Classical Greece: Domestic

Architecture & Sanctuaries

CNE/ART 354
3/23/06
 Greek Cities
• Vast majority were unwalled until the
5th century.
• Athens seems to have been without
walls until 478 (post-Persian Wars).
Domestic Architecture
 Athenian Houses
• Athens grew organically, not planned.
• Houses not uniformly built, no standard house
size or arrangement, either internally or within
a given city block (unlike the Piraeus and
Olynthos, which show marked degree of
urban planning).
• In 5th-4th c: the courtyard house
predominates (separates women from public
gaze and public life).
 Average Athenian House
• Small, dirt or packed clay floors
• Series of rooms grouped around central
courtyard (light and air)
• Few external windows, only 1 or 2 external
doors.
• Demosthenes: commends the poverty of
Athenian private houses in the 5th c., praises
lack of distinction between the homes of rich
and poor.
 Egalitarian Housing?
• General Athenian reluctance to spend money on
comfortable housing is borne out by archaeological
evidence.
• Finds of pottery or metalware indicate a greater
wealth than their architectural context might suggest.
• Outward display of egalitarianism, with inward display
of status, wealth?
• Poor housing may have been an expression of the
modesty that surrounded the ideal Athenian family,
especially the women.
• Still, there were large, ostentatious houses in Athens
(unrepentent aristocrats?).
 Oikos
• Considered a miniature center of production
• Clothes and food made from wool and crops
• Nursery for children
• Sanctuary protected by household gods
• Snakes kept to control rodent population, &
because they were sacred animals.
• Space gendered female.
• Protected from outside view.
 Rooms
• Functions not easy to pinpoint.
• Furniture sparse and moveable.
• Small finds sometimes give us clues to
function:
– Cooking wares for kitchen, pantry
– Loom weights indicate women’s quarters,
which were usually upstairs (literary
evidence tells us this, law cases, etc.)
 Andron
• Only space in the oikos gendered male.
• Separate entrance into it from outside.
• Most elaborate room in the house, because it was
meant for social display.
• Often set on the N side of central court, facing
south, to get full benefit of warmth of low winter sun.
• Often had mosaic pebble floor (set in lime mortar).
• Dining couches for symposia.
• Whitley has observed that these can be seen as
mini versions of the dining rooms found at classical
sanctuaries.
 Construction Materials
• Rubble foundations and lower walls
• Upper walls of sundried brick, stuccoed
• Wooden beams and boards on roof
supported terracotta tiles
• Many houses had latrines and
bathrooms with clay bathtubs; Athens at
this time had no public sanitation
system.
Rural Settlements
 Dema House
• NW of Athens, on the plain.
• 2 storeys with an open courtyard.
• Andron is located at the back of the courtyard, far
from the entrance.
• Room with hearth and workroom were located as far
away from andron as possible.
• With upper storey, women could move freely from
their quarters upstairs to their workroom without
venturing into the courtyard/andron area.
 Dema House, Continued
• Entrance to the house controlled by porter.
• Occupied in the last quarter of the 5th century (c.
425) for a short period of time.
• Must have been built during the Peace of Nikias
(421-416, Peace with Persia).
• No evidence of farming or other productive activity
around the house.
• Finds include fine pottery. Country house for elite
family? Short-lived attempt to reoccupy family land
after enforced evacuation to Athens in wartime.
 Vari House (in SE Attika)
• 4th century style house (350-275).
• Has a long room in the middle of the house opening
onto a courtyard, like Dema House.
• All one storey, except bottom left hand corner, which
had perhaps a 2 storey tower. For protection?
• Tower similar in plan to those on islands of Kea,
Amorgos, Siphnos. These types of towers are more
characteristic of Hellenistic Greece.
• Large quantities of beehive pottery (large vessels with
striations and a circular cap) were found. Slopes of
nearby Mt. Hymettos were ideal for beekeeping, so
the house may have been built for that purpose.
Attic Farmhouse (Vari)
Vari House Inner Room
Reconstruction
Vari Courtyard Reconstruction
 Towers
• Classical period: much rural land was
dotted with such towers, which had
various functions.
• Primary (?): landowner’s need and
determination to protect his property.
• Other uses: “lighthouses,” watchtowers
• By late 4th c., large parts of rural areas
were fortified.
Attic Farmhouses (Atene)
 Rural Settlement Patterns
• Some (e.g. Osborne) see a relatively empty
countryside, with a few dense settlements
(nucleated pattern).
• Others (e.g. Lohmann) see a countryside
dotted with isolated farmsteads (dispersed
pattern).
• Rural areas were filled with sanctuaries (big &
small) and were regions of production (grain
on plains, animals on hills, silver mines, etc.).
• Population of Attika by 4th c: 300,000 or so.
 Atene (Deme in SE Attika)
• Walked by Hans Lohmann (one man survey).
• He found a dispersed pattern of settlement,
16 isolated farmsteads, 9 of which had
towers.
• Area was extensively terraced (labor-
intensive and costly): olive cash crop/slaves?
• Some were complex enough to have been
permanent residences.
• LE17: had threshing floor, sheepfold.
• LE16: had andron that could hold 7 couches.
 Settlement Densities
• Surface survey done of island of Keos in the
1980s.
• Small Polis: Koressos
• 60 new sites discovered, most from Classical
period.
– 29 Archaic sites
– 40 Classical sites
However, most of the Archaic sites date from the 6th
century, not earlier.
Keos
Keos in Archaic Period
Classical Settlement Patterns
 Classical Period Keos
• Settlement patterns show the entire
landscape dotted with sites (dense but
dispersed pattern).
• Shows a certain amount of security was felt
(to live so spread out).
• 400 BCE: around Greece is the peak in
density of rural settlement.
• This pattern changes in the Hellenistic period.
• Rural sites are abandoned. Why? Pirates? Or
social reasons?
Hellenistic Keos Settlement Patterns
 Regional Differences
• Patterns of rural settlement may vary by
region and over time (influenced by geology,
survey biases, bulldozing).
• 2 models (patterns):
– “Boiotia model”: dense but dispersed settlement
(small farmsteads/hamlets).
– “Messenia model”: dispersed rural settlement
constant from Archaic to Classical periods,
increasing in Hellenistic period.
 Settlement Signs
• Roof tiles are sure signs of settlement,
especially of farm houses.
• 2 main styles: Corinthian and Laconian.
• Key feature in identifying a farmhouse:
– Circumscribed area, high density of remains at
center, with ‘halo’ density around (not very high)
surrounded by a ‘background noise’ density.
Artifacts like potsherds are carried out in such
patterns by farming techniques such as plowing,
manuring fields, etc.
 Sizes of Poleis
• Example: Boiotia
5th century: total population of around
165,500.
About 55,000 lived in 14-15 poleis.
About 12,000 lived in towns.
98,500 left living in the countryside, or
about 60% of total population.
 Comparative Territory Size
• Small scale.
• Keos: 4 city-states had a territory size of 130 km
squared.
• Melos: 1 city-state had 150 km squared.
• Attika and Athens: about 4 times the size of Douglas
County, Nebraska.
• Lato on Crete: very small polis, but had agora,
shrine, theater. Population c. 2000. Small poleis like
this often got pushed around, and so banded
together in alliances.
• Poleis boundaries: usually at topographical features,
clearly defined & easily defended.
 Urban Orthogonal Grid Planning
• Hippodamos of Miletos (5th century)
• Aristotle discusses urban design in Politics
2.8.1-3, says that Hippodamos was the first
person to plan towns with separate areas for
religious, public, and private use.
• Although the grid plan was in use before
Hippodamos (rectangular block plans in Greek
towns in Sicily, 6th c.), he was the most famous
proponent of it. Credited with replanning the
city of Miletos after it was destroyed in the
Ionian revolt, rebuilt on grid plan.
 Urban & Rural Planning
• In poleis, citizens were entitled to a
block of land in the country and a house
in the city. Both were necessary
conditions of citizenship.
• The city as the physical embodiment of
the polis principle became apparent
mostly in the 4th century. Equal-sized
units = equality of male citizens
 Piraeus & Urban Planning
• Athens’ access to the sea, had 3
harbors. Kantharos harbor was used for
commercial shipping, the other 2 were
bases for Athens’ fleet of triremes
(warships).
• Fortified in the 490s, established as a
settlement after 478 (Persian Wars).
• 475-450, the area was laid out on the
grid system of Hippodamos of Miletos.
 Piraeus Houses
• Unlike those in Athens, which varied greatly
in size and plan.
• Remarkably similar to those in Priene, 100
years later.
• Most had similar ground plans, and were
quite small.
• Had internal courtyards, cisterns, and
andrones (held no more than 7 diners).
• “epitome of 5th century political correctness,”
“embodiment of isonomia (equal rights) and
demokratia (rule by the people)” [Whitley]
 Olynthos
• Best example of Hippodamian grid planning is
Olynthos in Chalcidiki (H. dead by this point).
• Archaic Period: Olynthos was a small hilltop
town.
• After 479 the population began to increase,
especially when Olynthos became the capital
of the new Chalchidian League (432).
• Olynthos was a powerful city in the 5th-4th
centuries, because it was the gateway to
Macedonia.
 Olynthos
• 432: big population increase due to Athenian
colonists
• New area (north hill) was built to accommodate
them.
• Plan: standard blocks laid out, 10 houses per
block.
• Houses are not identical.
• Olynthos destroyed in 348 by Philip of Macedon
and not rebuilt (great for us).
• New Greek cities were laid out on Hippodamian
plans.
 Hearths
• At Olynthos, only 7 out of 42 excavated
houses had stone-built hearths.
• Literary sources: led scholars to believe that
each house had one as the center of the
home.
• Literary ideal of ‘hearth and home’ not borne
out in the material remains.
• Didn’t need a hearth - could cook over
portable braziers (terracotta or bronze).
Olynthos: Plan of Villa Section
House of Many Colors Plan
House of Many Colors Andron
Olynthos: Villa of Good
Fortune
Olynthos: Gendered Spaces
Priene (now in Turkey)
 Priene
• Tiny polis built in the 4th century to replace an
earlier town.
• Probably had population of 4,000 or so.
• German excavations (late 19th c.) uncovered a
great portion of it.
• Acropolis, fortification wall, lower town.
• Lower town laid out on a modified Hippodamian
plan.
• EW streets ran across the slope; were relatively
level; NS streets were often just staircases.
 Priene
• Residential areas maintained the grid
• Public areas such as agora interrupted
the grid.
• City had the usual polis parts:
– Temples (principal one: Athena Polias)
– Theater
– Gymnasia
– Stadium
Plan: Temple of Athena Polias
Temple of Athena Polias
 Domestic Architecture
• Houses date from late 4th century into
the Hellenistic period.
• Some vary from other dwellings by
having a big main room fronted by a
porch (rival of megaron form?).
• Some were built of stone, most probably
mud-brick and wood.
Priene Houses Reconstructed
Close-up of Megaron House