Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/312

 294 ATHEMAE. hifjLos *A^po8fn|.) On the west the Agora appears to have extended as far as the Pnyx. Thus, we find in Aristophanes, that Dicaeopolis, who had secured his seat in the Pnyz at the first dawn of day, looks down upon the Agora beneath him, where the logistae are chasing the people with their vermilion coloured rope (Aristoph. Acharn. 21, seq. with Schol.) For the same reason, when Philip had taken Elateia, the retail dealers were driven from their stalls in the market, and their booths burnt, that the people might assemble more quickly in the Pnyx. (Dem. de Cor. p. 284, quoted by Müller.) It, therefore, appears that the Agora was situated in the valley between the Acropolis, the Areiopagns, the Pnjz, and the Museium, being bounded by the Acropolis on the east, by the Pnyx on the west, by the Areiopagus on the north, and by the Museium on the south. This is the site assigned to it by Müller and Forchhammer; but Ross and Ulrichs place it north of the ravine between the Areiopagus and the Acropolis, and between these hills and the hill on which the Theseium stands. (Zeitschrift fur die Alterthumswissenschaft, p. 22, 1844.) Some account of the buildings in the Agora will be given in the description of the route of Pausanias through the city.

The existence of a second Agora at Athens has been so generally admitted, that the arguments in favour of this supposition require a little examination. Leake supposed the new Agora to have been formed in the last century and conjectures that the ostensible reason of the change was the defilement of the old Agora by the massacre which occurred in the Cerameicus, when Athens was taken by Sulla,  86. Müller, however, assigns to the new Agora a much earlier date, and supposes that it was one of the markets of Athens in the time of Aristophanes and Demosthenes, since both these writers mention the statue of Hermes Agoraeus, which he places near the gate of the new Agora.

The arguments for the existence of the new Agora to the north of the Acropolis may be thus stated:—1. Apollodorus speaks of the ancient Agora (ii Itpx^ ^y^P^)i thereby implying that there was a second and more recent one. (ndvlhifioy 'AB^ivtfaiy icKiidiiycu r^v 6fA/ipt6pv$€iaQM vcpl r^y ikpxoioLy kyo' pdyj Hid rh iyrwuBa irdana rhy 9^fwy ffvydytcBtu rh roKcuhy iv rous iKKKriaUut, ts iKdkovy kyopds^ Apollod. ap. Harpocrat. s. v. Ilcb^fioy A^poSiri}.) 2. It is maintained from a passage in Strabo that this new Agora bore the name of the Eretrian Agora. The words of Strabo are: "Eretria, some say, was colonised from Macistus in Triphylia under Eretrieus, others, from the Athenian Eretria, which is now Agora." (^Zprrpiay 8' ot /A^y knh Meuclffrou r^t TpKpvKlus iaroiKurBfiycd <peuriy iir* 'Eperpicwy, ol d' i,wh tiis *A9iiy7i€rty *Eperplas^ 1^ yvy ivrty iiryopd^ Strab. X. p. 447.) 3. Pausanias, as we have already seen, gives a description of the buildings in the old Agora, but without once mentioning the latter by name. It is not till the 17th chapter that he speaks of the Agora, just before he describes the gymnasium of Ptolemy and the temple of Theseus. Hence it is inferred that the old Agora had ceased to be used as a market-place in the time of Pausanias; and that the Agora mentioned by him is the so-called new Agora. 4. The chief argument, however, for the existence of the new Agora is the Doric portico, which is situated at a distance of about 250 yards opposite the northern extremity of the rocks of the Acropolis. It is maintained that the style of archi- ATHENAE. tecture of this building, and still more the inscriptions upon it, prove it to have been the Propylaeum or gateway of the Agora; and it is thought to be the same as the gate, which Pausanias describes as close to the statue of Hermes Agoraeus, and in the neighbourhood of the Stoa Poecile (i. 15. § 1).

In reply to these arguments it may be observed: 1. Apollodorus did not speak of an ancient market-place in contradistinction from a new market-place; he derives the name of iyopd from the assembling ((TvniTetrdai) of the people, and calls the place where they assembled the ancient Agora, in order to distinguish it from their later place of assembly on the Pnyx. 2. The passage of Strabo is too obscure to be of any authority in such a controversy. It is doubtful whether the Agora mentioned in this passage is the market, or a market, and whether it was in Athens or in Attica. Supposing that Strabo meant the Agora at Athens, there is no reason why we should not understand him to allude to the so-called old Agora. 3. It is quite an accidental circumstance that Pausanias uses the word Agora for the first time at the beginning of the 17th chapter. He had previously described the Agora under the name of Cerameicus, of which it was a part, and he would probably not have used the name Agora at all, had not the mention of the Hermes Agoraeus accidentally given occasion to it. 4. It is most probable that the above-mentioned Doric portico was not the gate of any market, but the portal of a building dedicated to Athena Archegetis, and erected by donations from Julius Caesar and Augustus. This portico was quite different from the gate mentioned by Pausanias as standing close to the statue of Hermes Agoraeus; for this gate and statue stood in the middle of the so-called old Agora. A few words must be said on each of these points.

First, as to the Hermes Agoraeus, it is expressly stated by an ancient authority that this statue stood in the middle of the Agora, {iy fi4ap &yop^ IBpvrai *Zpfwv kyopahu SyaXfia, Schol.'' ad Aristoph. Equit.'' 297.) Near this statue, and consequently in the middle of the Agora, stood a gate (vi/Ai}), which appears from the account of Pausanias (i. 15. § 1) to have been a kind of triumphal arch erected to commemorate the victory of the Athenians over the troops of Cassander. This archway probably stood upon the same spot as the IlvXis mentioned by Demosthenes (rcpf rby 'Epfiijy rhy Tpbs rf wvXtBi, ''c Euerg. et Mnesib. p. 1146), and may even have been the same building as the latter, to which the trophy was subsequently added. The Hermes Agoraeus, which was made of bronze, was one of the most celebrated statues in Athens, partly from its position, and partly from the beauty of its workmanship. (Lucian, Jup. Trag.'' 33.) This "Hermes near the gate" ('Ep/u^r irpbs r^ %vMh, or Topk rhy irvKiiya) was frequently used to designate the part of the Cerameicus (Agora) in which it stood. (Dem. l. c.; Harpocrat, Suid., Phot. Lex. *Ep/ins upbs rp mtXiBu) It was erected by the nine archons at the time when the fortifications of the Peiraeeus were commenced, as was shown by the inscription upon it, preserved by Philochorus (ap. Harpocrat s. v. Ilphs rp tvMSi 'Ep/ii^f ). According to Philochorus (l. c.) it was called 6 UuKay 6 *At- TiK6s: for the latter word, which is evidently corrupt, Leake proposes to read ^AariKSs, and Forchhammer *AyopMos. Sometimes the "Gate" alone was employed to indicate this locality: thus Isaeus speaks of a lodging-house "in the Cerameicus near