Athens Flashcards
Who was Perikles?
One of the most famous generals statesmen of Athens in the second half of the 5th century BC.
What was Perikles greatest achievement?
He is credited with the buildings on the Acropolis of Athens.
What was the Alkmeonids?
One of the Aristocratic houses of Athens
Who was Peisistratos?
A tyrant of Athens in the 6th century BC. He had two sons called Hipparchos and Hippias.
Name two major houses of Athens
Alkmeonids, Peisistradids
What is the polis?
Ancient term for a city or more accurately a city state.
What sections did the polis contain?
Asty- Urban core
Chora- Countryside
What was ostracism?
Democratic institution whereby votes could be cast to exile public figures.
What was a stoa?
A long colonnaded walkway, like an arcade or galleria.
What was the prytaneion?
Town hall and meeting place of the council.
Who are the demos?
The people or the voting citizens.
Where was Athens located?
- A polis situated in Attica.
- Was not the only polis in Attica but became the most powerful over time.
What physical advantages did Athens have?
- Good port
- Rocky outcrop
- Acropolis
How can we identify archaeological parks?
- They are generally the large green areas on maps.
Give a limitation of models?
Sometimes if they have been cleaned up or flattened, they may give a misleading impression of the landscape.
What might we associate the Bronze age of Athens with?
- Famous heroes and myths such as Theseus.
Was the polis democratic?
In theory
What famous writer were there in the 7th century BC?
- Homer
- Hesiod
What happened in the 7th century in terms of art?
This is considered the beginning of sculpture and monument temple building.
Was there a population decrease in the 7th century?
In this period, there seems to be a decrease in the number of burials and settlements. However, this is thought mostly to be a change in social structure.
When was the greatest amount of development in Athens?
The 7th and 6th centuries
What did Drako and Solon do?
They were early law makers in the 7th and 6th centuries. However, their policies increased tension between the classes.
What was different to our modern perception of temples in the 7th and 6th centuries?
They were made out of mud brick rather than stone.
What were some key issues in the 7th and 6th centuries?
- Land ownership
- Debt
- Slavery
- Power reforms
When did stone temples first begin to appear?
From 600BC first appearance of stone temples and statues (kouros and kore) with a distinct Attic style.
What happened to Athen’s pottery output in the 6th century?
- Increases dramatically
- Black figure becomes a favoured product
- Overtakes Corinth’s pottery in popularity
- Artists begin to sign their work
Give an example of a famous piece of pottery?
- The Sophilos Dinos
- Used for wine
- Signed by Sophilos
- Early 6th century
- Found in Italy
- British museum
What was the relationship like between different poleis?
There was an intense amount of competition.
When was the Peisistratid period?
- 561-510BC
- Associated with the tyrant Peisistratos
What did the word Tyrant mean in Ancient Greece?
- Implied someone who had gained power unconstitutionally
Give a brief history of how Peisistratos got power?
- Acquired power in 561BC
- Was removed from power but regained it in 556 BC and again in 546BC with the support of other aristocratic families.
What happened to the transfer of power in the Peisistratid period?
- It became dynastic
- Doesn’t mean inherited but continued
- Similar to the Bushes in America
- Hippias and Hipparchos
What were the cultural legacies of the Peisistratid period?
- Consolidating Homeric poems
- Instituting the Panathenaic Festival- the grand festival held every 4 years with games, contests, processions and sacrifices.
What were some of the advantages of religious festivities?
- Community coherence and identity formation through performance.
How did religious festivities affect space?
- Spaces acquire monuments which invite interaction and in turn affect the community
- in this sense they define the city.
What is the name of one of the Peisistratid Acropolis monuments?
The Bluebeard Pediment
What kind of monuments were used on the Acropolis?
Lots of references to heroes such as Herakles identifiable by his lion skin cape.
How would the aristocracy promote their position?
Claiming to be descended from famous heroes or gods.
Describe building F
- Controversy over function
- Looks vaguely domestic and many think it is the Peisistratid palace.
- Others have suggested that it might be a public building.
Who built the city walls of Athens?
- the ‘Peisistratids’ is most widely accepted.
- J. Travlos has suggested the Solonian period.
When did democracy emerge in Athens?
- debated
- Some say resulted from a slow process of reforms in the 6th century
- Others argue a sudden revolution
What happened in 541BC in Athens?
- The son of Peisistratos, Hipparchos was killed in a quarrel with two other aristocrats from rival families.
- His brother Hippias continued in power but was said to be very cruel.
- Hippias was then expelled by the Spartans who potentially wanted to gain control of Athens.
What happened in 508BC regarding the constitution?
- Kleisthenes an Alkmaeonid and rival of the Peisistradids introduced changes according to Aristotle.
What was the constitution like before the reforms of 508BC?
- Populace divided into 4 tribes cross cut by three regions
- Council (boule) of 400 members with 100 members from each tribe.
- HQ at a building in old agora or potentially in building F.
- 9 archons- elected chief offices like the cabinet
- Assembly of the people
What was the constitution like after the reforms of 508BC?
- Still archons but with less power
- Better organised assembly
- Council of 500- 50 elected from each tribe.
- One general from each tribe
What results did the constitutional reforms of 508BC have on Athens?
- Cross cut old alliances
- Different tribal affiliations
- Less aristocratic hold
- Consolidated state territory
- Defined Athens/Attica
- No chance to become own polis
Outline the Persian encounters with Athens
- 499BC- the new Athenian state aids the Ionians in revolt against the Persian empire
- 490BC- King Darius aims to punish the rebellious Greeks but Persians defeated at Battle of Marathon in Attica.
Who was Themistokles?
- Not an aristocrat
- Archon in 493BC
- Fought at Marathon
- Forged Piraeus as a port and encouraged the idea of a nava fleet.
What was one of the results of moving main port from Phalerum to Piraeus?
- Thought to have accelerated use of and defined the new agora.
What event happened in 480BC
- Xerxes the Persian king launched a massive attack 10 years after the Battle of Marathon and Athens is razed with massive destruction in the Agora and on the Acropolis.
- The Persians are defeated within a couple of years.
- Athens’ walls were rapidly rebuilt but destruction defined the city.
- Many materials were reused in reconstruction.
What additions were made to the agora after the invasion by Persia?
- Stoas e.g. SToa Poikle
- New Bouleuterion
Who was the first person to be ostracised?
- Xanthippos, the father of Perikles was ostracised in 484BC.
- Themistokles ostracised his opponent but this also happened to him later.
What defines the Peisistratid period?
- Reform and nucleation
- Democracy, assembly buildings, defences, infrastructure, images of state and demos set a model for Greco-Roman cities.
- Trying to make Athens great
How can we define the city?
- Type of architecture- buildings and spaces
- Walling
- Images e.g. coins
- Practice and performance- large festivals, monument interactions etc.
- Extent of power
How does the famous painter represent Athens in his painting ‘Segnatura of the Vatican’?
- Ideas of a golden age, vision of utopia, idealised past.
What does the ‘Assemblage of Works of Art’ by Stephanoff tell us about the perception of Greek culture?
- Parthenon sculptures are shown at the top- represented as the apex of civilisation
- Asian at the bottom, then Egyptian
- Art is shown as a measure of evolutionary development of society.
What happened to the Greek Acropolis after they declared independence?
- Older medieval and Ottoman empire buildings were torn down to leave the architecture of Greece’s golden age.
When did construction begin on the Parthenon?
- 447 BC by Perikles
- Was part of a new vision of Athenian cult and power.
What happened under Perikles?
- Athens continued to become more imperialistic
- Allies and enemies began to consider Athens as an empire.
- Treasury of Delian League controversially moved to Athens in 454BC
What is remarkable about the Parthenon?
- Was not the biggest temple- actually relatively small- they could have built bigger
- First temple built entirely of marble
- Allies didn’t like that Athens used only its own resources to build it.
What was interesting about the architecture of the Parthenon?
- Doric order- columns with plain, round capitals
- Columns were curved as did the base of the columns.
- Wanted to inspire similar temple building
What was the Athena Parthenos?
- Phidias’ gold and ivory statue
- Same person who made the Zeus of Olympia statue which was later listed as one of the wonders of the world.
- Statue reconstructed from literature and Roman marble copies.
What was different to the Parthenon built after Marathon?
- Considerably wider
- Potentially planned for statue.
What was the Parthenon frieze?
Two friezes
- One around the outside was doric with myths- battles with centaurs, giants and amazons, fall of troy
- Second around cella is most iconic and is a continuous ionic frieze
What debates surround the frieze?
- Who designed it- no evidence for Phidias
- Difficult to see from below- Point?
- Arguments about importance- elgin marbles
How did the entrance through the walled city built in 437BC by Iktinos differ from the archaic one?
- It was a focal point, with a massive entrance and more about the procession and acropolis in general general.
- Framing of experience.
- Entrance was made less angled and more forward facing.
Give another temple in Athens?
- The small ionic temple of Athena Nike, 420 BC
- Was renewed as a victory monument during the Peloponnesian Wars.
What usually decorated friezes?
- Included mythical but also contemporary battles
Where did the doric style come from?
- Mainland
Where did the Ionic style come from?
- Ionia Corinthian
- East Greece/Asia minor
What architectural style did the Parthenon use?
- It used ionic columns on the interior but doric on the outside.
What was the Erechtheion?
- Built around 420BC
- Ionic and unusual in design
- Next to the Athena Polias
- Thought that it may have incorporated a new temple of Athena or at least housed the statue.
- North porch side- spring of Poseidon and olive tree- gifts
Name some other ‘Periklean’ buildings?
- Eleusis- shrine of Demeter
- Rhamnous- Temple of Nemesis
- Sounion- Temples of Poseidon and Athena
What was the Odeion of Perikles?
- Music hall
What was good culturally in 5th century Athens?
- Period of drama and festival
- Theatre of Dionysus.
What happened to Athens after the Macedonian conquest?
- Athens lost much of its political power after it was devastated by Sparta in the Peloponnesian War
- Lull in public building in 4th century BC.
- Rise of Macedonia under Phillip II- Phillip assassinated and Alexander the Great continued his incursions into Asia Minor.
- New building project under Lykourgos themed on Golden age and the desire to return to prominence.
Talk about the theatre of Dionysus
- Possibly based on other theatres in Demes
- 4th century theatre held 15-17,000 spectators- major phenomenon of theatre going.
What was the monument of the Eponymous `heroes
- Built second half of 4th century
- Important focal point in Agora- not many statues at the time.
- Statues become more frequent later especially in the Roman period.
How did people gain political power?
- Politicians generally needed a sponsor like an ancient hero in order to gain power and influence.
Summarise the Hellenistic period (post Alexander)
- Empire split into rival kingdoms and run by his generals
- 3rd century- wars of Ptolemies and Antigonids
- Signs of abandonment of deme settlements
- Antigonus and his son Demetrius were made eponymous heroes- new statues and tribes
- Ptolemy III made a tribal hero with statue.
- New gymnasium built Ptolemy
Who were the Attalids?
- Independent Hellenistic Kingdom founded by Attalids
- Attalos defeated invading Gauls
- Set up numerous statues celebrating this in Pergaman and smaller versions on the acropolis.
Describe the stoas built by the Attalids
- Stoas became a way to make a good impression on a city.
- Attalids built some of the most imposing stoas in Athens
- Common during Hellenistic period and defined public spaces.
Describe the stoas of Eumenes
- Double storied- Doric on bottom, ionic on top, a system often followed after.
- Pergamene inside at the top
- Made of imported Pergamene marble.
- Used imported engineers and builders
How did stoas transform the Agora?
- Middle Stoa and then South Stoa II created a new separate square: South Square
- Middle Stoa had no walls but might have acted as a fence between columns.
What was the feeling of the South square?
- Possibly commercial or legal
- Ceremonial feel of space.
What impact did the Roman conquest have on Athens?
- Rome became increasingly involved with Rome in Late Republic Hellenistic period
- Rome was increasingly planting colonies and provinces
- Rome was potentially more impacted by Greece than Greece by Rome
- Roman awe of Athens classical past.
What additions did the Romans make to Athens?
- Roman monuments were quite Athenian and blended into the landscape.
- Small and unobtrusive temples- temple of Rome and Augustus
How might Greece have impacted on Rome? Give a specific example
- Forum of Augustus potentially modelled on the Acropolis
What was the Odeion of Agrippa?
- Music hall
- Built in the name of Agrippa in 15 BC
- One of the most dominating structures in the Agora.
- Collapse of rood in 150 AD- changed to smaller lecture hall
- Mansion built on the site in the 5th century AD
Give a summary of Hadrian’s Athens
- Hadrian- 117- 138AD- Approx 100 years after Augustus
- Didn’t asset himself architecturally in the city.
Who was Herodes Attikos?
- One of the biggest benefactors of the city.
- Served in numerous public offices and was also a teacher.
- Claimed lineage from early kings of Athens including Theseus
- Likened to a tyrant by Philostratos
- Renovated stadium in 140 AD which was used for the olympics in modern day Greece.
Describe the Odeion of Herodes Attikos
- Music hall seating 5000
- Built from 160 AD in memory of his wife.
- May have replaced Odeion of Agrippa
- Massive timbers imported from Lebanese cedar timbers
- Mistaken for Dionysius Theatre
- Good for tourism
- Considered an engineering feat
- Used for musical events and theatre today
- People claimed Attias was increasing his own fame rather than helping Athens.
How did the super rich of Athens live?
- Grand villas and estates in the countryside.
- Leisured learning, gardens, libraries and baths
- Large disparity in wealth
- Had a duty to provide amenities for citizens which was important for the community and stability
- Conspicuous consumption was against the democratic ideal that Athens was mean to be based on.
What was needed in a classical city?
- A hinterland, especially a ‘polis’
- Sanctuaries and temples
- Public civic architecture
- Meeting houses
- Theatres, game facilities
- Baths in Roman times
What was Athens like by the Hellenistic period?
- A lot of Athens’ amenities had been established- ‘furniture of the polis’
Give an early example of grid city planning?
- Megaera Hyblaia, Sicily
- Earliest habitation now thought to be unplanned scatter of buildings.
- Archaic period (7th century) already a large open area like an agora
Describe grid planning
- Ordered planning apparent in Greek colony cities
- Grid planning and an agora with stoas implies early public life and potentially the importance of big open spaces e.g. Markets.
Describe the grid plan in Miletus
- Possibly already slightly grid plan but more extensively done after being sacked by Persians in 492BC. Plan here is an extrapolation from small samples of areas though.
Describe the port of Piraeus
- Some indication of grid plan with main and minor streets and large blocks.
- Lost of Horos (boundary stones) associated with defining the agora- possibly more about zoning.
Describe the city of Olynthos
- North hill sector built in 432BC
- Villa sector to East added late 5th and 4th centuries BC
- Largely abandoned after sack by Phillip II in 348BC
Describe the city of Priene
- Located just north of Miletos in Ionia
- City moved in 350 BC
- On steep hill
- Preserved its form through Roman period.
Why wasn’t a grid plan used in Athens?
- Possibly not considered necessary when major developments were taking place.
- Landownership did not allow for grid plans because of tract ownership and traditional routes and space= a part of Athens identity.
What was housing like in Athens?
- Grid plan good for housing estates.
- Houses much more irregular in Athens because of lack of grid plan
- Knowledge of housing in Athens is much less than say Olynthos or Priene
What is the evidence like for housing in Athens?
- Some evidence for classical houses from agora
- Limited evidence generally
What do we know about houses C and D in Athens?
- They were remodelled and joined in the 4th century
- D contained fragments of bronze and bits of slag- possibly used as a smithy in this second phase.
- House c was residential
Describe the gendered Greek house
- Greek houses didn’t generally use arias
- Describes a specific and wealthy house , with an impressive courtyard
- Vitruvius says this
- Xenophon implies that the women’s quarters are in an inner chamber of the house.
Describe the houses of Mikion and Menon and the House of Simon
- Dated between 275 and 275 BC
- Evidence of use for income (crafts) bone tool found etc.
What was one of the major crafts in Athens?
- Pottery
- Related to vibrant life of the town
- Sometimes difficult to interpret image choices
What is an android?
- Dining room
- From Andres meaning man which relates to the idea of male only dinner parties.
- Recognisable by off set door
In Olynthos describe the houses which were equipped with andirons
- Lot about the houses known here
- Largely abandoned after 348BC
- Large scale excavations over broad area in 1930s
- Houses were often expanded over time
What was special about the villa of Good Fortune at Olynthos?
- Two impressive mosaic rooms
How did the role and importance of housing progress?
- There was greater development of the entertainment areas of the house.
- Part of a package of developing the home as a place of entertainment and bringing the public in.
- Less action happening in the civic public world and more through private negotiations.
What were the houses like on Delos?
- rich array of Hellenistic peristyle houses
- many Italian merchants
- Important place for transfer of grand peristyle
- Delos was an influential place where ideas were exchanged.
What is one of the key things that a city depends on?
- Water
How was water got in the early days of Athens?
- Springs and wells around the Athenian Acropolis
- Klepsydra Spring
- Spring at the sanctuary to Asclepius on south side of Acropolis
- Mycenaean period spring access created from fissure in the rock of acropolis
How was water accessed by the the Classical agora area?
- Wells, cisterns and fountains indicate watering hole even early on- may have been private though
How was water collection monumentalised in the Peisistratid period?
- e.g. Southeast fountain house 520 BC
- Aqueducts
- Spring fountains
- Overflow by drains
How was water presented in art?
- Literary sources tell us about the Enneakrounos a nine spouted fountain house by the River Illinois
- Contemporary pots show women queueing to collect water- suggests impact on social lives and domestic roles.
How did water develop between 320 and 25 BC?
- The Southwest Fountain House
- Fed by a stone aqueduct running under the street along the south of the agora.
- At same time, cisterns increase over wells for private supplies.
- Signs of drought and famine at the time which coincided with the Macedonian conquest.
What unusual way was water used in Athens?
- Monumental water clock next door to the Southwest fountain.
- Showed what time it was by how much water it contained.
How did the Romans affect the use of water in Athens?
- In the Hadrianic/ Antonine period they built monumental fountains known as nymphaea.
- Also developed aqueducts with water piped into the city from miles to the northwest.
- There was underground and above ground sections to the aqueducts.
What was the great drain?
- System of smaller drains going into large drain, running north to Eriadnos stream.
- Already in 6th century BC
- Extended in 5th century BC
Describe Gymnasia and Baths in Athens?
- Gymnasia were a fundamentally Greek institution
- Developed through 4th and 5th centuries and spread widely through Hellenistic cities.
- Became an important part of the polis (in the way any public amenity might be now).
What is a gymnasium?
- Essentially a education and physical training centre
- Attended by youths between 12-18
- The academy in Athens
What was the architectural form of gymnasia in Athens?
- Evidence usually is from later examples outside of Athens
- Large colonnaded court called a palaestra with rooms which could be used for equipment storage and lessons.
Describe baths
- Some private houses, such as those at Olynthos, had terracotta hip bath tubs.
- There were classical period bath houses in Athens but non are well preserved.
What was a Roman Bath-Gymnasia?
- A combination of the Gymnasia and the Bath house.
- Often had a large range of facilities with a lot of space.
- Free or very cheap for everyone
What were the baths in Athens like?
- Donated by several leaders- Hadrian, Hellenistic kings
- Quite small rather than grand like those in Rome
- Example is the balnea which is near the Temple of Olympeion Zeus
What was Roman bathing in the city of Athens like?
- Roman baths changed the city for all the senses
- Stabilised Empire through ‘soft power’- discussion of business over pleasure
- Different places at distinct bathing cultures
Describe theatre and games in Athens?
- Structures used for religious festival events- division of sacred and secular irrelevant
- Festival of Dionysus
- Best known tragedies and comedies of the 4th and 5th centuries.
How was the Roman theatre different to the Greek one?
- Greek type theatre preserves the small stage, the round orchestra and seating shape.
- Roman types had a large major stage
Describe theatre and games in the Roman period 1st century AD?
- Amphitheatres for gladiatorial games and other diversions were not common in Greece and Asia Minor.
- In some cases the Greek theatres were adapted with lowered orchestras and parapet walls.
- Philostratos and other other writers were very disapproving of this.
Where were cemeteries located?
- Outside the city
- Kerameikos cemetery is a well-explored example
What resource was found at Laurion?
- Silver mines
- Discovered in 5th century BC
- Navy built using this resource
- Produced 1000 talents a year
- Mines leased to private companies by the Athenian state.
- Athenian silver coins were widely exchanged through the Mediterranean
What happened in Thorikos?
- Urban town
- Laurion mines used around 15,000 slaves
- Water needed for washeries
- Production in one area sets a chain reaction of jobs and industry.
What kind of farming was most common in Athens?
- Terracing indicates intensive production
- Athens was best known for its olive oil production.
- Debate about debate of terracing. Was it classical period or late roman?
