L'Agora d'Athènes, un bouillonnant centre urbain

The Agora in the Mediterranean from Homeric to Roman Times, edited by A. Giannikouri, 2011

Hesperia, 2015

The Southeast Fountain House stands at the center of an historical controversy surrounding the Late Archaic use of the Athenian Agora, and both its identification and date have crucial ramifications for our understanding of the Agora in the late sixth and early fifth centuries B.C.E. The fountain house has consistently been associated with the Peisistratidai. As such, it is often included as part of their additions and embellishments to the built environment of Athens. A reappraisal of the pottery from the fountain house, overflow channels, and pipelines, together with an examination of the in situ architectural remains, however, demonstrates that the building should instead be placed among the earliest buildings of the new democracy and is one of the structures that helped to define – both spatially and conceptually – the area of the new Agora.

2014

The Classical Athenian Agora is seen as an idealized form of public space – a bustling square where the citizens came together to haggle, philosophize and discuss politics. Athens was only one among hundreds of Greek poleis and these cities long outlived the Classical period, yet historians have shown little interest in the agoras of the agoras of these other cities. This article explores what looking at the Hellenistic and Roman period agora can tell us about ancient society and culture.

Athens was located on an excellent area to be a harbour city, but it is thought that they had not known that until the 6 th century B.C. The city was settled at the place of the acropolis first. It was an ordinary Mycenaean city: a fortified gateway at the southwest end, a megaron palace at north and a stairway which goes to the sacred spring carved on the rock. In the Bronze Age citadel lost importance and the palace became a temple. Small towns in the plain were attached to Athens.

Classical Archaeology in Context: Theory and Practice in Excavation in the Greek World, edited by D.C. Haggis and C. Antonaccio, 2015

This paper explores the structure and mechanics of the Greek agora by focusing specifically on three urban contexts in the Peloponnese from the eighth century B.C.E. through the Late Classical period (Argos, Elis and Megalopolis). Although largely underrepresented in established discourses on the Greek agora, the diverse archaeological evidence from the Peloponnese has the potential to recalibrate traditional narratives, helping to formulate a more nuanced appreciation of Greek commercial and civic space independent from an athenocentric model. It is argued here that the Peloponnesian experience offers new perspectives into the urban integration, structure and use of the Greek agora because of divergent conditions from city to city. Rather than articulate a universal model of the Greek agora, this paper demonstrates that there is often great variation among agoras, even among cities within a single region of the ancient Mediterranean. In fact, none of the Peloponnesian agoras included in this study are exactly alike. This is because the Greek agora responded to unique urban conditions within a particular context. Its spatial mechanics and social structure are never exactly replicated elsewhere. Ultimately this leads to the conclusion that there cannot be just one definition of the Greek agora, but many.

Map 5.1 Plan of the Athenian Akropolis and its south slope. 1. Panathenaic Way. 2. Klepsydra. 3. Propylaia. 4. Temple of Athena Nike. 5. Sanctuary of Artemis Brauronia. 6. Statue of Athena Promachos. 7. Erechtheion. 8. Foundations of the Old Temple of Athena Polias (also known as the Old Athena Temple). 9. Parthenon. 10. Monopteros of Roma and Augustus. 11. Sanctuary of Pandion. 12. Theater of Dionysos. 13. Sanctuary of Dionysos. 14. Sanctuary of Asklepios. 15. Stoa of Eumenes II. 16. Odeion of Herodes Atticus. Courtesy of M. Korres, adapted by D. Weiss.

Visual Histories of the Clasical World (in honorem Bert Smith), 2018

After a brief introduction summarizing the various theories about the origins of the "Agora of the Kerameikos" (i.e., the Athenian archaeological site excavated by the American School since 1931), the paper addresses four major issues: Antenor's Tyrannicides and the origin of the Agora; the akroteria of the Stoa Basileios; the contrapposto of the Tyrannicides of Kritios and Nesiotes; and the Battle of Oinoe in the Stoa Poikile.