Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 3.djvu/19

Rh Agora, 1 The &quot; Tower of the Winds,&quot; which had previously been erected, formed, with its useful timepieces, an appropriate embellishment at the north-eastern extremity. The market was enclosed by a wall, and it was reserved for Hadrian to complete its decoration by building a magnificent stoa on its northern side. Augustus himself received the honour of a small circular shrine upon the Acropolis, dedicated to Augustus and Roma. His son-in-law Agrippa was honoured by an equestrian statue in front of the Propylcea, the pedestal of which still exists. The Agrippeium was a theatre erected by Agrippa in the Cerameicus. It is possible, moreover, that the Diogeneium the only gymnasium mentioned in the Ephebic inscriptions of the imperial period was built about this time. Its site has recently been thought to have been discovered about 200 yards east of the Tower of the Winds. Whatever licentiousness and misgovernment might mark the reign of succeeding emperors, they at all events refrained from doing injury to Athens. It had been proposed to finish the great temple of Zeus Olympius in honour of Augustus, but the design fell through, and it was reserved for Hadrian to finally complete the building of this magnificent temple, some six centuries from the time when the first stone was laid. Irian at ens The reign of Hadrian made literally a new era in the history of Athens. 2 For Greece, and especially for Athens, this emperor entertained a passionate admiration. He condescended to hold the office of archon eponymus ; in his honour a thirteenth tribe, Hadrianis, was instituted ; and the emperor shared with Zeus the title of Olympius, and the honours of the newly-finished temple. While, however, many portions of the city bore witness to his munificence, it was in the south-eastern quarter that most of his new buildings arose, in the neighbourhood of the Olympium. This suburb was accordingly styled Hadrianopolis, or New Athens, to distinguish it from the old city of Theseus and of Themistocles. The arch of Hadrian still stands in a fairly perfect state, and marks the boundary between the ancient town and the new suburb embellished by Hadrian. On the north-western front of the architrave is the inscription cu8 eio- A^vat T/CTCWS rj -irplv TroAis , on the other front, atS etcr ASptavou KO.I ovi ^crecos TroAis. At the same time many of the older buildings underwent restoration at his command. Nor was his bounty shown in works of building alone. He ceded to the Athenians the island of Cephallenia, and bestowed upon them large presents of money, and an annual largess of corn. The immediate successors of Hadrian were guided by his example. Antoninus Pius completed an aqueduct which Hadrian had commenced for bringing water into the town from the Cephisus. Marcus Aurelius visited Athens for the purpose of initiation at the Eleusinian mysteries, odes The list of distinguished persons who made themselves icus - famous as benefactors of Athens may be said to close with the name of Herodes Atticus the rhetorician. Herodes had counted Marcus Aurelius amongst his pupils, and was sure of a distinguished career at Rome ; but, like the friend of Cicero, he preferred the more peaceful atmosphere of Greece and took the surname of Atticus. His ambition was to excel as a sophist, but he owed his fame yet more to the enormous wealth he inherited from his father, which he spent in works of public munificence. Various towns of Greece and even of Italy were enriched by his bounty, but Athens most of all. In addition to his many other benefactions, two architectural works in parti- 1 The name Cerameicus is never used by writers of pre-Roman times for the old market; they always speak of &quot; the Agora.&quot; Pausanias uses both words in their more modern meanings respectively. Many inscribed documents are found, dated &quot; from Hadrian s first visit.&quot; See Dittenberger in the Hermes, 1872, p. 213. cular immortalised his name. One was the Stadium, which he adorned with magnificent marble seats. The other was the Odeium (see Pausan., vii. 20), the ruins of which are still to be seen under the south-west of the Acropolis. An odeium resembled a theatre in its general plan and the purposes it served : it differed apparently in being roofed in. The ancient theatres were open to the sky ; but the most remarkable feature of this odeium, built by Herodes in honour of his deceased wife Regilla, was its roof of cedar, fragments of which were actually discovered in the excavations made upon this site in 1857. It is a fortunate circumstance that the best and only Tour of extant account of ancient Athens came from the pen of a Pausanias. traveller who visited the city just at the time when the munificence of Hadrian and of Herodes had left nothing more to be added to its embellishment. The Odeium of Regilla, indeed, had not been commenced when Pausanias visited Athens, and he describes it later on in his seventh book. We may place his tour through Athens about the year 170 A.D. His manner of description is as methodical as a modern guide-book, and his very knowledge and appreciation of the endless masterpieces of Grecian art prevent him from covering his pages, like some modern tourists, with rapturous word-painting and expressions of delight. He begins his account of Athens (bk. i. ch. i.-ii. 1 ) with a description of the Piraeeus and the harbours, and his first tour is along the road from Phalerum to the city, where he enters by the Itonian gate, within which he finds a monument to the Amazon Antiope. In his next tour (ch. ii. 2-ch. v.) he supposes us to start again from Piraeeus, and approach the city along the remains of the Long Walls. Thus entering the city by the Pirsean gate, 3 he conducts us along the southern side of the old Agora (which he styles the Cerameicus), describing all the buildings that occur upon the way, from the Stoa Basileius and another stoa near it, adorned with a statue of Zeus Eleutherius. in an eastward direction past the temple of Apollo Patrous, the Metroum, the Bouleuterium, and Tholus, and other buildings, which lay at the northern and north-eastern foot of the Areopagus. This walk ends with the mention of the temple Eucleia and the Eleusinium. It is not easy to see why Pausanias here introduces an account of the fountain Enneacrunus and the temple of Demeter and Core, which every archaeologist hitherto has placed near the Ilissus, in the south-eastern extremity of the city. 4 In his next walk (ch. xiv. 5-xviii. 3), having already described the south side of the Cerameicus Agora, he starts again from the Stoa Basileius, describes the buildings on the west and north of the Agora, and then enters the new or Roman Agora. In this tour he mentions the altar of Mercy, the gymnasium of Ptolemy, the Theseium, the temple of Aglaurus, and the Prytaneium. In his next walk he starts from the Prytaneium, and proceeding eastward (ch. xviii. 4, xix.), he mentions the temples of Sarapis and of Ileithuia, until, leaving the eastern end of the Acropolis at some distance on his right hand, he passes through the arch of Hadrian, and describes the Olympium and the other buildings of that emperor. This tour included the temple of Aphrodite lv K^TTOIS, the Cynosarges, the Stadium, and other buildings on both sides of the Ilissus. For his next walk he returns again to the Prytaneium (ch. xx.-xxviii. 3), and enters the Street of Tripods, which leads him to the temple and theatre of Dionysus, which he describes. Thus he at length reaches the western extremity 3 Curtius and others are probably mistaken in supposing the Dipylum to be the gate intended by Pausanias. 4 Dr Dyer, in his recent work on Athens, Appendix i.. endeavours to explain this difficulty by assuming the existence of two fountains called Callirrhoe, one of which (Enneacrunus) he places on the north west of the Acropolis. III. 2