From the moment people started organizing themselves into groups, they had to have a place where they could meet and make decisions on matters of common interest. Such places demonstrate the existence of social life: they were public spaces. We do not know what they called in prehistoric times; we know that the Greek word for such a place is the agora, from the verb agorevein (to speak), which clearly shows its initial function. With the growth of trade and the use of speech when buying and selling, the verb agorevein provided its form to Agorazina, which acquired the meaning of “buying” to reflect new needs. Similarly, the movable transaction table was then called a “meal,” a modern Greek word for a bank.
In prehistoric times, when the first settlement was established on the protected south side of the Acropolis, the north side was used as a necropolis or cemetery. In the well from the Neolithic period, a statue representing a headless half-opening woman was found from the 3rd millennium BC. This is a wonderful example of a primitive sculpture with characteristic abundant flesh, indicating fertility. In the same proximity were found many samples of Mycenaean ceramics, as well as many large cans (pitoi). Among the common customs of antiquity was the fact that the bodies of very young children were placed in such jars, which were then buried; the older children were laid right in the ground. Only after puberty was the cremation of the body allowed. As the city grew, the graves were moved to the region of Dipilon, which was potters. region, Kerameikos, so that very few graves remained in the area around the Areopagus hill after 1000 BC.
It was associated with Agora and Speech. Plutarch reports that the Agora first began to function as a meeting place for residents of federal territories during the rule of Theseus, when Pritenia was created. The altar carrying the sacred fire of this first official building became a symbol of the newly created state. Other important buildings were Buleuterion, Eleusinion Sanctuary and the Temple of Aphrodite Pandemos. The latter was a tribute, built by municipalities goddess with great authority over human nature. There was a lot of traffic in the area, which made it suitable for practicing the oldest profession; the women were dedicated to the goddess, thereby giving the term "pandems of Aphrodite" its meaning to the prostitute. We do not know the exact location of these early sites, although they must have been somewhere in a clearing between the Areopagus and the northwestern corner of the Acropolis.
After the abolition of the monarchy, and citizens justified their right to express their opinion, it is necessary to explicitly lay more for public buildings and a larger place where citizens could gather. The level of the land east of the Areopagus was considered the most suitable place for the Agora, where there should have been several new shrines and public fountains. Although the Acropolis was devoted exclusively to religion, the Agora from the very beginning assumed the functions of a civil and administrative center. No trace of these first public buildings justified our time, since they are under the current, densely populated area of Plaka.
The creation of colonies, which the Israeli speaker would later call the best possible solution to political problems, and the resulting increase in trade made it absolutely necessary to have a more convenient place to do business. Thus, at the beginning of the 6th century, Solon chose the most suitable place for the Agora, that is, the site that we know today. The flat land north of the Areopagus formed a triangle with its apex facing north, and its western side is protected by a plateau. In the east was the main road, which began at the Dipilon gate, the entrance to the city and ascended to the Acropolis. In addition, the roads from the outer villages ended in this lowland not far from a small brook called Eridanos.
From the first moment it turned out to be an excellent choice. The plateau was named Agoraios Kolonos, and on its slopes was built the first public building, perhaps the Soviet Chamber. Small temples followed, as well as Buleuterion (House of Soviets) and Pritaneon. Solon chose the entrance to the city as the best position for the portico and ordered written laws to be kept there. The Agora began to take shape.
In the second half of the 6th century, during the tyranny of Peyestratos, a plumbing and drainage system was provided on the site. A monumental fountain and a rain channel were built. Like all dictators, Peisistratos was not particularly interested in the idea of increasing the space to meet with aphoria; instead, he filled the city with projects to benefit the public. During the years of its reign, the great road that followed the Panafenai procession took its final form. The corps of the people of Heliai was built on the southern side of the Acropolis, and the Altar of the Twelve Gods was built at the northern crossroads.
The Persian campaign left most of the city in ruins, which began to be cleared after 460 BC, when Kimon was in power. At that time, many new buildings were built, including porticoes with shops, large Buleuterion, special places for meetings of military leaders (strategists) and civilian administrators (attractions), as well as altars and monuments dedicated to local heroes. At the highest point of the Agora, the Temple of Hephaestus, a blacksmith and blacksmith was built. This Doric temple was preceded by the Parthenon, and a statue of Athena, the goddess of wisdom, was erected. These were two gods, taken together, showing the connection between philosophy and art, who taught that intellectuals and artisans cannot live one without the other.
In subsequent years, the Agora became the real heart of the city. Although decisions were taken at the Dem Council and at the neighboring PNyx, pranks were held in the Agora to determine who would take part in governing the state. Laws, their enforcement, fines imposed on violators, currency minting, buying and selling - all had their special place in the Agora. Processions, races, auctions, and holidays were characteristic of this political, civil, cultural, commercial, and sometimes religious center. The streets of the growing city may have been narrow and full of dangerous potholes, and in wooden houses there may have been only one storey room with a possible wooden addition above. The walls of these houses may have been bricks and susceptible to thieves. Culinary fires may have been lit on the road, and the lack of proper sewage systems could have caused epidemics. But when the Athenian citizen entered Agora, he felt that he was participating in the miracle of his time and contributing. Philosophers, orators, politicians and citizens forced Demosthenes to say in the 4th century that the usual greeting between Athenians meeting in the Agora was: What's new? At the end of the Hellenistic period in Agora there were many buildings, including the recent elegant portico presented by Attalos of Pergamum. The subsequent Romans began to compete for the construction of other buildings, due to which the Agora went beyond its original boundaries. Altars, temples, a library and a gymnasium, porticoes and colonnades, all of which were open to the public, forced St. Paul to say that the Athenians and metaiki did nothing except walk through the Agora, discussing politics. Afainayos from Egypt was also very impressed and wrote in his “Depths” that it was possible to find in the Athenian Agora with equal ease: fruits, false testimony, complaints, dads, road builders, honeycombs with honey, peas, ships, lotteries, roses and irises, laws, hydraulic clocks, pimps, scammers, myrtle branches ...
The weakening of the Roman Empire greeted the barbarians. In 267, the Agora was dismissed by the Erulians, who influenced only the temple. The wall was built from rubble of buildings, but it could not save Agora from Alaric’s races in 396. After this total destruction, a reconstruction was carried out, which supported the functioning of the site until 529. It was the final year that hit Athens, when the Byzantine emperor Justinian ordered the closing of the schools of philosophy that the new religion considered with such hostility. The agora was abandoned, its monuments were rendered unusable, and then disintegrated, the site was gradually covered with earth and mud, because no one could clean the drainage canals. In subregional centers houses were built of abundant debris. On the top of the buried antiquities, a beautiful Byzantine church of the Holy Apostles was built in 1000. Meanwhile, the ancient temple of Gephista has already been betrayed by St. George.
After 400 years of Turkish rule (1456-1829), the Athenians lived on the northern side of the Acropolis, where the heart of Polis once beat with pride. Many houses were destroyed during the Greek War of Independence, especially during the siege of Athens Kyutahi Pasha. But with the design of the city as the capital of a new Greek state, new houses were soon built on top of the old ruins. Architects Kleantis and Schubert, who were assigned to the reconstruction of the capital, in vain proposed to build a new city at some distance from the old one, in order to leave the land free for future excavations. However, myopia, pettiness and profits were stronger than reason. The first traces of the ancient Agora were discovered in 1859, when the foundations for houses began to be built. Much later, in 1931, the American School of Classical Research conducted regular excavations, which continued until 1945, with a constant appropriation of property. It is estimated that more than three hundred thousand tons of earth and rubble were moved to bring Agora into the fire. Today, the ancient heart of Athens, stretching as much as permitted by the surrounding modern buildings, reveals its beauty, eloquent ruins and rich memories of the past days, days of eternal glory.
The most impressive monument of the ancient Agora, undoubtedly, is the largest Doric temple that dominates the site. Built on top of a plateau known as Agoraios Kolonos, this temple is the most preserved ancient building in Greece, which has survived many adventures, threats and changes, including the change of its original name. For centuries, this temple was known as Theseus, as it was believed that it was a temple dedicated to Theseus, a conclusion made from his sculptural decoration depicting heroes. This restless prince of prehistoric Athens was characterized by the Athenians as the attic figure of Doric Hercules. Fairy tales were invented about his birth, his achievements, his wanderings. It is said that he fell in love with beautiful Helen when she was still a child, and he was an old man, and this love led him to her Dioscuri brothers, which forced him to seek refuge on the island of Skyros. There, the local king Likomedes killed him, throwing him off a cliff. After the oracle from Delphi, Cimon went to the island in 469 BC to get the bones of the founder of Athens and bury them in his ancestral city. The temple was built on Theseus. the grave was named Thayxion, which Thucydides mentioned as the place where the hoplites were gathered. Aristophanes used the mocking name "Axion the Frequently" to identify people who, having nothing in common, wandered aimlessly. Plutarch wrote that it was a refuge for slaves, but his exact location is unknown.
Pausanias reiter is eclectic to a large temple in the Agora, being dedicated to Hephaestos, and even he even described iconic statues: one of Hephaestus and one of Athena with blue eyes. The famous Roman orator Cicero adapted the bronze statues very much, which were molded by Alcamenes immediately after 421 BC, praising the artist for his ability to insert a lame Hephaestus standing upright without showing his physical disability. This evidence is the only trace of these statues that remain today.
The temple was built after 449 BC, based on plans of an unknown architect, similar in size to the temple of Poseidon in Sounio, and also to Nemesia in Ramnus, near the Marathon. Indeed, it is remarkable that, despite all the disasters that befell Agora during the years of barbaric invasions, the temple remained intact. Later, under Byzantine rule, he became a church dedicated to St. George. An apse was built on the east side, and a door was open in the west. Around 1300, the original ceiling collapsed and was replaced by a modern vaulted one, which contrasts sharply with the rest of the building. Perhaps even because of these changes, the temple escaped destruction, especially during the years of the Ottoman Empire. It used to be that in order to allow services in the church, the Turkish governor would have demanded the weight of the key to the building in gold. At that time, the keys were huge and golden rarities, so the building was opened only once a year. The services were carried out solely on the stress of St. George, which gave the building its own picturesque name: St. George Akamatis (Lazybones).
At the beginning of the 19th century, during the revolution against the Ottoman Empire, the temple was called “thirty-two columns”; it was used to sing Te Deum when King Otto arrived in the capital in 1834, signaling freedom from the Turks. An amazing picture of that period shows us that the young king was greeted by an overwhelmed crowd when he began to suspect nothing on his way to his fate. Services were held in the church for the last time in 1934, the centenary of the birth of new Athens; two years later, its restoration began as an archaeological monument.
The Temple of Hephaist stands firmly on the foundation of the three steps, the bottom of which is the stone of poros, and the other two are pently marble; the columns have the same material, 13 on each of the long sides and six on the facades. Behind the columns there are traces of donations and statues pedestals. On the east side is a carved image on the floor near the columns, which shows that some lazy people usually spent time playing something like modern board games or scratching marble with age-old destructive mania of bored people.
Although the exterior dimensions of the building are typical of the classical age, the interior was an unsuccessful attempt to achieve perfect symmetry a bit later than the Parthenon.
The carriages that once existed had two columns that were removed when the building was converted to a church, and it was more spacious than the corresponding opytodomes on the western side. Another asymmetrical element could be seen inside the temple, where the inner Doric columns, five columns on the flanks and three in the west were very close to the outer walls and seemed to reduce space. In front of the three columns on the west side, the base of a gray stone shows where the statues of the gods stood. Nothing remains of the original marble floor, as for several centuries it was decided to beat the famous townspeople here. On the inner wall of the north side you can still see the tombstone of the Englishman, bearing the epigram of Lord Byron.
The sculptural decoration of the temple has not survived, as it has been exposed to weather and season changes for centuries. The gables suffered the most: in the east, the sculptures were lost, and in the west some animal hooves remained, which could be part of the battle with centaurs, a thing directly related to Theseus. Eastern meteors told about the works of Hercules, and in the north and south - four relief plates depicting the exploits of Theseus. On the outer wall of the temple itself there was a frieze only on the facades, and not on the flanks. On the eastern side of Theseus, the battle against his relatives Pallatis was presented, which rejected his inheritance to the throne of Athens. To depict all these combat figures, the sculptor used the entire width of the chamber's front. On the contrary, on the opposite west side, the classic battle of centaurs and lapites took up less space.
Around the temple were two rows of small pits at regular intervals. Even today, from the south, one can see traces of powerful clay cans buried in the ground; these were flower pots for ornamental plants that decorated this site in the Hellenistic and Roman epochs. In a dry city like Athens, plants are always welcome; we know that at an earlier age, Cimon himself took care of planting myrtle and flat trees in the Agora. Once there was a fence around the sacred site of the temple, but there was no trace left. The same applies to the access point from the Agoraios Kolonos Plateau to the lower level of the Agora; the large staircase that was there was completely destroyed.
North of the temple, but at a slightly lower level, traces of an intense colonnade structure were found, which was almost entirely carved from natural stone. Archaeologists believe that this is a building of the fourth century, which was associated with the Athenian army or because of the large number found there Panathenian amphorae, the repository for the sacred oil. Но существование крепких стен и система сбора дождевой воды в подземных цистернах затрудняют для ученых определение этого странного здания и его функции. На Агораиос-Колоносе было еще одно здание: маленький храм, посвященный Урании Афродиты, руины которого были обнаружены случайно в 1890 году во время строительства железной дороги, которая должна была соединить Афины с Пиреем.
Мы знаем, что Афродита была очень древним божеством. Личность олицетворения любви и плодородия, она начала в Вавилоне, где ей поклонялись как всесильный Иштар. В дополнение к храмам, обитатели Вавилона с его мифическим богатством, посвятили даже главный вход в этот сильно обнесенный стеной город своим могущественным защитником. Это ворота, которые мы можем увидеть, восстановленные сегодня в музее в Берлине. Та же божественность называлась Астарте в финикийских областях, в то время как монотеистические семиты боялись ее как Аштарот: божественной, но чрезвычайно опасной женщины, которая мешала им соблюдать строгие правила в их жизни. В третьей книге своей истории Геродот сообщил, что в стране финикийцев всемогущая богиня имела другое имя: Алилат. Шумеры называли ее Инанной и персами Анахитой, для которой она была защитой воды, которая в их сухой стране была самой жизнью. Влияние этой высшей богини распространилось по всему Средиземному морю, которую вели финикийские моряки, которые приветствовали ее до города Эриса на западной оконечности Сицилии, где ей поклонялись на вершине крутой скалы. В другой великой финикийской колонии Карфаген ее называли Танит.
Эта богиня с многочисленными именами поклонялась в соответствии с потребностями общества, в котором находились ее святилища. Мало того, что ее имена были разными, но были ее обряды: органы, священная проституция, даже жертвы первородных детей, как это было в Карфагене в поклонении кровожадному Таните. Стоит отметить, что символ этой карфагенской богини можно увидеть в Делосе, в преддверии дома дельфинов, как волшебное очарование, чтобы избежать несчастья от домовладельцев.
Из глиняных плит, найденных на побережье Сирии, мы узнаем о переписке начальника Угарит со своим коллегой в Аласии, как называли доисторический Кипр. Эти отношения объясняют, как восточная божественность была перенесена на остров Кипр, где еще в 12 веке до нашей эры было святилище, посвященное ей около Пафоса. Но здесь ненасытная богиня изменила форму. Она стала отождествляться с морем и получила название Пелагич.
В своей «Космогонии» Гесиод написал некоторые странные вещи о том, как эта всемирная небесная сила оказалась в элладском мире. Он сказал, что Кронос бросил Урана и бросил бессмертные части своего божественного отца в море где-то рядом с Китрей. На этом месте была создана огромная пена, из которой возникла прекрасная богиня. Это объясняет ее имя на греческом языке, поскольку Афродита означает «возникновение из пены». Волны обняли ее и мягко позаботились о ней на Кипре, где она приобрела еще одно имя: киприи.
В связи с самым сильным чувством человечества, Афродиту поклонялись повсюду с усердием, так как ее культ завоевывал один регион за другим. Она зачаровала как богов, так и смертных, в сопровождении свиты. Состоит из озорного Эроса, Граций, Желаний и Люстий. Она по своей природе была роковой богиней, которая не могла быть отвергнута; она жестоко наказала нелюбимого, как и Ипполит, сын Тесей. Гордая богиня мучила его и приводила его к своей гибели, потому что сырой молодой человек осмелился предпочесть поклоняться девственности Артемиды. В Спарте Афродитам поклонялись как боевая богиня в соответствии с первостепенными местными ценностями, а в Афинах она была возвышена как Урания, небесная защита самой благородной формы любви. Было, конечно, другое святилище в ее форме Пандемоса, но это было так же, как Ураяния, ее изысканная форма, что она была удостоена почетного имени Агораиоса Колоноса, вдоль храма ее мужа Гефеста, который так много пережил во время их семейной жизни. Паусаниас упомянул святилище богини и ее культовой статуи, работу Фидия из мрамора, но сегодня на склоне холма вокруг железнодорожных путей сохранилось лишь несколько камней. Чтобы построить эту центральную линию связи, руины большей части этого древнего здания были принесены в жертву.
