 Immerwahr, pl. 79: grave 07:1

II

JJ

KK LL MM NN OO PP

QQ

RR SS TT

UU VV WW XX

B C D E F G H I

J K L M N

had an elevation of approximately 51.4 m, corresponding with the base of the third step.46 This elevation, especially allowing for the somewhat later date, is almost the same as that of the Royal Stoa (51.3 m) and only 0.5 m higher than that of the Altar of Aphrodite.47 Once again, there is a difference in the buildup of the natural land surface on the two sides of the Painted Stoa: on the north only about 0.6 m (cores 6-7) and on the south from 1.2 m to as much as 1.7 m locally (cores 28-29 and also point II). Turning to the Panathenaic Way, the best evidence

for its elevation in our area during the first quarter of the fifth century B.C. comes from the sounding made in 1993 and 1994, where core 35 was also taken.48 Here the lowest level of road metal occurs at an elevation of about 50.7 m and it is overlain by a layer associated with the Persian destruction (ca. 480 B.C.), the top of which has an elevation of approximately 51 m. Thus, the level of the street in the early years of the fifth century is in agreement with the ground levels associated with the three monuments considered. At core 35 itself, fills of almost 1.2 m exist between the natural bedrock and the ear-

6 Shear 1984, 5 together with figs. 8 and 9 for the ground level. Shear 1984, 13 for the date of construction. Note the possible presence of structural remains at the site that may represent part of an earlier building. 47At the Altar of Aphrodite, the ground level rose to the height of the sill (ca. 51.1 m) by about 480 B.C. (i.e., an elevation even closer to that of the Painted Stoa at more or less the same time). On the ground level at the Royal Stoa around 450 B.C. (ca. 51.4 m), see supra n. 43. 4 LayersT and V represent the lowest levels of the road as shown by the section drawnin notebook BF (1994)4,209. They occur just below layer R, associated with the Persian destruction. A report on the excavation here is in preparation byJohn Camp for Hesperia.For previous work on

the PanathenaicWayin this area, see Shear 1973a, 122-25, where road levels going back to the sixth century and even earlier are mentioned (for trench B excavated in an area near the Altar of the Twelve Gods in 1971); Shear 1975, 362-65. On evidence for an early road along the south bank of the Eridanos, see AgoraXIV, 19 (near section AA in fig. 6 of this article); and Shear 1971, 265 (further to the east in area BA of the excavations).On the early road running on a north-south line at the foot of the Kolonos Agoraios, see AgoraXIV,192 (withroad metal going back to the eighth

century); see also Shear 1973a, 125 and fig. 1 (for this road

in the Classical period meeting the Panathenaic Way).In addition, an early road may have passed beneath the Royal Stoa (supra n. 28).

712

ALBERT J. AMMERMAN

ft? -~j

~I?

[AJA 100

Ch ISi~~

t?t~r~,, .,~7-UIts?

c

"\e

~L-e \ ~

;d?

"")'

~pc~

i\ \r

t -~ 4-LU, ~?+? ~Ea3 ~ ~ir?

y

\

-~t~

:r=~3CI~

`I~2~

JI~-L.?

.?? Jr

,? I?

I~,t~ C?*. -cL1~4 c-C-"H" -c~3~ ILLCI-

-

e

.crrIII?1S~P~ I* --'- / ~. ??If

~c

~,

,,,,

???

,,

u??r. ?F'C

~C~ crre

~?

~

qlL,

F

:.--

__

yJ

61

,,

/r

,e '?'

//

-Y

Ikrk

JI

rS=4r J)

/r

//

"\ ~

I"

I"

,,

~

I"

//

Fig. 7. Reconstruction of the natural morphology of the Eridanos Valley,viewed from the southeast. (H. McClennen) liest level of the street. Further to the northwest, in the area immediately below Hadrian Street, the difference between this surface of the Panathenaic Way and the lower, central part of the valley was probably more than 2 m.49 Although one still does not have close chronological control on the age of the lowest fills beneath the Panathenaic Way, it is clear at this stage of research that the total accumulation was a substantial one by the beginning of the fifth century B.C. The Panathenaic Way was thus able to pass between the Royal Stoa and the Altar of Aphrodite as a broad, level road. Before the valley was filled in, the crossing of the Eridanos would have involved either a ford or else a bridge of some kind. In other words, the open valley, prior to its transformation, would have represented a bottleneck for traffic and, above all, one for the procession of the Panathenaia that moved along this route. Once the project was completed, the stone slabs forming the base of the artificial channels stood at an elevation of about 50 m in the area between the two stoas.5" At this height, the water now flowed in a position some 1.5 m above the original riverbed of the Eridanos. Accordingly,

there must have been a fundamental change in the local regime of the river as well. Part of the reason that the pair of channels run at this level may have stemmed from the need to have the Great Drain feed into them at this height.51 In light of this review of elevations, it is evident that the creation of the northwest corner required a significant modification of the environmental setting. In order to eliminate the open valley, a large volume of fill had to be brought in so that the ground level of the whole area would now stand at an elevation of about 51 m. Much more was involved than simply filling in the valley, however. To appreciate more fully what was called for, it may be useful to consider several of the key relationships between the different structures in the project. The drainage system, once installed, had to function below ground. This system was not an optional part of the project but one of the elements at its very heart. To achieve a proper flow of water and prevent the Great Drain from becoming clogged with sediment and other objects, it was necessary that the Eridanos channels and the drain come together at a suitable angle as well

4 Taking the riverbed (fig. 5) to have once had an elevation in the range of 48.0-48.5 m. 51 Note that the base is at essentially the same height

tion that the base of the channel in this place was never previously in a lower position. 51The elevation of the "floor" of the Great Drain near

as the local outcrop of bedrock at point II (ca. 50.1 m) between cores 28 and 29. This outcrop carries the implica-

the northeast corner of the Royal Stoa is approximately 50 m.

1996]

THE ERIDANOS VALLEY AND THE ATHENIAN AGORA

713

as at the same height. Indeed, it may well have taken more than one attempt to reach this solution.52 At the same time, there was the further question of how the course of the covered channels should relate to the broad street passing above. One possibility, which reduced to a minimum the distance that the Panathenaic Way would have to run on top of the canalized Eridanos, was to have the two crisscross one another (fig. 1). By adopting this solution, the problem of the angle of the Great Drain was worked out as well. In addition, the builders may have taken advantage of the channel walls themselves in preparing the deep foundations required on the north side of the Royal Stoa. The monuments built out over the valley fill would have had one side or end (on the higher part of the bank) anchored more securely on the bedrock itself. In short, the individual parts of the project seem to fit into a well-integrated design in the northwest corner.53 Black-glaze sherds recovered from the valley fill indicate that the transformation of this part of the Agora did not start before the sixth century B.C.54 The date of the installation of the Altar of Aphrodite, 500 B.C., serves as a terminus ante quem for the project. The initial construction of the Royal Stoa is now attributed to much the same date.55 These two lines of evidence bracket the sixth century as the time of interest. Obviously, it would be desirable to establish a more specific date for the start of the project within this time span. Unfortunately, given the small sizes of the core samples, it is not reasonable to expect that they can be used to recover archaeological materials that will yield much greater

chronological resolution. In the long run, deeper excavations below the water table will be needed to obtain such resolution. A third, less direct line of evidence suggests that at least the improvement of the Panathenaic Way, if not necessarily the other components of the project, had already started during the last quarter of the sixth century. It takes the form of the Altar of the Twelve Gods, which the younger Peisistratos, son of the tyrant Hippias, dedicated in 522/156 This religious structure was located along the side of the Panathenaic Way,only 40 m from the Eridanos crossing. Moreover, it is well known that the Panathenaic festival was reorganized in 566 and that the elder Peisistratos, who first rose to power at about this time, may have taken an active interest in its reorganization, which included the introduction of new athletic contests (some of which may even have used the dromos).57 In the archaeological literature, one finds further attempts to link the Peisistratids with individual structures in the general area. Proposals of this kind have been made both for building F in the southwest corner of the Agora (built around 550, i.e., close to the time of Peisistratos's final return to Athens) and for the fountain house in the southeast corner (built around 525, much the same time as the Altar of the Twelve Gods).58 In the second half of the sixth century, the area bounded by the Eridanos River, the Kolonos Agoraios, and the foot of the Areopagos may well have belonged to the sphere of influence of the Peisistratids. Camp, in a recent overview, outlines several possible reasons why the Peisistratids

52E.g., the final stretch of the Great Drain appears to have been restructured in the third quarter of the fifth century B.C.;Shear 1975, 368. Recall also the stretch near the southwest corner (deposit H 13:5) that was dug into the bedrock at some time before 480 B.C.but may not have been actually used; Shear 1993 (supra n. 43) 405. 5 The project also included a road intersecting the Panathenaic Way on a north-south line; see, e.g., Camp 1986, fig. 21; Shear 1994, fig. 4. For background on earlier roads in the area, see supra n. 48. 54Supra n. 29. 55The date attributed to the construction of the Royal Stoa at the time of its discovery (on the basis of both architectural style and pottery) was the middle of the sixth century; Shear 1971, 249-50. See also subsequent statements on the question of chronology in Shear 1975, 369-70; and Shear 1993 (supra n. 43) 427-29, where it is discussed in the context of the wider debate over the dating of Late Archaic Greek art. Camp 1986, 53 acknowledges the ambiguity in the date of the building (stemming from the contrast between the style of architectural elements and the age of ceramics from under the floor) and does not ad-

vance a more specific date than one going back to the sixth century. More recently, Shear 1994, 237-39 advocates a date closer to ca. 500 B.C.;see also 247 n. 55, where the need to revise the date is stated in clear terms. 56 On the Altar of the Twelve Gods, see supra n. 9; also, more recently, Gadbery (supra n. 25) 447-89. On the Peisistratids,for recent overviewsand bibliography,see A. Andrewes, in CAH2III (1982) 393-415; Frost (supra n. 42) 57-78; and Shapiro (supra n. 9) 1-17. 57On the date of the reorganization and also the linkage with Peisistratos,see, e.g., Neils (supra n. 8) 20-22. On the suggestion that the dromos mentioned in sixth-century inscriptionsfrom the AthenianAcropolis(A.E.Raubitschek,

Dedications from the Athenian Acropolis [Cambridge 1947]

350-58) refers to the PanathenaicWay,used both as a race course and a processional route, see Camp 1994, 10. 58 On the history of the proposal for building F, see Shear 1994, 231, 246 n. 39. A link to the Peisistradids is advocated by Boersma (supran. 41) 16-17; and Shear 1978, 6-7; and argued againstby Kolb 1977 (supran. 41) 104-106. On the proposal for the southeast fountain house, see Camp 1994, 10; Shear 1994, 231.

714

ALBERT J. AMMERMAN

may havewanted to create and maintain a large open space in this area: staging theatrical performances, athletic competitions, military drills, or even for more strictly political uses.59On the other hand, as Shear observes, a number of wells remained open in the area down to the middle of the sixth century, implying that part of the land was still in private hands up until the time of affirmation of the Peisistratids.6aAll of this would suggest that the main focus of attention should be on the second half of the sixth century and on the improvement of the environmental setting in the immediate realm of Peisistratid interest. In TheAgoraof Athens,Thompson and Wycherley, writing in 1972, take the view that "the Agora as a great center of community life developed slowly in the course of the sixth century B.C."61In other words, they adopt a gradualist position. They also express the firm conviction, as reflected by their debate with Oikonomides over the location of the old Agora, that the Agora had alwaysbeen on the west side of the Acropolis.62These issues are now seen in a rather different light, stemming in large measure from the discovery in 1980 of an inscription on the east slope of the Acropolis that led to the correct identification of the site of the Aglaurion.63In turn, this new insight has reopened the larger question of the old Agora and lent support to the idea that many of the earliest civic buildings in Athens once stood near the eastern end of the Acropolis.64

59Camp 1994, 10.

see also Shear 1978,fig. 1. In this context, recall also the use of a great mass of broken bedrock and earth to fill a shallow gully and to level an area in the middle of the sixth century; H.A. Thompson, "Activity in the Athenian Agora:1966-1967,"Hesperia37 (1968) 6o Shear 1994, 229-30;

68. 61

Agora XIV, 18. 62A.N. Oikonomides, The Two Agoras in Ancient Athens (Chicago 1964), reviewed both by H.A. Thompson, in Archaeology 18 (1965) 305-306 and R.E. Wycherley, "Archaia Agora," Phoenix 20 (1966) 285-93. Oikonomides argues that the old Agora was located southwest of the Acropolis. According to Wycherley 293, if an old Agora is to be sought, one should look on the west side of the Acropolis. 6: G.S. Dontas, "The True Aglaurion," Hesperia 52 (1983) 48-63. Dontas 63 notes briefly the wider implications for the location of the old Agora on the eastern side of the Acropolis and for the reinterpretation of the topography of the whole area. 64The implications are taken up by Robertson (supra n. 4), who proposes a specific new location for the old Agora on the east side of the Acropolis in his fig. 1. He argues (175) that the shift occurred during the time of Peisistra-

[AJA 100

At the same time, reexamination of the remains of the early buildings at the foot of the Kolonos Agoraios (in particular, building C, which is quite small) has encouraged greater caution in interpreting them as civic in character.65 In consequence, the situation in the sixth century B.C. can now be viewed in new ways. First, there is a tendency to play down the significance of the area on the west side of the Acropolis in terms of its civic role at an early date. Second, attention is redirected toward questions concerned with the shift of the civic center to the west side of the Acropolis. One would like to learn why the Agora was relocated, and whether the relocation took place after the start of the project to transform the valley or whether the two were more or less coeval. Did the relocation perhaps even take place as late as 508/7 when Cleisthenes instituted his constitutional reforms?66 Third, in interpreting those developments that occurred in the western area prior to the new democracy, emphasis is placed on the private sphere of Peisistratid interest rather than the public affairs of Athens itself.67 In light of the well-known record of the Peisistratids in sponsoring projects to improve the city, it is tempting to regard the transformation of the northwest corner of the Agora as the unvoiced, public legacy of the tyranny to the new democracy.68 Here unvoiced would mean that the Eridanos project went essentially unrecorded in the literary testimonia pertaining to the time. It was public in the sense that

tos, who created the new Agora and set up the kyrbeis at the site of the Royal Stoa. Shear 1994, fig. 1 reconstructs the locations of several early civic buildings at the foot of the northeast slope of the Acropolis, including the Boukolion, the original headquarters of the Basileus, the king archon. But he sees the shift of his official seat--over a distance of some 700 m to the west-- as taking place closer to ca. 500 B.C. (supra n. 55), that is, the time when Cleisthenes promulgated constitutional reforms; Shear 1994, 237-45. 65Shear 1994, 229. 66See supra n. 64 for the position now taken by Shear in this regard, which marks a new line of interpretation for the excavators of the Athenian Agora; compare the positions taken in Agora XIV, 18; Shear 1978, 4-7; and Camp 1986, 37-38. Recall that a date of ca. 500 has been proposed for the boundary markers of the Agora (Agora XIV, 117-19; Shear 1994, 245) and for the initial construction of the Great Drain (Agora XIV, 194-95). 67See, e.g., Shapiro (supra n. 9) 6; and Camp 1994, 10-11. 68 On their program to improve the appearance of the city by means of public works, Thuc. 6.54.5.

1996]

THE ERIDANOS VALLEY AND THE ATHENIAN AGORA

715

roads, its main concern, belonged to the domain of public property.69 It constituted a legacy, something handed down by the Peisistratids, in that its sequel witnessed the relocation of the civic center to the west side. There is, however, another possibility to that we cannot entirely rule out on consider-one the basis of the limited evidence on chronology that is currently available for the Eridanos project. This alternative interpretation starts by acknowledging the role of the Peisistratids in setting the improvement of the area in motion but it then goes on to envision, in the years just after the reforms of Cleisthenes, a no less active building program to over-

ride or suppress the imprint inherited from the tyranny.70 What we may have then in the northwest corner of the Agora is an act of physical transformation, begun under the tyranny, which, in turn, had to be politically transformed itself by the new democracy. While it is premature at this time to settle on any one answer, a beginning has been made at formulating the question of the Agora's relocation in new terms.

69 On the shortage of ancient sources for the sixth century, see supra n. 42 and Knox, in particular,for the contrast with the fifth century. On roads as public property, see D. Lewis, "Public Property in the City7 in O. Murray and S. Price eds., TheGreekCity(Oxford 1990) 249. Another factor to consider in the emergence of the Panathenaic Way,as the road leaving the west side of Athens and leading to Eleusis, is the growing importance of the festival of the Mysteriesat Eleusis in the sixth century;see K. Clinton, "TheEleusinian Mysteriesand Panhellenism in Democratic Athens,"in W.D.E.Coulson et al. eds., TheArchaeology

this festival. 70 See supra n. 28 for the road below the RoyalStoa that may have been suppressed. For a parallel in the Kerameikos cemetery at the time of the reform, see Knigge (supra n. 17) 32 on the obliteration under a great pile of earth of a mound formerly used for state burials of envoys in the time of the Peisistratids.For the reorganization of citizen cemeteries in general around 510, see I. Morris,Burial and AncientSociety(Cambridge 1987) 210. The argument for the remodeling of civic space in the last decade of the sixth century was made earlier by P.Leveque and P. Vidal-

ofAthens and Attica under the Democracy(Oxbow Monograph

37, Oxford 1994) 162. The king archon was in charge of

DEPARTMENT OF THE CLASSICS COLGATE UNIVERSITY HAMILTON,

NEW YORK 13346

Naquet, Clisthene lAthenien (Paris 1964) 18-22.