Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/311



Thus Arch, which is still extant, is opposite the north-western angle of the Olympieium, and formed an entrance to the peristyle of the temple. It is a paltry structure; and the style is indeed so unworthy of the real enlargement of taste which Hadrian is acknowledged to have displayed in the fine arts, that Mure conjectures with much probability that it may have been a work erected in his honour by the Athenian municipality, or by some other class of admirers or flatterers, rather than by himself. "This arch, now deprived of the Corinthian columns which adorned it, and covered at the base with three feet of accumulated soil, consisted when complete of an

ARCH OF HADRIAN.

archway 20 feet wide, between piers above 15 feet square, decorated with a column and a pilaster on each side of the arch, and the whole presenting an exactly similar appearance on either face. Above the center of the arch stood an upper order surmounted by a pediment, and consisting on either front of a niche between semi-columns; a thin partition separating the niches from each other at the back. Two columns between a pilaster flanked this structure at either end, and stood immediately above the larger Corinthian columns of the lower order. The height of the lower order to the summit of the cornice was about 33 feet, that of the upper to the summit of the pediment about 23." (Leake, p. 199.) The inscriptions upon either side of the frieze above the centre of the arch, describe it a> dividing "Athens, the ancient city of Theseus" from the "City of Hadrian." On the north-western side:

ATT (ur' -A«qH> e^r^ i, wpir srJAit.

On the south-eastern side:

Air (u* 'A^uwE Kob]^ »itrim roMi.

These lines are an imitation of an inscription said to have been engraved by Theseus upon corresponding sides of a boundary column on the isthmus of Corinth (Plut. Thes. 25; Strab. iii. p.171):

TiS tori nteT6m)aet ohr 'Istla. (Comp. Böckh, Inscr. No. 520.)

We know that a quarter of Athens was called Hadrianopolis in honour of Hadrian (Spartian. Hadrian. 20); and the above-mentioned inscription proves that this name was given to the quarter on the southern side of the arch, in which stood the mighty temple of Zeus Olympius, completed by this emperor.

The position and remains of this aqueduct have been already described. [See p. 264, b.]

Before the publication of Forchhammer's work, it was usually supposed there were two marketplaces at Athens, one to the west and the other to the north of the Acropolis, the former being called the Old Agora, and the latter the Now or Eretrian Agora. This error, which has led to such serious mistakes in Athenian topography, appears to have been first started by Meursius, and has been adopted by subsequent writers on the subject, including even Leake and Müller. Forchhammer, however, has now clearly established that there was only one Agora at Athens, which was situated west of the Acropolis; and that there a no proof at all for the existence of the New Agora, which was placed by preceding writers directly north of the Acropolis in the midst of the modern town of Athens.

The general position of the Agora, vulgarly called the Old Agora, cannot admit of dispute; though it is almost impossible to determine its exact boundaries. The Agora formed a part of the Cerameicus. It is important to recollect this, sines Pausanias, in his description of the Cerameicus (i cc. 3–17), gives likewise a description of the Agora, but without mentioning the latter by name. It cannot, however, be doubted that he is actually giving an account of the Agora, inasmuch as the statues of Lycurgus, Demosthenes, Harmodius and Aristogeiton, which he mentions as being in the Cerameicus, are expressly stated by other authorities to have been in the Agora. The statue of Lycurgus is placed in the Agora by a Psephisma, quoted by Plutarch (Vit. X. Orat. p. 852); though the same writer, in bis life of Lycurgus (Ibid. p. 384), says that it stood in the Cerameicus. So, also, the statues of Harmodius and Aristogeiton are described by Arrian (Anab. iii. 16), as being in the Cerameicus, but are placed in the Agora by Aristotle (Rhet. i. 9), Lucian (Parasit. 48), and Aristophanes (i-roptlaai T* if Tott twKeu J(flt 'Apiirro7<(T0.'i, Lytiitr. 633.) On the east the Agora extended as far as the ascent to the Propylea. This is evident from the position of the statues of Harmodius and Aristogeiton, which stood on an elevated situation, near the temple of Nike, which, as we have already seen, was immediately in front of the left wing of the Propylaea. (_KttrTv ir Kepo^tri^ ol ein^d, f hiiiiir ii wrtAic [i. e. the Acropolis] Kitnrvut^ Toi Mbt/v'ok, Arrian, Anab. iii. 16.) The extent of the Agora towards the east is also proved by the position of the temple of Aphrodite Pandemus, which was at the foot of the Propylaea (Paus. i. 22. § 3; Mirpar wop' aini]r tla^KMai, Eurip. Hippol. 30), but which is also expressly said to have been in the Agora. (Apollod. ap. Harpocrat. s. v.' ait-