the agora at athens and the greek market place

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The Agora at Athens and the Greek Market PlaceAuthor(s): Homer A. ThompsonSource: Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 13, No. 4 (Dec., 1954), pp. 9-14Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the Society of Architectural Historians

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THE AGORA AT ATHENS AND

THE GREEK MARKET PLACE

HOMER A. THOMPSON

THE AGORAAS AN architecturalform began to claim the

serious attention of Greekdesignersa good deal later than

the temple or the sanctuary.Throughoutits developmentas an architecturaltype it tolerated rather more varietyand freedom than did they, naturally enough since the

agora was a more complex creation and one more subjectto local conditions both of custom and of physical setting.Onemay, however,detect in the history of the agora as of

the templeand the sanctuarya consistentand logical pro-gression toward a design well calculated to satisfy a givenset of aestheticfeelings and humanneeds.

These needs were many and complex. The agora, liter-

ally "the gathering place," was the focal point of com-

munity life in the Greek city state. A sizable squaresit-.uatednormallytoward the centreof thecity, it servedearly

as a meeting place for political assemblies, and was later

bordered by buildings to house the civic administration

and the courts of law. The open area served as a market

place at all times; permanentshops came to be erected on

its periphery.Templeswere included among the buildings

on its borders while small, open-airsanctuariesand altarsfrequently occurred within the square. It was the normal

venue for the festal processions in which Mediterranean

people have always delighted; it was also the scene of

dramatic contestsand athleticdisplays.In the shadycolon-

nadesthatgraduallycame to enclosethe squarethe citizens

passed a large part of their informal social life and it was

in this settingthat the early philosophers,notablySokrates

and Zeno, did much of their teaching. In later times the

intellectual life was more consciously fostered by the in-

clusion of libraries and lecture halls in the equipmentof

the agora. Thepublic buildingswerethemselvesfrequently

of finedesign,andtheywerecommonlyadornedwithsculp-ture and paintings which, combined with the monuments

that eventuallystood in groves within the square,made of

the agora a national art gallery freely open to all men at

all times.

The concentrationof so many departmentsof public life

within so small an area no doubt had much to do with the

extraordinary ntensity of civic consciousnessin the Greek

city state.Thisconsiderationalone wouldjustify ourgivingsome attention to the physical features of the agora, par-ticularlyin its relation to the other elementsof thecity plan.

I should like to illustratemy few observationsby refer-

ence to two examples of agorai. The first will be drawn

fromPriene,a city of normalsize whichwas laid out afresh

in the mid-fourthcenturyB.C. The other illustration I shall

take fromAthens,one of the largestand mostdistinguished

of the city states, wherethe design of the Agora graduallyevolvedthrougha period of some 800 years.

Let us turn first to Priene. On the map you will find it

on the west coast of Anatolia, down toward the southwest

corner of the peninsula. Perched on a shoulder of Mt.

Mykale,the town had the rugged mountain as a citadel atits back while it looked southward towardthe sea and the

alluvial plain of the River Maeander,from which it drew

its livelihood. The excavations and admirablepublicationscarried out by German scholars over the past sixty yearshave given us a remarkablycomplete picture of the town:

houses for its four or five thousand inhabitantsgroupedin

rectangularblocks,the city wallpierced by one gate on thewest and two on the east side, the templeof the patrongod-dess Athena on its lofty terrace,two gymnasia and even a

stadium within the walls and, towardthe verycentreof the

townsite, the Agora.A glance at the plan will show at once that the design of

the townsite is a studied creation largely of one period.This makesmore significantthe carefulchoice of a central

site for the Agora, readily accessible from all quartersof

the city and almost equidistantfrom the three gates. The

principalstreetof the city passed throughthe squareclose

to its north side in a way convenient for ordinary traffic

andparticularlyeffective for the movement of processions.The sanctuaryof Athena which lay to the northwest of the

Agora was sufficientlyremote to have formed an independ-ent focal point; the temple itself was barely visible from

the square. A lesser sanctuary,probably of Zeus, closely

adjoined the east end of the square; it too maintained its

independence,notbeing directlyaccessiblefromtheAgora.The Ekklesiasterion,or meeting place of assembly and

council,as also thePrytaneionor townhall, werediscreetlyset back from the square along its north side so as to be

OMERA. THOMPSONs the director of the Agora excavations ofthe American School of Classical Studies at Athens.

The Agora at Athens and the Greek Market Place 9

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spared some of the inevitable clamor of the marketplace.The Agora of Priene was originally nearly a regular

squarein outline (Fig. 1). The northeastextensionformed

by the eastwardenlargementof the North Stoa is of late

Greek imes. Of late date also is the openarea to the westof

the main square, identified as a provision market by the

discovery of massive marble counters. You will note the

veryadequateseries of shopsalong the east,west and south

sides of the square. In each case the row of shops wasfrontedby a colonnade of generouswidthskillfullyalignedwiththe streetsandso disposedas to unify those three sides

of the square. It would be hard to imagine a more conven-

ient arrangement or shopping.The northcolonnade,a giftto the city from the prince of a neighboring state, was of

more monumentalproportions.Its roof was supportedbytwo rows of columns. Most of the rooms at its back were

probably used as shops and public offices; one was cer-

tainlya sanctuary.From an inscriptionwe learnthatpublic

banquetswere sometimes served in this building. The ter-

rain in the area of the square sloped down from north to

south. Much of the difference in level was taken up by acontinuous flight of six steps along the south edge of the

broad terrace which fronted the North Stoa. Seated on

these steps, or strolling on the terrace, the citizens com-

manded a splendid view of the square, packed with its

monuments,and on festival days thousandsof them could

enjoy to the full the processions that must have moved

along the broadthroughstreet.

Priene had long been on intimate terms with Athens andthe new foundation of c. 350 B.C. was carried out under

Athenian influence.One can easily imagine that the care-

fully planned and orderly design of the new city and, not

least, the compact layout of its Agora represented theAthenian ideal of the period. We shall see, however, that

the Agora of Athensitself at this time still fell far short of

any such ideal.

It is time now to turn to the "mothercity," Athens.The

Athenians,unlike the people of Priene, have never had oc-

casion to change their townsite.From the very beginning,

by which I mean the Neolithic period, the settlement has

centred around the steep-walled, broad-topped, well-

wateredhill called the Acropolis (Fig. 2). Near the summit

one may still see the remains of the royal palace of the

BronzeAge which was in its day the seat of administration.

Thereafterone can tracea gradualdescentof the accommo-dation for government.We know that the Prytaneion orTown Hall and also the official residence of at least one of

the three original magistrates lay on the north slope of

the Acropolis.These foundationswill date from the estab-

lishment of the aristocratic form of governmentthat suc-

ceeded the monarchy in the early Iron Age. The actual

structures have not yet come to light, but we know them

from the pages of Aristotle and Pausanias.

The constitutional reforms carried out by Solon at the

beginning of the sixth century B.C. led to the more active

participationof the people in the processesof governmentand in matters judicial. This developmentwas naturallyaccompaniedby a furtherdescentof the seat of governmentfromthe rugged slopes of the Acropolisto the level land atits north foot, a region which had for hundreds of yearsbeen used as a burial ground and for scattereddwellings,in this respectresemblingthe Forum Romanum.The area

has been laid bare throughthe excavationscarried out bythe AmericanSchool of ClassicalStudies since 1931. Here,

deep beneaththe foundations of later structures,have ap-pearedthe remainsof buildingsof the time of Solon which,there is good reason to believe, served the administrative

and judicial bodies of that time and so representthe be-

ginnings of the AthenianAgora.The site had many naturaladvantages:a smooth piece

of land withineasy reach of thecitadel andof thesurround-

ing farmland with enough slope to assure drainage and

with a springor two to provide good drinkingwater.Here,

then, was to be the civic centreof the city-statefrom c. 600

B.C. until the barbarian incursions of the third centuryafter Christ.

The plan will makeclearerthe place of the Agora in theoveralldesign of the town (Fig. 3). The Acropolis formed

the hub of the wheel-shapedcity, the circuit wall being therim. The Agora, lying at the northwest foot of the Acro-

polis, was crossed diagonallyby the principalstreet of the

city which led in from the main gate, the Dipylon, andcarriedone up to the hilltop.

I have said that the Agora was for some eight centuries

the centre of civic life. Yet I wish to avoid the impressionof

completerigidity and permanence.One of the most inter-

esting aspectsof the history of the area is the coming andgoing of institutionsand the physical facilities that served

them. In the beginningit would appearthat the Agorahad

served all the many departmentsof communitylife whichI listed at the outset. In the course of time, however,more

suitable accommodation was found for some of these ac-

tivities elsewhere. After the reforms of Kleisthenes,for in-

stance, as the political assemblyassumednew importanceand beganto meetmore regularlyand frequently, t moved

southto the Pnyx where it found a betterslopefor its audi-torium and a less noisy setting. That was about 500 B.C.

At about the same time, Attic drama,advancingrapidly in

both form and popularityunder the genius of the youngAischylos,gave up its old meetingplacein the openmarket

square n favor of the south side of the Acropoliswherethe

steep slope facilitated seating and at the same time pro-vided shelter against the north wind. This was to be the

site of whatwe know as the Theatre of Dionysos.But let us turn to the north side of the Acropolisand to

the Agora proper. I should like to attempt an extremelybrief review of the developmentof the square,pausing at

several of the more significant points in its history to conm-

10 Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, XIII, 4







ment on certain aspects of its arrangement. The plan be-

fore us shows the Agora as it was c. 200 B.C. (Fig. 4). Let

me warn the reader, however, that this plan, as also the

later ones which are reproduced here, is defective on the

north side. The north edge of the Agora falls outside the

present zone of excavation so that its exploration must wait

for the future. From the literary references and from the

discovery of isolated blocks, we may be sure that much

of this side was closed, from about the middle of the fifth

century B.C. onward, by the Stoa Poikile, the Painted Stoa,where Stoic philosophy was first taught and from which it

took its name.

In the long interval between the first beginnings of c. 600

B.C. and the time represented by this plan, i.e., c. 200 B.C.,

one public building after another had been added as occa-

sion demanded. Throughout this period the alignment of

the individual buildings and of the sides of the plaza was

determined chiefly by the course of the principal old thor-

oughfares which had served the area long before the con-

struction of any monumental buildings. Thus the buildings

of the west side were made to face on a north to south road-

way; those on the south side were set with their backs to a

street which ran from east to west outside the plaza. The

orientation of the great square peristyle at the northeast

corner was taken from a thoroughfare which ran from east

to west within the limits of the Agora and which was bor-

dered on the north, we believe, by the Painted Stoa. The re-

sult was an irregular and somewhat incoherent plan, at least

as seen on paper. I have little doubt that these defects, if

one should so describe them, were less apparent in actual-

ity, among other reasons because of planting in the square.We are told that Kimon, the great statesman of the mid-

fifth century, adorned the Agora with plane trees, and theancient authors mention several other individual trees as

well as groves around certain buildings and sanctuaries.

I would urge that this be kept in mind as an exceedingly

significant element in the setting of the ancient Agora, justas a single great tree or a row of trees may give much of its

character to the square of a modern Greek town.

Another factor which would have mitigated the bleak-

ness suggested by the drawn plan was water. Water was

available in two large fountain houses set on the high

ground at the southeast and southwest corners of the

square. From these fountain houses fresh water was car-

ried down into the square in pipelines to supply drinkingfountains while the waste was led off in open stone runnels

to be used for watering the groves and trees and animals.

Those earliest public buildings of which I have spoken

stood near the south end of the west side of the square, and

it is significant that throughout antiquity the southwest

corner of the square remained the focal point of adminis-

trative activity. The executive branch of government was

accommodated in a group of three buildings at which we

shall look more closely later. In our excavation campaign

FIG. 1. Priene,the Agora. (von Gerkan,GriechischeStiidteanlagen,Fig. 11)

FIG. 2. The Athenian Agora, August 1953. View toward the south-east. (American School of Classical Studies at Athens)

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The Agora at Athens and the Greek Market Place 11







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12 Journalof the Society of ArchitecturalHistorians,XIII, 4







of 1953 we found reason to believe that the principal law-

court, the Heliaia, met in the great enclosure second fromthe west on the southside, while the spaciousstoa or colon-

nade to the east of it was probablyintended to shelter the

jurymenin case of rain, since in the court they sat under

the open sky. We are now inclined to believe that the

enigmatic cloister-likebuilding at the northeast corner ofthe squareaccommodatedanotherof the several known law

courts. The delightfulmiscellany of the south side is com-

pleted by the national mint at the east end of the row. Toreturn to the west side, the group of administrativebuild-

ings toward the south was balancedby the smallTempleof

Apollo and the elegant Stoa of Zeus at the north. Observethe broadgap left betweenthe two groupsto permita clearvista of theTempleof Hephaistoson the hilltopto the west.

A perspicacious foreigner who visited Athens at aboutthe period of this plan recorded his admiration of the

temples, the Odeion and various other monumentsof the

city, but he had not a word to say about the Agora. Onecan well imagine that at this time the AthenianAgora ap-

peared old-fashioned and mean by comparisonwith thoseof some of the great new cities of the Greek east. Within

fiftyyears,however,there was initiateda brilliantprogramwhich was to effect a radical transformationof the old

squareand to make it one of the most impressive,conven-ient and attractive n the ancientworld. It is worth notingthat one of the major units in this programwas certainlycontributed by King Attalos II of Pergamon (159-138

B.C.), one of those new cities of theeast, and a secondunitalso was probablya royal gift.

The essence of the remodellingwas the division of the

sprawlingold squareinto two areas,both nearly rectangu-

lar in outline: a large plaza to the north, obviously to bethe principal public square, and a lesser square to thesouth which we have come to think of as the Commercial

Agoraor market-placeproper (Fig. 5). The actualdivisionbetween he twosquareswas effectedby a screen wall alongthe median line of the enormous two-aisled colonnade

which we call the Middle Stoa. The greater and the lesser

square would presumablycorrespondto what Aristotle inhis Politics referredto as the "Freemen'sAgora,"and the"CommercialAgora,"respectively.Thereareseveralparal-lels in the Hellenistic cities for this sensible separationof

functions, but nowhere was it arranged more effectively

than here.I should like to drawattention to two otherpoints in the

layout of the Agora as it emerged from this remodelling.Thefirst has to do with thetwohugecolonnades,the MiddleStoa thatseparated he two squares,andthe Stoa of Attalosthat closed the east side of the greatersquare.The Stoa of

Attalos, to be sure, had a row of 21 shops on each of itstwo floors, but the greater part of this building, like thewhole of the Middle Stoa, was designed primarily as a

promenade.Suchshelteredpromenadeswere ideally suited

to the natureof normalsocial and business life in a Greek

city. They must have been especially welcome on festival

days, above all on that day when the PanathenaicProces-sion swept up through the square toward the Acropolison the broad street to which it gave its name. With thisfunction in mind, the man who laid out the stoas ingeni-ously exploited the natural configuration of the terrain.In this area the land slopes gently down both towardthe north and toward the west. The south end of the Stoaof Attalos and the east end of the Middle Stoa were bothalmostexactly on a level with the PanathenaicWay whereit passed between them. Since the floors of the two longbuildings were, of course,horizontal,their outerends rose

high above the floorof the adjacentsquare.Onewill realizethat thousandsof citizens standing on the floors or on the

spaciousterracesof these buildings might thus have had a

perfectview of passingprocessions,just as on normaldaysthey could enjoy from the same positions the prospectofthe monument-studdedplaza.

Let us consider one other group of buildings as theyappearedafterthe greatremodellingof the secondcenturyB.C. This is the complexof administrativebuildings at thesouthwestcornerof the square.It comprisedthe Tholos orround club house of the Councillors,dating from c. 470

B.C., the Bouleuterionor Council House of the late fifth

century, and the MetroSnor State Archives of the mid-second century. Crowdedand crampedthey may seem on

paper.But no one could deny the practicalconvenienceofsuch close proximity. And one might well pause to admirethe skill with whichthe architectof the Metro6n,by meansof a porchof generouswidth,pulled togetherthe disparateelements in the rear: a temple of the Mother of the Gods,

flankedon either side by repositoriesfor statepapersand,at the north, a large, two-storeyedapartmentwhich maywellhave servedas the officeand club house of some boardof magistrates. I wonder, too, whether it was merely bychance that the Council House was set back where it wasshielded by the great bulk of the Metro6n from the noiseof thepublic square.

The model of the west side of the Agora as seen from thesoutheast (Fig. 6) will suggest again that what appearstobe clutterin the drawnplanmay not have been so offensivein reality,particularlywhen screenedby theplantingwhich

is attested, for instance, by a marble inscription found

near the Tholos.In this same view I would ask you to observe how the

splendidold templeon thehilltop,surroundedby its formal

garden, continued to be respected. The broad gap wasmaintainedto the east of it in the line of buildings at thefoot of the hill, and it no doubt continued to be regardedas the chief architecturalglory of this part of the city, adistinctionwhich it retainseven today.

We descend, finally, to the Roman period. The plan ofFig. 7 shows the Agora at the height of its development n

The Agora at Athens and the Greek MarketPlace 13







the secondcenturyafter Christ.Thebasic frameworkestab-lished in the second century B.C. still stands out beneaththe many accretionsof the Romanperiod. Of the later ad-ditions let me name only a very few. Outsidethe southeastcorner of the square you will note a small library built byT. Flavius Pantainosc. 100 A.D. A greatburst of building

activitywhich occurred in the time of Augustusappearstohave been due largely to the direct initiative of members

of the ruling family. At this time the Temple of Ares, a

fifth-century isterof the Templeof Hephaistos,wasmovedfrom its original site, still unrecognized,and re-erected nthe northwestcorner of the square,its altar securinggreatprominenceat the side of the PanathenaicWay. There isreason to believethatfromnow on the cult was shared withone of the young princes of the imperialfamily. We knowfor a fact that it was Agrippa,the son-in-lawof Augustus,who erected the Odeion exactly on the axis of the old

square, setting it close against the terrace of the MiddleStoa. The essentially Roman characterof this building is

apparentnot only from its axial placing, so analogousto

that of the temple in a Roman imperial forum, but also

from its scale, aggressively disproportionate o that of itsvenerableneighbors.Let me point out that the lower storeyof the building is so high as to have put the octastyleupper

storeyalmostexactlyon a level withtheTempleof Hephais-tos on its naturalhilltop.

While these new elements were being thrust into theheart of the old square, additional space for practicalmarketpurposeswas being providedwiththe help of finan-

cial assistance from Julius Caesar and from the EmperorAugustus.The new facilities tooktheformof a greatclosed

peristyle a hundredmetres or so to the east of the earlierCommercialAgora (Fig. 3). A centuryand a half later stillthe EmperorHadrianaddedhis splendidlibraryjust to thenorth of the Marketof Caesarand Augustus; it too com-

prised a peristylecourtin frontof a blockof libraryrooms.In these great colonnaded courts, with their high outerwalls and monumentalentranceways, we recognizean ad-vanced phase in a line of developmentthat can be tracedfar backthroughthe history of the Greekagora.

INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED STUDY

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

General

R. E. Wycherley, How the Greeks Built Cities, London, 1949,especially Chapter IV: an illuminating sketch.

R. Martin, Recherches sur i'Agora Grecque, Paris, 1951: athorough collation of the literary and archaeologicalevidence.

Priene

T. Wiegand and H. Schrader, Priene, Berlin, 1904, Chapter VI:the original publication.

M. Schede, Die Ruinen von Priene, Berlin and Leipzig, 1934,Chapter V: a brief account embodying the results ofsubsequent studies.

Athenian AgoraReports on the excavations conducted since 1931 by the Ameri-

can School of Classical Studies have appeared regu-larly in Hesperia, the Journal of the School.The results have been summarized by I. T. Hill, TheAncient City of Athens, London, 1953, Chapters V-X.

M. Lang and C. W. J. Eliot, The Athenian Agora: A Guide tothe Excavations, Athens, 1954.

14 Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, XIII, 4





the agora at athens and the greek market place

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